Tourism Recreation Research

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Morality on holiday: inspiring ethical behaviour in

animal-based tourism through nonmoral values

Carol Kline & Bob Fischer

To cite this article: Carol Kline & Bob Fischer (2021): Morality on holiday: inspiring ethical
behaviour in animal-based tourism through nonmoral values, Tourism Recreation Research, DOI:
10.1080/02508281.2021.1911273

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Published online: 05 May 2021.

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TOURISM RECREATION RESEARCH
https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2021.1911273

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

nonmoral values
Carol Klinea and Bob Fischerb
a
Hospitality and Tourism Management, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, USA; bDepartment of Philosophy, Texas State University, San
Marcos, TX, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Despite the progression of animal welfare within the tourism literature and the industry itself, a Received 10 September 2020
significant change in public behaviour remains to be seen. Anthropocentric views of animals as Accepted 22 March 2021
objects are still widespread. This paper proposes a new approach to engaging the public in
KEYWORDS
ethical behaviours by meeting visitors where they are in terms of their values and priorities. Animal ethics; animal selfies;
Drawing on Susan Wolf’s work, we propose a realistic line of attack to ethics that offers an animal welfare; pluralistic
opportunity for researchers and advocates to think more critically about the many ways that morality; Susan Wolf
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.

Introduction
Situated within the growing body of literature on
socially responsible and sustainable tourism develop-
ment, this paper joins a broader interdisciplinary social
science literature that examines the entangled relation-
ships between humans and other species, with particu-
lar attention here being devoted to non-human
animals. Seminal works within this realm includes
Animal Geographies by Wolch and Emel (1998) and Urba-
nik’s Placing Animals (2012). These and many others
both internal and external to tourism demonstrate the
‘animal turn’ in social science, which recognizes that
animals are not part of the backdrop on the stage of
human activity (Andersson Cederholm et al., 2014; Carr
& Broom, 2018; Danby et al., 2019; Markwell, 2015).
Rather, as such scholars suggest, animals – and so
human-animal relations – deserve attention in their
own right, an observation that has driven significant
attention to the ethical dimensions of multispecies
encounters.
The complexity of human-animal relations is partially
explained by our varying perspectives about their sen-
tience, intelligence, and emotional lives (Safina, 2015) –
whether justified or unjustified – as well as the level of
our investment, emotional and otherwise, in particular
species. Compounding this variability is the multiplicity
of roles that animals have occupied, and continue to
occupy, in human society. Additionally, humans’ motiv-
ations to consider animals in their deliberations are
often misaligned, with regular tensions between altruis-
tic and profit-driven reasoning. How should we – as
those who are concerned for animals while being realis-
tic about people’s openness to moral argumentation –
theorize about, and reason with, those who are less
inclined to make systemic changes for the sake of
improving human-animal relations? This paper proposes
an answer to this question.
Specifically, we consider the current state of tourism
literature surrounding animal ethics and welfare,
discuss the relationship between tourists and their
values, and consider that some tourists who act in
ways contrary to the interests of animals based on the
way those individuals construct meaning in their lives
(Wolf, 2014). Moreover, we propose a way of framing
moral choices for tourists in non-moral ways, potentially
reducing the intensity of value-laden discussions regard-
ing travel. Drawing on Susan Wolf’s work (1982, 2014),
we propose a realistic approach to ethics that offers an
opportunity for researchers and advocates to think stra-
tegically about the many ways that people might relate
to morality, particularly in animal-based tourism. We
offer this approach that may serve to better the lives
of the animals by appealing to tourists’ nuanced
ethical stances regarding animals.
We suggest that rather than emphasizing moral argu-
ments, various stakeholders should frame their concerns
in terms of the myriad nonmoral values that, once
understood, can be engaged to foster moral decisions

CONTACT Carol Kline klinec@me.com Hospitality and Tourism Management, Appalachian State University, 4078 Peacock Hall, Boone, NC 28608, USA
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 C. KLINE AND B. FISCHER
and actions (Wolf, 1982). We offer practical suggestions
for the industry, non-governmental organizations, and
government agencies to adopt as well as theoretical
implications for academics. To make all this more con-
crete, we begin and conclude with a discussion of
animal selfies – taking pictures of oneself with or near
(typically exotic) animals. While not exclusively a
tourism phenomenon, animal selfies are a specific and
not-yet-polarizing example of how nonmoral reasons
(e.g. seeking status) guide the actions of tourists in
animal-involving tourism. As such, we use selfies as an
example to introduce our framework and to illustrate
the implications of our position toward the end of the
paper.
Animal selfies
Self-portraits are not new. What distinguishes selfies
from the self-portrait is the ability to share your image
on various social media platforms simultaneously.
What has proliferated the practice of selfie-taking is
the ability to share these photographs and gain status
– also known as ‘social return’ – on social media (Boley
et al., 2018). But beyond the common criticisms of
selfies – e.g. that they are manifestations of vanity and
narcissism – the development offers tourism- and
animal-specific worries, namely animal welfare, insofar
as the confinement that creates opportunities for such
selfies is harmful to animals (Bertella, 2013; Carder
et al., 2018). Another is that selfies perpetuate the
concept of animal ‘otherness’ (Höckert et al., 2018;
Pearce & Moscardo, 2015; Von Essen et al., 2020). While
the discussion of animal selfies is only starting to take
hold in the general public, it has gotten high profile rec-
ognition by the tourism private sector (Mkono & Holder,
2019).
Fortunately, the public awareness of animal welfare
issues in tourism is growing. As Mkono and Holder
(2019) suggest, social media itself can inspire Collective
Moral Reflexivity, fostering public outrage and engage-
ment in ethical issues. However, as with other ethical
quandaries and sustainability-related issues, awareness,
attitudes, and beliefs often do not translate into behav-
iour (Bandura, 2016; Hales & Caton, 2017; Mkono, 2015).
Indeed, the ‘problem’ of loving animals is the very motiv-
ation that leads tourists into situations where animal
abuse occurs, further complicated by the fact that
animal lovers have not responded when confronted
with animal welfare violations. For example, Moorhouse
et al. (2015) found that 80% of tourists attending wild-
life-watching experiences did not recognize or did not
respond to signs of negative animal welfare. Therein
lies much of the ethical problem on the part of the
consumer: for those who love animals, and want to
experience them, that desire can unwittingly translate
into morally compromising situations that, among
other things, sacrifice the welfare of the animals involved
(Fennell, 2012; 2013; Kline & Rusher, 2018; Markwell,
2015; Winter, 2020).
Granted, animal selfies are hardly the largest animal
welfare issue in the contemporary tourism industry.
They are interesting, however, because they draw our
attention to the limits of the discussion about animals
and tourism ethics, which will be our focus here. At
one point, insofar as the literature attended to animals,
it simply argued for minimizing negative welfare
impacts (or, conversely, making the case that the nega-
tive welfare impacts have been overstated). Recently,
however, scholars are interested in making a wider
range of criticisms. Most obviously, scholars are challen-
ging the assumption that animals are resources for
human use (Burns, 2015), among a range of other
ethical concerns (Bertella, 2013; Fennell, 2015; Fennell
& Sheppard, 2021; Ziegler et al., 2018). Within these
newer approaches, it does not matter whether animal
selfies can occur without causing pain to animals; they
will still be morally objectionable insofar as they
involve exploitation or subjugation.
We welcome this development, but we also recognize
that it creates a practical problem. The advantage of the
welfare oriented-approach is that the assumption
behind it – namely, that animal welfare matters, at
least to some degree – is widely shared. These new
moral critiques are often based on assumptions that
are not shared by other tourism scholars, industry stake-
holders, policymakers, and members of the general
public. How, then, can those advancing more general
criticisms of tourism practices engage with those who
do not share their moral commitments? Part of the
answer involves thinking in more nuanced ways about
tourists and their values in the context of travel and
tourism. It appears that there are only so many moral
demands we can make on one another, both given
our differences and given our willingness to make
sacrifices personal goods for impartial ideals. We need,
therefore, an approach that is sensitive to these realities.
A chronology of literature on tourism,
animals, and ethics
To see this more clearly, it will be helpful to take a closer
look at the way the tourism literature has shifted over
the years. Prior to 1970, the topic of animals within the
recreation and tourism literature focused on terrestrial
and marine wildlife, specifically hunting and fishing
activities, the financial promise of wildlife tourism,

tourism as a means to conservation, or the negative
impact of tourism on wildlife. While zoos have been in
existence for thousands of years, research about zoo
tourism emerged in the 1990s (e.g. van Linge, 1992),
with Mason calling for additional zoo tourism research
in 2000. The 1990s gave rise to ecotourism literature,
and animals were discussed within the broad framework
of ecosystems or species. Outdoor recreation and con-
sumptive tourism merged with critical analysis on eco-
tourism and other types of sustainable travel, a trend
one can still see today. Additionally during the late
90s, discussions of animal husbandry and tourism were
emerging, laying the groundwork for a burgeoning agri-
tourism research agenda. ‘Animal ethics’ was being dis-
cussed in other fields – particularly in philosophy, thanks
to Singer (1975) – but it was not until later that the
tourism industry applied its critical lens in earnest.
The 2000s saw an increase in authors writing about
animals, however the main focus was on species, not
individuals. Animals were framed as a biodiversity
‘resource’ to manage, an endangered species to
protect, and a provider of ecosystem services. Hughes
(2001) paper on dolphin viewing sums it up this way:
‘General concern for the environment within tourism
practices does not guarantee that the rights and
welfare of individual animals will be considered’
(p. 321). Rare was it acknowledged that the tourism
industry or researchers recognize the ‘significance of
animals as individual actors’ (Hughes, 2001). Tourism
papers throughout this period emphasized a conserva-
tion ethic, and focused on zoos, whale watching, coral
reefs, hunting, and fishing, while more agritourism
papers began to emerge. The dominant line of discus-
sion was either animal use as economic development
in rural areas, or a cog in the environmental systems
on which humans depend. Reynolds and Braithwaite
(2001, p. 31) note in their paper on wildlife tourism: ‘It
is suggested that the values of conservation, animal
welfare, visitor satisfaction, and profitability are often
in conflict in wildlife tourism.’ The leading journals
addressing animals were Tourism in Marine Environ-
ments, Human Dimensions of Wildlife, Journal of Ecotour-
ism, and to a lesser extent the Journal of Sustainable
Tourism; in addition to edited volumes dedicated to con-
sumptive tourism (e.g. Lovelock, 2008).
In 2008, Shani and Pizam provided an initial review of
animals within in tourism literature and introduce an
ethical framework for animal use at attractions. They
underscored that despite the vast number of animals
embedded within the industry, ‘very little effort’
addressed animal ethics in tourism … ‘Furthermore,
while many professional fields involving the use of
animals […] have dedicated a considerable amount of
TOURISM RECREATION RESEARCH 3
research and teaching to ethical dilemmas and
debates, no equivalent progress [has been] made in
the field of [hospitality and tourism] studies’ (Shani &
Pizam, 2008, p. 680). The authors distinguish between
the animal rights, animal welfare, and environmental
ethics approach to animals, mentioning that attractions
adopted more educational messages in order to soften
the view of using animals in tourism. While they
acknowledge the meager treatment of animal welfare
as a topic within tourism, they do not seem to address
welfare beyond the five freedoms. However, the paper
offers an early consideration of animals as individuals
within hospitality and tourism literature, suggesting
guidelines for their care including having private
places away from visitors.
Outside the tourism literature, animal welfare in
tourism was being discussed, and a critical mass focus-
ing on specific animals or countries was taking shape.
For example, Duffy and Moore (2010) reported on the
cruelty inherent in the paajan practice within elephant
riding, but also acknowledged the function of tourism
as an income strategy for citizens in economically devel-
oping nations. Atkinson and Young (2005) reported on
greyhound racing within the larger context of ‘blood
sports’ and national tolerance levels for violence. ÇalikI
and Çiftçi (2013) enumerated types of animal-centered
tourism found in Turkey that involve cruelty such as
bear baiting, bullfighting, feeding live animals to lions,
travelling circuses, dophinariums, and dancing
monkeys, and did so within the context of offering rec-
ommended guidelines for tourists to consider. In these
examples (and others), the authors laid out the intrinsic
complexity of the ‘animals in tourism phenomena’ by
discussing its entanglement with other social problems,
such as local economic development, cultural tradition,
or biodiversity conservation. Thus the interconnected-
ness of animals within a larger context began to emerge.
The forefront author of animal ethics within tourism
literature, however, is David Fennell. He authored the
book Tourism and Animal Ethics in 2012(a), followed by
an article on tourism and animal welfare in 2013, an
opinion piece in 2014 on the position of animals
within tourism’s global code of ethics, and a review of
theory in 2015. From here, the animal welfare agenda
picks up steam within the tourism literature with many
additional contributions. Mkono (2015, 2018, 2019)
writes on trophy hunting, Burns (2015) dives deep into
the objectification of wildlife in tourism, Cohen (2012)
provides a historical chronicle of humans’ exploitation
of and violence toward tigers, and Bertella (2014; Bertella
et al., 2019) plays with the various meanings within
human-animal relationships. Edited volumes devoted
to a broadening range of animal ethics and animal
4 C. KLINE AND B. FISCHER
welfare subtleties include Markwell (2015), Carr and
Broom (2018), Carr and Young (2018), Young and Carr
(2018), and Kline (2018a, 2018b) as well as Grimwood
et al. (2018) who gather perspectives on the New
Moral Natures in Tourism. Several chapters in this
volume focus on animals, for example a chapter by
Carr encouraging us to consider our obligations to
animals from an animal-centric perspective.
Here also, the discussion stretched beyond the
Western zoo or ‘exotic’ ecotourism settings, albeit there
is still much to examine in the controversial role of
zoos in tourism and conservation (Cohen & Fennell,
2016; Fennell, 2012b; Shani, 2013). Researchers tease
out the nuanced complexities and multiple connections
of animals within our broader economies, societal
norms, cultural heritage, and environmental practices.
Hoarau-Heemstra (2018), for instance, explores the
triadic relationship between reindeer, hosts, and guests
within the Saami community. In Brazil, Fung (2019)
deconstructs the complex supply chain problems
within the dolphin tourism trade, affecting fishing com-
munities, dolphin migratory patterns, local ecosystems,
tourist safety, the welfare of dolphins, and the ‘fish
food’ used to attract the dolphins. Prada-Trigo (2018)
tackles the influence of machismo and cultural distortion
of guinea pig production for the sake of tourism in
Ecuador, and Quintero Venegas and Lopez Lopez
(2018) link unethical animal use with dark tourism in
their treatise on bullfighting in Mexico. Brown (2018)
leverages legal arguments in her dissuasion piece regard-
ing the Yulin Dog Festival in China, and Kito (2018) out-
lines the cultural nuances between the Japanese spatial
concepts of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ as it relates to percep-
tions of the animal hierarchy in Japan. Mkono (2019)
reminds us that the dominant Western view against
trophy hunting reinforces post-colonial attitudes
whereby Ubuntu philosophy is suppressed by the indivi-
dualistic Western conservation ethic. Lemelin (2013) pio-
neers the focus on insects within tourism. Bone and Bone
(2015) discuss the overlap between animal and female
exploitation in their condemnation of elephant tourism,
an oppression connection long overdue for examination
within tourism. Elder and Kline (2018) question the ‘fishy
ethics’ of seafood tourism, an all too common and rarely
denounced form of culinary travel. Bricker and Joyner
(2018) confront the irony of sustainable tourism oper-
ators serving meat derived from confined animal
feeding lots. And Winter and Young (2014) work with
animal activists to produce an expose of horse racing
injuries and deaths, intertwined with elitist fashion and
socio-economic class.
