Morality on holiday: inspiring ethical behaviour in animal-based tourism through non-moral values

ABSTRACT

Despite the progression of animal welfare within the tourism literature and the industry itself, a significant change in public behaviour remains to be seen. Anthropocentric views of animals as objects are still widespread. This paper proposes a new approach to engaging the public in ethical behaviours by meeting visitors where they are in terms of their values and priorities. Drawing on Susan Wolf’s work, we propose a realistic line of attack to ethics that offers an opportunity for researchers and advocates to think more critically about the many ways that people might relate to morality, particularly regarding animals encountered in travel. We suggest that this approach may serve to better the lives of the animals by appealing to tourists’ nuanced ethical stances regarding animals.

KEYWORDS:

• Animal ethics
• animal selfies
• animal welfare
• pluralistic morality
• Susan Wolf

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carol Kline

Carol Kline is an Associate Professor of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Appalachian State University. She focuses her research on animal welfare in tourism and she teaches a course called Animals, Tourism, & Sustainability. She is part of the Race, Ethnicity, and Social Equity in Tourism (RESET) initiative, which includes animals within the study of social equity. She is founder of Fanimal, a non-profit that helps individuals find animal-focused careers.

Bob Fischer

Bob Fischer teaches philosophy at Texas State University. He’s the editor of College Ethics: A Reader in Moral Issues that Affect You (Oxford University Press, 2017), Ethics, Left and Right: The Moral Issues That Divide Us (Oxford University Press, 2020), and The Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics (Routledge, 2020). He’s the author of The Ethics of Eating Animals (Routledge, 2020) and Animal Ethics – A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge, 2021).