The moral confront veterinary medicine is facing.
Based on recent concerns it is claimed that the global mass corporatization of the veterinary industry has eroded the traditional good moral standing of the veterinarian.
In this article I argue that the ethical crisis in veterinary corporatization cannot be understood only as professional decline; it must be examined through mentalizing, belief formation, the Physical, Logical and Metaphysical spheres of perception, and the biological roots of morality. As I proposed in my previous work (book link below) we need to move from the veterinary industry to also include cognition and belief, to an evolutionary account of morality, before emphasizing the need for a pragmatic and progressive ethic. https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/changemakers-books/our-books/spheres-perception My principal argument is against an ethic securing itself entirely in dogma (either legal or financial) or relying on the insecurity of metaphysical or a dogmatic science as a secure guide for professional conduct. I propose a new method that could serve as an aid to scholars and authorities to progress as a universally acceptable professional ethic mainly aimed at the veterinary industry here.
The Veterinary Ethics Crisis
How the world has changed! Using AI as an opening reference on a topic such as unacclimated morality in the veterinary industry may be out of sorts, for what it’s worth here it is with a click of a button!
“Public trust and perceived moral standing of the veterinary industry have faced significant strain since rapid corporatization began sweeping through the sector. However, looking at this shift as a pure drop in "moral standing" hides a more complex reality. The underlying issue is a widening gap between what the public expects from vets and the financial targets set by corporate owners
Governments and watchdogs around the world have stepped in to investigate these shifts. For instance, the UK’sCompetition and Markets Authority (CMA) recently launched an intensive probe into the sector, raising concerns over inflated medicine costs, lack of transparency in clinic ownership, and profit-driven motives
Here is how corporatization has altered the ethical landscape of veterinary care, from the perspective of both the public and the practitioners.”
AI assisted internet search.
Standpoint and Framing
I spend a great deal of my time, rare as it is as a practicing vet, as an amateur writer in science philosophy. As a published author I have spent a good few years of self-funded research on the topic of morality while compiling the concept presented in Spheres of Perception.
From this professional and personal standpoint, the article will turn from the immediate veterinary crisis to the deeper question beneath it: how moral beliefs are formed, shared, distorted, and defended.
Mentalizing, Belief, and Cognitive Bias
Mentalizing, or theory of mind, is the ability to infer the beliefs and intentions of others. It is useful in social life and for our proposes here, but it also makes us vulnerable to error when we assume that others know what we know, believe what we believe or should behave like us. This “true-belief default” can create false certainty, especially when attention, inhibition, or evidence are limited. Regulatory authorities increasingly so under the influence of corporate as the major stake holders in the veterinary industry, tend to be guilty of cognitive bias.
Because belief formation on ethics is vulnerable to bias, incomplete perception, assumed consensus, the advent of modern technologies, media influence and financial investments Belief systems deserve separate attention: they can intensify those vulnerabilities and redirect moral judgement at scale.
Belief Systems, AI, and Moral Vulnerability
Belief systems, media, drugs, culture, and now AI can all alter how people live and interpret their personalized reality. They may when guided by a sound ethic in a moral community, but they can also distort judgement when they replace evidence with authority, fear, misinformation or social pressure. The ethical risk is not belief itself, but belief that becomes immune to testing.
The next step is therefore epistemological: if beliefs can be manipulated, the argument must clarify how knowledge is tested against reality and how moral claims should move between the Physical, Logical, and Metaphysical spheres of perception with increasingly complex professional needs.
Knowledge, Spheres of Perception, and Objective Reality
Knowledge must be tested against reality. In Spheres of Perception, I distinguish between the Physical sphere of direct evidence, the Logical sphere of reasoning, and the Metaphysical sphere of belief and meaning. Ethical judgement becomes unreliable when claims from the Metaphysical and Logical spheres are treated as Physical facts without sufficient evidence.
Once belief, evidence, and physical reality are distinguished, we can return to ethics with a firmer foundation: morality must remain adaptable while resisting manipulation, dogma, and purely external authority.
Toward a Progressive Moral Framework
A useful professional ethic must be adaptable, evidence-aware, and resistant to manipulation. Rules and legislation matter, but they are not enough. Veterinary ethics must also ask whether an action reduces suffering, avoids harm, protects trust, and respects and reaches the wider biological and social environment in which care occurs. Currently it narrowly focusses on professional discipline under slowly adaptable guidelines open to influence by major stakeholders.
Three cognitive behaviour patterns can affect our formulation and acceptance of an ethic as a norm. This is often maladjusted to more pragmatic social demands: Culturism is excluded here but discussed in my book and other texts on this topic.
1. Mentalising:
Mentalising has recently regained attention in the developing of AI. It is also useful in assessing consumer behaviour patterns in designing search engines.
In brief, mentalising involves the study of how we form beliefs and refers to the ability to detect (assume) others’ mental states or beliefs. Mentalizing is often broken down into a set of sub-abilities, such as the more objective processing of belief-contents or decoding mental states versus more subjective reasoning about goals, ambitions and actions. Some psychologists, such as Alan Leslie et al. (2004), have suggested a ‘true-belief default’ where usually we guess somebody else’s ethics and moral values to be the same, or at least similar to our own. Some researchers have referred to this cognitive bias as the ‘curse of knowledge’ where we simply assume things because of reigning beliefs or culturism.
