Moral Individualism and Relationalism: a Narrative-Style Philosophical Challenge Simon Coghlan 1 Accepted: 5 May 2016 / Published online: 13 May 2016 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016 Abstract Morally unequal treatment of different nonhuman species, like pigs and dogs, can seem troublingly inconsistent. A position Todd May calls moral individualism and relationalism appears to justify the moral discomfit attending such species-differentiated treatment. Yet some of its basic assumptions are challenged by a philosophical style Roger Scruton called narrative philosophy. Expanding upon Christopher Cordner’ s discussion of narrative philosophy, this paper develops a narrative-style philosophical critique of Todd May’ s moral individualism and relationalism, especially its reductionist understanding of moral reasons, consistency, and relevance. Such criticism opens up the possibility that the unequal treatment of nonhuman species like pigs and dogs is perfectly consistent and even justified. However, the paper then presents a narrative-style argument that such species- differentiated treatment may be morally inconsistent and unjustified after all. Keywords Narrative philosophy . Moral individualism . Relationalism . Nonhuman animals . Moral consistency . Moral relevance . Todd May . Raimond Gaita . Cora Diamond 1 Introduction This paper explores our understanding of moral reasons, consistency, and relevance by asking whether the unequal treatment of pigs and dogs is morally justified and consistent. Conventionalists, I shall say, believe it is justified to farm pigs – i.e. humanely breed, raise, kill, and eat them – but unjustified to farm dogs. Progressivists see an untenable moral tension in such strikingly unequal treatment. I use this example to explore two normative approaches. Moral individualism and relationalism (MIR), as Todd May (2014) explains, claims our obligations to individuals are grounded exclusively in their capacities and relations. Because MIR combines individualism Ethic Theory Moral Prac (2016) 19:1241–1257 DOI 10.1007/s10677-016-9734-5 * Simon Coghlan sarcy3@hotmail.com 1 Philosophy Department, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia