Making sense of moral intuitions: our obligations to domesticated nonhuman animals

Dominant frameworks in animal ethics are impartialist in that they deal with the general obligations that humans have towards all animals possessing a particular intrinsic capacity. Yet, there is an intuition that humans have greater obligations towards some animals than towards others. This thesis argues for the moral relevance of certain relational states in determining the obligations humans have towards domesticated animals. It argues that these concepts provide complexity and can be used to supplement impartialist frameworks, resulting in a modified framework that supports additional obligations towards domesticated animals without undermining the basic moral duties owed to all animals.