Kant's ethics is widely viewed as inimical to environmental values, as arbitrary and morally impoverished, because, while exalting the value of human, rational, beings, it denies moral consideration to non-human, or non-rational, beings. In this paper I seek to show how, when specific statements of this general view are examined, they turn out to involve some significant inaccuracies or confusions. This will lead me to suggest that Kant might have more to offer to environmental ethics than has hitherto been acknowledged.

In the first place, then, the general claim to be investigated is that Kant denies, or at least fails to accord, moral standing or considerability to non-rational beings (e.g., other animals). This claim has been advanced on various grounds, which will need to be separated out and examined. It has to be said that writers on environmental ethics have offered little explicit reflection on this question—usually focusing on the question of which beings have standing, rather than on what it is. The first section examines the claim that Kant denies moral standing to any beings other than moral agents—or, in other words, that he subscribes to the ‘patient-agent parity thesis’—and shows that this objection resolves into the ‘no direct duties thesis’. In the second section, two formulations of this thesis are distinguished.