Abstract

Beka Jalagania has recently argued that benefiting from wild animals generates special duties to assist them. To show this, Jalagania offers an argument that focuses on their contribution to the production of the benefits we receive, which he calls the contribution argument. In this paper I aim to show that this argument fails. One of the premises on which the contribution argument rests is that we ought to share the benefits we receive with whoever contributed to their production. However, the idea of contribution in this premise is somewhat ambiguous as it stands and can be further clarified in at least two ways: a counterfactual way and a causal way. I examine these two interpretations of contribution in turn, focusing mainly on their counterintuitive implications, and argue that under both interpretations, the contribution argument faces some difficulties. Therefore, unless a plausible interpretation of contribution is offered, we should conclude that this argument fails.