These later studies – in addition to sparse earlier
works – reflect the critical turn as well as the moral
turn in tourism literature, as scholars begin to address
voids in tourism research and tourism practice (Caton,
2012; Tribe, 2008). Relative to animals, many aspects of
critical theory are particularly helpful in teasing out
phenomena in both arenas, such as critical enlighten-
ment, critique of technical rationality, desire, ideology,
hegemony, discursive power, and culture, power, and
domination. In this subliterature, the proposed ethic
implies that we have responsibilities to animals well
beyond maintaining their physiological and psychologi-
cal welfare. Agency (Hoarau-Heemstra, 2018), power
(Mkono, 2019), and social justice (Fennell & Sheppard,
2021) are common themes running through current
animal-tourism literature, whether the domination dis-
cussed is human-over-human, human-over-animal, or
human-over-environment.
Ethical disunity
The animal turn in the tourism literature is welcome.
While the tourism literature has not exhausted what
can be productively said regarding animal welfare, we
agree that an exclusive focus on welfare radically limits
the range of moral considerations that we might
explore with respect to animals in tourism contexts.
The early literature on animals in tourism was based
on a type of simplistic welfarism. That view says that
our duties to animals only concern their welfare, where
it is understood in terms of basic bodily health and
freedom from acute pain. Such a view implies that it is
morally acceptable to use animals as long as we do
not cause acute pain. Hence, it makes sense that the
early literature focused on minimizing negative welfare
impacts insofar as possible. As the current literature
suggests, though, there are many non-welfare-related
criticisms that we may want to make, which challenge
some practices entirely.
However, ethical disunity – that is, substantive dis-
agreement about the correct moral principles – creates
two problems. One of them is epistemic; the second,
scholarly. The epistemic problem is that it becomes
unclear what counts as a legitimate moral argument
when there is no consensus in a moral community
about moral starting points (Rawls, 1993). Insofar as
our disagreements are moral rather than empirical,
they are harder to resolve. The scholarly problem is
related. When the literature is basically unified, it is
clear how to study ethics in tourism. The older approach
made it simple to investigate ethical issues: just assess
animal welfare. Moreover, it shaped the kinds of ques-
tions scholars ask about the psychologies of tourists,
encouraging us to focus on their beliefs and level of
concern for animals. If we take the ‘minimize negative

welfare impacts’ approach to the ethics of animal
tourism and we assume that people are not actively
trying to compromise the welfare of animals, then if
people are tolerating harms to animals when they
travel, there are some natural questions to ask. To
begin, Do they know what’s going on? And if so, then
why do they not care (more) about animal welfare? or
Why do they not act more congruently with their caring?
(It is not always easy to operationalize these questions,
but at least we can be sure about what we need to
learn.) By contrast, as the moral approaches in the litera-
ture diversify, we end up with as many research para-
digms as there are moral approaches.
As an alternative, in principle, we could consider the
use of animals in tourism from the perspective of the
moral theories that have been most influential in
recent history, such as Kantianism or utilitarianism. Kan-
tianism tells us to treat individuals as ends in themselves,
to avoid using them for purposes that they do not share.
This is one way to ground the commitment to ending
oppressive practices: those practices that treat individ-
uals as resources to be exploited for the benefit of
others ought to be condemned for that reason. Utilitar-
ianism, by contrast, tells us to do whatever produces the
most well-being for all affected parties (for a discussion
of utilitarianism in animal tourism, see Dobson, 2011;
Fennell & Sheppard, 2021; Winter, 2020). On the assump-
tion that oppressive practices benefit the few rather than
the many, and make the many much worse off than they
would be in an egalitarian arrangement, this is a
different way to ground the commitment to anti-exploi-
tation that characterizes the critical turn in literature.
Alternately, we could simply hope for consensus at
the level of practice despite disagreement at the level
of principle. Norton (1994), for example, sets forth and
ecological or environmental pragmatism whereby
there is space for divergent worldviews and competing
values. He argues that two or more opposing sides of
an issue might come together and agree on practical
principles and policies of conservation (e.g. preservation
of a park) despite arriving at that agreement by way of
different worldviews (e.g. with different parties valuing
ecological services, wildlife as sentient beings, and
increases to surrounding property values). In a similar
vein, Ghasemi and Muraca (2021) for example discusses
the ways in which three major traditional perspectives in
ethics – utilitarianism, deontology and virtue theory –
overlap in opposition to trophy hunting.
However, ethical disunity is common elsewhere, and
there is no reason why it should not be part of scholarly
exchanges as well. Indeed, we might think of it as a sign
of a healthy discipline that it tolerates – and even
encourages – the presence of voices from a wide range
TOURISM RECREATION RESEARCH 5
of moral traditions. Moreover, while there are bound to
be some cases about which moral theories and frame-
works agree, we should expect extensive disagreement
too. Indeed, it is partly because people disagree about
what to do that they develop different theories and fra-
meworks to make sense of their judgments. So, the scho-
larly community will have to live without a single moral
framework and without expecting consensus among
the frameworks that subgroups adopt.
If we accept moral diversity, how do we move forward
as a field? One approach is balkanization: subliteratures
emerge, their participants publish with just a handful of
interlocutors in mind, and we thereby follow the path of
many other disciplines. However, it is possible for the lit-
erature to remain more unified – and more seriously
engaged with the practices both being studied and
being challenged.
First, it is important to distinguish between two
approaches to morality. On the one hand, we can inves-
tigate the contours of a minimalist morality, the goal of
which is to understand what we ought to be able to
expect of one another given ordinary levels of commit-
ment to moral principles (May, 2019). On the other, we
can be interested in a kind of maximalist morality,
which focuses on what those moral principles require
in their own right, which is based on what people
could do if they were far more motivated to act
morally than they typically are. On the maximalist
approach to morality, we assume that moral reasons
trump our other reasons, and as a result, it is easy to gen-
erate demanding conclusions: e.g. that most people in
developed countries ought to donate significant percen-
tages of their income to effective charities (Singer, 1972).
For that reason, the maximalist approach makes it very
easy to criticize various aspects of the contemporary
tourism industry.
Obviously, though, the maximalist approach also dis-
tances us from the realities of the tourism industry, and
human behaviour generally. Perhaps it is true we should
always treat individuals as ends in themselves – animals
included – which would mean that many standard prac-
tices involving animals are morally objectionable. For
instance, it is likely that treating animals as ends in them-
selves is incompatible with almost all forms of animal
agriculture. In a world where almost no one is willing
to make the kinds of sacrifices that this would require
– radically revising or simply abandoning many business
models – we may need to lower our sights. More impor-
tantly for present purposes, we need a way, as scholars,
to talk across moral differences that still creates action-
able recommendations for various industry stake-
holders. We want an approach that helps us think
more systematically about what we can reasonably
6 C. KLINE AND B. FISCHER
expect of tourists, given their willingness (or unwilling-
ness, as the case may be) to submit to the demands of
our preferred moral framework.
After all, the study of tourism is not simply an aca-
demic exercise. Tourism research is used to help make
decisions about when and how to advocate for the
animals that are used in tourism. So, it is important to
have moral discussions about the use of animals that
can build consensus around significant moral objectives.
This approach must also be transferrable to industry and
have appeal in that broader context. It also requires
understanding the role that morality plays in people’s
lives, so that we do not overshoot when we make argu-
ments for change.
Appealing to nonmoral values to achieve
ethical behaviour
In Wolf’s (2014) collection of essays, The Variety of Values:
Essays on Morality, Meaning, and Love, she warns against
confounding meaning with morals:
The concern for meaning in one’s life does not seem to
be the same as the concern for moral worth, nor do our
judgments about what sorts of lives are meaningful
seem to track judgments of moral character or accom-
plishment. (p. 97)
Following Wolf, we suggest that we would do well to
resist the temptation to theorize primarily in terms of
moral values. Instead, it would behove us to place
more emphasis on the many nonmoral values that
humans hold dear, as they may be the key to forging
appealing arguments. These nonmoral values often
animate people’s lives – relating to the projects they
take up, the relationships in which they invest, the tra-
ditions they try to build, sustain, and pass on to their
children. Such values are clearly pertinent to people’s
judgments and behaviour, and while they may be in
tension with moral values, they can often be marshaled
toward moral ends – a point to which we will return.
To be clear, the contrast here between moral and
non-moral values is contested. The situation is further
complicated by the fact that we are using the term
‘values’ here in the broad way that is standard in the
tourism literature, rather than the narrow and technical
sense that is common in philosophical approaches to
ethics, which makes the contrast harder to state pre-
cisely. For present purposes, though, we can observe
that there is a long tradition according to which the
moral perspective is impartial. For instance, the idea
that we ought to do whatever maximizes the good for
all abstracts away from any particular individual’s
desires; it treats all individuals equally. It is, in that
sense, impartial. The idea that someone can permissibly
focus on things other than the collective good – say,
their personal project of sharing certain traditions with
their children – is, by comparison, partial. We are
calling those values non-moral to make their partiality
and particularity stand out – not to denigrate them.
For now, though, the crucial point to appreciate is
that this minimalist approach is not simply a concession
to the status quo. Instead, it involves reframing more
ambitious moral projects in terms that are more appro-
priate given the way that people relate to moral (read:
impartial) reasons. We are proposing that scholars
adopt Wolf’s framework for the sake of both scholarly
dialogue and practical efficacy – that is, as a tool, not
as their personal way of understanding the moral signifi-
cance of what tourists do. For instance, many critical
animal studies theorists – who think of many human-
animal relationships as being characterized by forms of
oppression and insist that it is morally wrong to partici-
pate in those forms of oppression – will not ultimately
agree that the framework we’re sketching accurately
characterizes the behaviour of tourists. Even they,
however, can see this as a useful tool for dialogue with
other scholars and tourists (among others).
To clarify this proposal, it will be helpful to say more
about Wolf’s approach. Very roughly, we can think Wolf’s
approach as a challenge to the maximalist approach to
ethics. She, like many other ethicists (Frankfurt, 2004;
Williams, 1986), denies that of all our reasons and
values, the moral ones are always the most important.
She argues that, in some contexts, moral reasons are
not always the weightiest ones, or even deserving
much attention. The reasons that flow from our familial
relationships, or from love, or friendships, or from com-
mitments to personally significant projects, can be deci-
sive. Wolf (1982) famously put the idea this way:
It is misleading to insist that one is permitted to live a life
in which the goals, relationships, activities, and interests
that one pursues are not maximally morally good. For
our lives are not so comprehensively subject to the
requirement that we apply for permission, and our non-
moral reasons for the goals we set ourselves are not
excuses, but may rather be positive, good reasons
which do not exist despite any reasons that might threa-
ten to outweigh them. In other words, a person can be
perfectly wonderful without being perfectly moral.
(p. 436, emphasis added)
Wolf is proposing this as the one true story about the
relationship between our moral and nonmoral reasons.
She elaborates on domains in which our nonmoral
reasons should not have to even compete with our
moral reasons. We can sometimes be extravagant for
the sake of love without needing to feel guilty that, for

instance, we are not giving more to charity. This is not
because expressing love with an expensive gift is actu-
ally more important, on an impartial scale, than
whether someone in some distant country gets malaria
(which could, in principle, be avoided by donating that
money to a charity that provides malaria-preventing
resources). Instead, it is because some of our reasons
are not to be put on the same scale as moral reasons.
We take no stand here about whether Wolf’s critique
of maximalist ethics is correct. Still, for pragmatic
reasons, a framework like Wolf’s is a useful one to
adopt for those interested in tourism research. We
need a view that can accommodate the moral pluralism
that has emerged as a result of the critical turn in tourism
studies. But insofar as we’re interested in practical
change, which requires understanding what we can
expect from one another in our pluralistic and partisan
world, we need a view that reflects how people actually
make decisions. After all, people seem to cordon off
some of their decisions from moral evaluation. Most
people do not even ask themselves questions about
whether it is okay to have children, or purchase things
they do not need, or eat unusual and iconic animal-
based dishes while travelling abroad. These are all very
different activities, of course, but they are united in
being the object of much moral discussion. In any
case, if we are trying to figure out what we can expect
from others, it is good to know when they will (not) be
open to moral argumentation.
If we start thinking in a Wolf-inspired way about how
people approach morality while travelling, then we will
understand people’s reasoning and behaviour very
differently than if we start from a more maximalist per-
spective. If we try to reason with tourists from the per-
spective of the maximalist view, we may be inclined to
try to convince them that, yes, this may be your only
chance to eat a guinea pig taco or ride on the back of
a captive elephant, but there is no reason to think that
the value of that experience outweighs the harm to
the animal; so, the action is morally wrong.
However, if we think about travel as a context in which
people are inclined to see various nonmoral values as
operative, and morality as bracketed, then we will
approach their behaviour very differently. In this case,
the question will not be about whether their behaviour
can be justified from the maximalist perspective, as we
are starting from the assumption that moral reasons may
not get purchase within this context. Instead, we would
ask broader questions about which nonmoral values are
operative in the context of travel, and why. These will be
questions about how travel fits into the narrative of a life
(Newton, 2009). We will consider the ways in which moral-
ity is not actually jettisoned entirely, or rather, the ways in
TOURISM RECREATION RESEARCH 7
which morality is still very much with us (Hales & Caton,
2017). Further, most interestingly for advocacy purposes,
we will think differently about the kinds of nonmoral
reasons, values, and motivations that we might appeal
to in an attempt to convince people to act more ethically
(Fischer, 2019). If travel is a context in which we think of
ourselves as primarily motivated by nonmoral reasons,
then those are the reasons that we will want to engage.
This is not to advocate for the abandonment of mor-
ality. It is not to accept any kind of cultural relativism,
where anything goes as long as it is culturally sanc-
tioned. Instead, we are encouraging those who are criti-
cal of various uses of animals in tourism to think
differently about how they might express their moral
objections. Rather than couching them in moral
language, we think they should consider the operative
values for tourists in those contexts, which may often
be tied to what it means to live well and meaningfully.
Moreover, we are encouraging those who do not necess-
arily object to animal use, to see the new developments
in the animal tourism literature as opportunities for
empirical work. Many scholars, regardless of moral per-
suasion, can helpfully contribute to research on the
factors that promote and discourage travellers’ tolerance
of particular relationships with animals.
Attitude-behaviour gap
In light of the above, we are inviting scholars to engage
in two branches of empirical investigations: ethic
decision-making and adjacent, meaning-related delib-
erations. The former will provide some sense of the con-
tours of minimal morality. What people actually do may
not be all we can ask of them, but it is often a prerequi-
site to learning what sacrifices they may be willing to
make. The latter will clarify the other kinds of reasons
that guide actions perceived as important.
To make this a bit more concrete, let’s focus on the
attitude-behaviour gap, which is applied to varying
scenarios regarding our capacity to avoid acting in line
with our knowledge or beliefs. Examples of this can be
found in smoking cessation, seat belt use, and habitual
exercise scenarios. More contemporarily, environmental
attitudes and actions have been explored so as to under-
stand more about people’s propensity to adopt sustain-
able travel behaviours (Holmes et al., 2019). Related to
animals, the attitude-behaviour gap can be seen in the
consumption of animal products, where self-professed
animal lovers ignore the animal welfare violations of
the agricultural industry to maintain enjoyment of
favourite meats and cheeses (Kline, 2018a). Likewise,
individuals concerned with environmental degradation
and climate change might continue to eat beef, pork,
8 C. KLINE AND B. FISCHER
and poultry regardless of the cost to natural resources
(Bricker & Joyner, 2018).
While people routinely espouse certain ideas while
engaging in contradictive behaviour, this can be more
pronounced when travelling. ‘Tourists behaving badly’
is a common trope within the public or media view
because it is not off base. The tourism literature has
documented the behaviour of tourists as varying from
their daily routine at home, in particular relative to
environmental actions, spending and shopping behav-
iour, hedonistic tendencies, and interacting with others
(Andriotis, 2010; Bamdad, 2019: Fowler et al., 2012;
Holmes et al., 2019). Kline and Rusher (2018, p. 107)
found that:
conflicting motivations and attitudes can emerge during
times of travel, as these experiences often expose tour-
ists to cultural differences including differing animal
continuums, notions of the exotic or the ‘other,’ eating
habits, and the desire to fit in or be ‘culturally
appropriate’.