2. Selective attention deficit:
This is where we are trained to look only for or accept only a specific entity or entities. Focused on this, we miss the gorilla in the suit. See below video on YouTube for a fun and easy explanation.
3. True belief:
A true belief system is when implicit assumptions are made about the future existence of oneself, others, and the environment, or in our case here ethical conduct in our profession. They differ from individual and cultural beliefs in that they are held universally, implicitly, and with high confidence. In programming the future AI and robots this is going to become a universal norm.
I argued previously that the unknown (metaphysical) and uncertain (logical) spheres of our perception of our world and place in it is where most struggles and ethical dilemmas originate. It is also here where our creativity and ability to stimulate new ideas originate.
If we now consider the influence of mentalizing, selective attention deficit and true-belief default on formulating an ethic we can clearly see how easy it is for us to cause error in judgment (disjunction caused by generalization). We can see how vulnerable and ethic code based on assuming something to be true based on other beliefs or arriving at estimates based on another’s belief may have some evolutionary value where quick assessments must be made in social groups, as for example in ‘fight or flight’ situations. Think of a herd of deer when one in the group senses the smell of a predator. Perhaps this is why inhibitory control is not developed in the young until their world is more experienced (around the age of four years in children). But such assumptions can also make our cognition arrive at lasting illogical conclusions.
There is continuing evidence that neuroscience, especially backed by constantly improving neuroimaging techniques and technology, can provide us with more answers but also more complexities in this emerging field. Now with commercial interest in robotics as a stimulant, as mentioned in previous sections, it has also taken a new turn.
Open arguaments of potential weakness or strengths, all depending on our healthy and well interconnected 3 spheres of perception:
1. False belief ethics may be supported by mentalizing as an immediate block to infinite possibilities. We believe inp because S said so, reducing confusing and conflicting ideas. This can be related to the proposed juvenile relation to the candy-in-the-cupboard scenario used by psychologists, where limited inhibitory ability in young children prevents focus on where knowledge originated or where the candy really is.
2. A utilitarian value belief ethic expresses itself as an ethic useful to the group or individual, such as joining a club with the subconscious motive of extending social networks, status or profiteering.
3. A joint belief ethic, whether true or false, can act as social glue. It creates opportunity for moral rules and norms to be set for a group and delegated to a higher control, redirecting human dogma to metaphysical or legal dogma while remaining open to manipulation and forceful application in a social hierarchy. I think this is where we are placed currently as a profession
4. Ethic belief systems remaining in place because of an innate evolutionary need to believe in something higher and benevolent. Besides acting as a social adhesive under a paternity, they can create hope and reason to tolerate the unfairness and harsh realities of the objective world.
5. Morality and ethical conduct are essential for societies to evolve, remain interconnected, and progress. Morality can become a means of creating a higher authority than man as an aid to applying ethical guidelines.
One practical example for us to reflect on here is when we are prescribing of S8 drugs. Compliance with board rules is necessary and enforced, but ethical practice goes further: the drug should serve only to relieve suffering, avoid harm to the patient, veterinarian, public and environment, and maintain professional trust.
This framework can also be tested biologically: living systems depend on ordered interdependence, and ethical systems should do the same. However, it needs to have a universally acceptable ethic.
Morality in Biochemistry
Biology offers a useful analogy. The familiar energy producing citric acid cycle functions only through ordered, interdependent actions; when those actions are disrupted (too much, too little or toxins), the wider organism suffers. In the same way, moral systems depend on reliable relationships, communication, and correction. Morality is therefore clearly not merely an abstract human invented rule, but an evolutionary pattern of conduct that sustains life and cooperation as an interconnected living network.
The biochemical example then widens my argument back toward animal life and social behaviour, where interdependence appears in more recognisable ethical forms. This is explained in much more detail in my book Spheres of Perception.https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/changemakers-books/our-books/spheres-perception
This then becomes a more meaningful ethic we can all adhere to based on shared interests.
Animal Morality and Universal Ethical Interconnection
Research on animals strengthens this view. Empathy, reciprocity, cooperation, and fairness appear in many species and even if they differ in form from human morality they have interconnected causal implications. A pragmatic universal ethic should therefore focus less on power hierarchiers and more on preventing unnecessary suffering, maintaining trust, and recognising interdependence across humans, animals, and living systems —including impact on environment.
Conclusion: A Progressive Ethic for a Shared Future
Veterinary ethics must adapt and move beyond dogma, profit, and compliance alone. A progressive new ethic should be evidence-based, humble, and practical and embrace all involved, justly: it should reduce suffering, protect trust, and recognize the interdependence of humans, animals, and the environment.
The profession must now choose to place ethical courage, transparent reasoning, and the protection of life at the center of every clinical, legal and corporate decision. Change is needed to progress an adaptable and sustainable profession for a complex new era and shield it against narrowly defined rules set by principal stakeholders leaving the frontline practitioner as the most vulnerable part.
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