Animal Rights, Moral Motivation, and the Experience of Wonder

ABSTRACT Despite being strong, arguments for animal rights often fail to motivate. One reason for this is that rights are associated with concepts, such as respect, that are difficult to apply to nonhuman animals. These concepts are difficult to apply because they are implicitly grounded in the special status of humans. Respect for persons includes an element of reverence‐based respect. The human/animal dichotomy is reinforced by cultural forces and farming practices that strip nonhuman animals of individuality and render their lives mundane, invisible, and uninteresting. To facilitate progress towards justice for nonhuman animals, this article proposes cultivating and safeguarding an attitude of wonder towards individual animals. Feelings of wonder, it is argued, have the potential to spark a shift in moral perspective and ground a form of reverence‐based respect for nonhuman animals.