In a study investigating whether environmental atti-
tudes spill over to tourism decisions, Bamdad (2019,
p. 177) interviewed 34 environmental experts about
their travel choices and behaviours to determine ‘that
despite individuals’ pro-environmental attitude and
related behaviour at work, environmental issues are
not their main concern when it comes to tourism, and
consequently, do not play a key role in their tourism-
related decision making’. The experts dealt with their
own cognitive dissonance primarily through denial, jus-
tification, or blame, with most participants using more
than one coping strategy. Juvan and Dolnicar (2014)
had similar findings in their sample of 25 individuals
involved in ‘organised environmental protection or con-
servation action and who expressed pro-environmental
cognitions in the interviews’ (p. 86), noting six types of
dissonance coping cited by the participants.
We again see similarity in Mkono’s netnography of
tourist discourse about their vacation activities, which
addresses the disconnect between the wild animals
viewed but also eaten. Burns et al. (2018) explored the
reasons why tourists who want to see the whales alive
in their natural setting also want to taste them on their
plate. She found that eating whale was considered
exotic and because tourists believed it to be an impor-
tant Icelandic tradition despite the lack of evidence to
back up this perception. Indeed when travelling
abroad, visitors encountering new animal continuum
belief systems (or even perceived belief systems) may
suspend their own morals regarding eating animals to
demonstrate an acceptance or open-mindedness about
another culture. Kline and Rusher (2018, p. 112) who
investigated how Millennials felt about eating animals
while travelling found that the informants in their study:
had adopted a worldview that cultural differences and
individual choices were to be tolerated[,] believed that
sustainability was a balancing act, and acknowledged
that it is difficult to do the right thing every time and,
thus, ha[d] decided not to feel bad about compromises
they make in that regard.
The consumer power to exercise their morals through pur-
chasing decisions that the Millennials might have felt was
over-ridden with other values such as respect for the host
culture or to try something new while travelling.
In a study regarding feeding of whale sharks in the
Phillipines, Ziegler et al. (2018, p. 268) documented the
TripAdvisor comments of participants, noting the hesi-
tancy or contrition of the tourists:
I feel like such a hypocrite for leaving this review but I
must say, now that I have seen it first hand, I now
know that it is a great injustice to the animals […] I’m
sure there are safer, and better ways to see them in
their natural habitat without hurting them.
Moorhouse et al. (2017) remind that this attitude-
behaviour gap exists within tourists’ ‘ethical blindspots’
where the ‘want self’ and the ‘should self’ are in
conflict with one another on a course of action (p.512),
often prevalent in touristic situations because:
First, people apply different principles and rules to
different segments of their lives, and holidays provide a
setting in which they can temporarily disregard some of
their normal social constraints and responsibilities …
Tourists may … participate in activities they would nor-
mally avoid, in order to fully experience local culture
and/or avoid insulting members of the host nation …
Second, interactions with non-domestic animals … are
highly desirable tourist activities but tourists may have
little information about what negative impacts could
result from their attendance of such attractions, or may
lack the experience to assess whether animals’ welfare
is being compromised. For this reason tourists are likely
to rely on external opinions, in particular from … staff
… Tourists may therefore cede responsibility for their
own behaviour by assuming that a particular attraction
would not be permitted to exist if it were unethical.
These studies can be seen as investigating the contours
of the morality with which people operate, mapping out
both when moral values are salient to people in the first
place, as well as when and how their moral values inter-
act with their nonmoral values. Knowing both the moral
and nonmoral values of a tourist within various animal-
tourism contexts thus provides a better sense of the
kinds of arguments that may actually be compelling to
people when considering how to engage with animals
when travelling.

Going forward
Returning to animal selfies, we have no objection to
trenchant critiques of this practice. At the same time,
we recognize that in a pluralistic society, we cannot
expect that most people will accept such criticisms.
That is, we should not be surprised when there is
limited sympathy for maximalist moral arguments,
given controversy about the general moral frameworks
on which they rely. There is, of course, the additional
problem that people are often especially disposed to
bracket moral considerations, either entirely or partially,
in the context of tourism.
On one level, none of this is news to the tourism
world. Bandura speaks at length about moral disengage-
ment or ‘how people do harm and live with themselves’
(2016), citing that the causes of human behaviour reside
in a triadic codetermination consisting of personal,
behavioural, and environmental determinants, each
influencing and reinforcing the others. Bandura would
maintain that our attitudes about animals are particular
to our personality, culture, upbringing, worldview, and
past experiences. Moreover, he would agree that the
way we view animals is a function of our affect toward
them and their utility for us (Mkono, 2015, 2018).
Often, their utility for any individual is a function of
different and conflicting values from different domains
of life (Kline & Rusher, 2018). We would predict, based
on Bandura’s work, that abstract moral arguments will
not always carry the day. Caton (2012, p. 1923) agrees
when she reminds us:
we cannot ignore exploration of the private, personal
happiness that can be generated through tourism
experiences, for this too constitutes a good. Perhaps it
is not public in character, but then again, humanity is
an aggregate of individuals as well as something larger
and (arguably) more profound that transcends indivi-
duality, and to ignore deeply personal, sometimes com-
pletely non-transferrable, experiences of beauty
somehow leaves the universe feeling devoid of soul.
