Melina Contreras

In the canon of animal ethics, non-human animals have been conceived as moral patients. For the allocation of said status (and the conceptualization of it) the capabilities that the animal individual has as a principle have been taken. Among these, the most important - and which differentiates the moral patient from the moral agent - is the ability or not to take responsibility for one's own actions (moral responsibility). However, the approach that supports such a perspective (property approach) can leave aside certain relationships that have moral value in themselves for human beings, such as friendship with some domesticated animals. This text explores, initially, the concept of moral patient. This with the aim of understanding what is at stake in the awarding of said status to non-human animals. In a second moment, it explores the possibility of friendship with domesticated animals, as well as the particularities of said relationship. Finally, it explores how moral responsibility takes on certain unique characteristics in this relationship, which deviate from the way it has been commonly conceptualized. This exploration is carried out through the relationship approach, more precisely feminist ethics and care ethics. Such exploration results in the insufficiency of the status of moral patient for the understanding of the type of agency that the domesticated animal has in the relationship of friendship with human beings. This invites us to rethink the way in which we have conceptualized moral statuses and the way in which moral responsibility in them has been conceived.