The Value of Relationships: Why More Equal than Others is a Good Answer to the Wrong Question

Jonathan Herring

University of Oxford

If you could only save one in a fire, would you save your friend or your pet? A stranger or a cat? Jokes aside, the vast majority of people would say they would save a human, rather than a non-human animal. While not necessarily articulated in these terms, that will be because they believe that humans have a higher moral status than animals. Note that this is not to claim that animals have no moral standing. Most people would save their pet over a chair because the pet has higher moral value. But selecting who or what to choose is the easy bit. The harder is to explain why that is. What makes humans of higher moral value than a non-human animal?

In his excellent book, Raffael Fasel sets out two major schools of thought on personhood. First, there is ‘Aristocracy’, which emphasizes the unique status of human beings and, second, there is ‘Meritocracy’, which focuses on the capabilities of individual beings with no particular weight being attached to their species. So, if we have a gorilla with a high IQ the ‘Meritocracy’ approach would claim it would have roughly the same value as a human being with the same IQ. Their IQ is what matters, not their biological classification. By contrast, the ‘Aristocracy’ view would see the human being as of higher moral status simply by being human. Raffael seeks “a practical middle ground between the Aristocracy and the Meritocracy” (p 201). This is because such a middle ground allows us “to benefit from the virtues of both conceptions, whilst at the same time minimizing their vices” (p 201). This middle ground, an approach he calls the ‘Species Membership Approach’, gives legal protection to animals based on their species membership, not their individual abilities.

This is a rich, impressive book. I welcome particularly the fact that the ‘Species Membership Approach’ defended by Raffael Fasel does not assume that the moral virtues of human beings are the benchmark against which we should assess the moral virtue of non-human animals. What this excludes is the possibility that a virtuous good life for an otter, might be very different from the virtuous good life for a human. What is a dignified way for a lion to live may not be a dignified way for a human. As Raffael develops his thinking on this topic, I hope he develops ways of assessing the value of species membership, which does not take human attributes as the norm.

There is, however, I believe a major omission in the way the argument in the book is formed. By presenting the issue of animal (and human) moral status as a battle between the two grand approaches, alternatives are missed out. In particular, the argument that moral status emerges out of our relationships, rather than our insular moral goods. It is neither our individual attributes nor our species membership which is key. Moral value is not found in intelligence, rationality or autonomy. Many discussions on moral value elevate rationality, autonomy and mental capacity as the hallmarks of humanity and hence of highest moral value. The perfect philosopher becomes the perfect human. However, this is an error.

It is caring together as vulnerable, relational beings that generates moral value. For many moral ethicists, and indeed the great religious traditions, love is the ultimate moral value. Not love as some kind of feeling, but love played out in care. But you loving and caring is a matter of relationality. Stranded alone on an island with a massive library and a good gym we may develop the BMI to die for and an IQ to rival Raffael’s, but morally we would be impoverished. Robbed of the ability to care and love, we would be diminished.

Earlier, I suggested that ethicists writing on the highest moral value had started with a picture of the ideal philosopher. But to start there is the wrong place. If we start with those with profound disabilities, we discover a richer account of humanity. These are not to be regarded as the exceptions for which we need complex justification, but our starting point. For it is in the life of disabled people we see that which generates the highest moral status: relationships of care, interdependence, and mutuality. In isolation our lives have no great value and lack meaning. It is in our coming together and intertwining our lives that moral value is found. And this is true for animals as it is for humans. Moral value does not exist because we are members of a species, but because we care, interact, support and love. It is in our joint lives together that moral value is found.

Jonathan Herring is Professor of Law at the University of Oxford.

Suggested Citation: Jonathan Herring, ‘The Value of Relationships: Why More Equal than Others is a Good Answer to the Wrong Question’, IACL-AIDC Blog (6 February 2025) The Value of Relationships: Why More Equal than Others is a Good Answer to the Wrong Question — IACL-IADC Blog