The significance of the minimalist, Wolf-inspired
approach is that it highlights the ways in which our argu-
mentation benefits from becoming less moralized and
more nuanced. So, for instance, critiques of animal
selfies need to more thoroughly engage the nonmoral
reasons at play in these contexts. They need to attend
to the many values at stake that are bound up with
larger projects of self-definition and understanding.
Can we talk about the ethics of animal selfies apart
from a larger conversation about the pressures to
engage in online self-construction and image manage-
ment? Can we say anything convincing to those who
actually take selfies with animals that ignores the work
TOURISM RECREATION RESEARCH 9
that, for instance, animal selfies are supposed to do on
dating apps? Once we recognize the extent to which
moral concerns regarding animals are bracketed in the
context of tourism, can we expect many people to
attend to arguments where the welfare concerns are
relatively minor? In all these cases, very likely not.
Therefore, this is a call for more research, and for
better use of that research by advocates. The research
will be on the constellations of values that are at stake
when people are making specific choices about how to
behave while far from home. Advocates can use this
research to think about the kind of interventions that
are likely to be most effective at changing behaviour
in animal-friendly ways. It may turn out that there are cir-
cumstances in which moral arguments are indeed the
best ones to make – even ones that focus exclusively
on minimizing negative welfare impact on animals. But
it is likely to turn out that, in many circumstances, the
best arguments will take a very different form. They
may involve asking people to reflect on the kind of
self-image they want to project, how they understand
themselves as parents, or how they want to relate to a
part of the natural world – even if, as conscious individ-
uals, animals deserve to be understood as something
more than mere ‘parts of the natural world’. They may
involve the person’s relationship with food or food iden-
tity, or ways to navigate the laden terrain of family holi-
days and holy days. The arguments may appeal to a
sincere concern about climate change, or an ethic of
respect for the host culture, even if the animal itself
does not matter to the tourist. While tourists from an
individualistic society might align with values of self-
care, discovery, self-reliance, search for meaning, and
self-actualization, those from collective cultures may
wish to save face, or exhibit behaviours of self-sacrifice,
dependability, generosity, and helpfulness to others.
This practical approach should appeal to the industry,
non-governmental organizations, and government
agency representatives who are tired of academics
being insufficiently interested in ‘real world’ solutions.
A minimalist ethic and Wolf-inspired approach can be
the basis for usable research. For example, research
into visitors’ ethics would provide information to gov-
ernments on where to invest in education or persuasion
campaigns versus more paternalistic options, such as
new regulation. To know what types of education cam-
paigns might be most effective, they need to know
when it is possible to convince people to change their
behaviour via information and persuasion, and when
they simply need to employ the threat of fines or
other punishments. To know that, they need to under-
stand the reasons to which people are sensitive – that
might trigger a change in behaviour – within different
10 C. KLINE AND B. FISCHER
contexts. Afterall, this approach is not only meant to
appeal to the individual tourist, but to the private, civil
society, NGO, and government agencies who are
involved in the tourism industry. While the current
paper addresses tourist non-moral motives, future
studies must apply this approach to organizations as
well (Fennell & Ebert, 2004; Tickle & von Essen, 2020).
People’s inherent hierarchy of animals will play into this
– that is, the moral obligations felt toward a panda or
gorilla or elephant characterized as megafauna, or a dog
or cat or horse who are often companion animals in
Western contexts, may be very different from that felt
toward a hawk or octopus or butterfly or mosquito
(Lemelin, 2013; Valtonen et al., 2020). So we must learn
more about the various moral considerations of tourist
toward the animal continuum in order to craft our
ethical appeals or interpretive messages. The origin
country of the tourist or the culture of the host – and the
interaction between – may also influence the behaviour
of each, and therefore we must learn more about cultural
roles in shaping our perception of social norms and ethics
within a travel experience (Kito, 2018). Additionally, the
intensity and type of interaction with the animal as well
as the role that the animal plays in the co-created experi-
ence must be considered (Fennell, 2012; Markwell, 2015).
Many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) work
within the space of ecotourism, responsible tourism, geo-
tourism, and other branches that purport to promote
sustainability. Beyond governments and NGOs, other
actors such as members of civil society, travel trade
associations, tour operators, lodging operators, restaura-
teurs and other supply-side entities must partner to
achieve a moral turn toward sustainability (Caton,
2012). Any of these groups would benefit from research
into the Wolf-inspired ethics of travellers to the end of
instituting policies, crafting marketing messages and per-
suasive educational programmes, and developing new
types of animal-related experiences. There is much to
be learned and applied regarding animal-centered
tourism, and more efforts must be taken to connect
ethical behaviours with nonmoral values of travel.
In a pluralistic environment, it is prudent to opt for a
minimalist approach to morality. But that does not pre-
clude trying to induce behaviour change via other
kinds of reasons – particularly those tied to the ways
that people construct meaning in their lives. We
suggest that this does not need to be a basis for worrying
that we are conceding to either status quo or cultural
relativism. Instead, it can be an opportunity for research-
ers and advocates to think more critically about the way
people relate to morality. Moreover, it can be a chance to
reflect more seriously on how we can better the lives of
the animals with whom we interact when we travel.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributors
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 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 (Routle-
dge, 2020) and Animal Ethics – A Contemporary Introduction
(Routledge, 2021).
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