In this book of lectures about the politics and ethics of animal and human relations, I explore Animal Liberation by Peter Singer, Zoopolis by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, and Animal Rights and Human Morality by Bernard Rollin. I criticize the Rawlsian political liberalism and Taylorian multiculturalism of Zoopolis and develop a pragmatic anarchist alternative for resolving animal human relations in the future.
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published as “From Polis to Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights” in Karen Wendling (ed) Ethics in Canada: Ethical, Social and Political Perspectives (Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 255-63.
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This paper examines the claim that our moral commitments to non-human animals (henceforth, “animals”) are best captured in terms of a framework of political, rather than ethical, theory – or, at the very least, that the former provides an essential antidote to the failings of the latter. In particular, I shall focus on what I take to be a canonical statement of this view: Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka’s book, Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights. In this book, Donaldson and Kymlicka (henceforth, D&K) argue that standard ethical animal rights theory (henceforth, following them, ART) is importantly incomplete, and requires supplementation with a political theory of animal rights (henceforth, PTAR). I going to argue that while ART, as it has standardly perceived, has shortcomings, these are more perception than reality, and are certainly not intrinsic or essential features of ART. Consequently, the supplementation of ART with PTAR is not necessary. The distinction between ART and PTAR is a disguised, and somewhat misleading way, of talking about another distinction: the distinction between animals as objects of moral concern and animals as subjects of motivation and action.
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presented at Minding Animals International Conference, Utrecht, July 2012.
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Dialogue Vol. 53/4 (2013): 769-96
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Law, Ethics and Philosophy (Vol 1, #1, 2013), as part of symposium on Zoopolis. http://leap-journal.com/archives/LEAP1-Donalson-Kymlicka.pdf
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This dissertation defends the following thesis: the legal status of non-human animals as property is politically illegitimate. Instead, I argue that humans should be legally understood as guardians over those animals under their tenure. This guardianship relation involves limits on what humans may do to animals, limits which do not currently exist in our society. Most notably, guardians are required to act in the interest of their wards, and so guardians cannot kill or transfer the animals under their tenure unless doing so would be best (or at least good) for the animal. My position broadly fits with, but importantly differs from, much of the recent political philosophy literature focused on animals. I agree that ownership is inappropriate, but argue that considerations of political legitimacy lead us to the guardianship relation rather than full legal personhood. This position falls out of taking seriously the public reason challenge to justice for animals, which appeals to public reason liberalism to argue that the pursuit of justice for animals would be illegitimate. Thus, I examine important debates in public reason liberalism to develop an attractive model of that theory of legitimacy and then apply it to the question of the legal status of animals.
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Ethical and Political Approaches to Nonhuman Animal Issues: Towards an Undivided Future
**Due to the publisher holding the copyright to the book, drafts of the book unfortunately cannot be circulated. This includes the introduction. Upon release of the book the freely available front matter will be made accessible online and here. Until this changes, which is beyond my authority, all I can do is direct you to the book's site and Amazon. Abstracts of the chapters will be available. Apologies, and thank you for being interested. A.** This book offers ethical and political approaches to issues that nonhuman animals face. The recent ‘political turn’ in interspecies ethics, from ethical to political approaches, has arisen due to the apparent lack of success of the nonhuman animal movement and dissatisfaction with traditional approaches. Current works largely present general positions rather than address specific issues and principally rely on mainstream approaches. This book offers alternative positions such as cosmopolitan, libertarian, and left humanist thought, as well as applying ethical and political thought to specific issues, such as experimentation, factory farming, nonhuman political agency, and intervention. Presenting work by theorists and activists, insights are offered from both ethics and politics that impact theory and practice and offer essential considerations for those engaging in interspecies ethics within the political turn era. === CONTENTS: Acknowledgements List of Contributors List of Figures Foreword (by Richard D. Ryder) 1. Introduction (Andrew Woodhall & Gabriel Garmendia da Trindade) 2. Making Light of the Ethical? The Ethics and Politics of Animal Rights (Mark Rowlands) 3. Far-persons (Gary Comstock) 4. Evolution to Liberation: Political Reflections on Morality and Nonhumans (Steve F. Sapontzis) 5. Robert Nozick on Nonhuman Animals: Rights, Value and the Meaning of Life (Josh Milburn) 6. Reinventing Left Humanism: Towards an Interspecies Emancipatory Project (Zipporah Weisberg) 7. Justice for Animals in a Globalizing World (Angie Pepper) 8. Animal Rights and the Distorting Power of Anthropocentric Prejudice (Gary Steiner) 9. Interspecies Encounters and the Political Turn: From Dialogues to Deliberation (Eva Meijer) 10. Gandhian Satyagraha and Open Animal Rescue (Tony Milligan) 11. Shame: From Defensive Fury to Epistemological Shifts and Political Change (Elisa Aaltola) 12. Are We Smart Enough to Know When to Take the Political Turn for Animals? (Kim Stallwood) 13. Interspecies Atrocities and the Politics of Memory (Guy Scotton) 14. Animal Research and the Political Theory of Animal Rights (Gardar Arnason) 15. Cross-Species Comparisons of Welfare (Tatjana Višak) 16. Population Dynamics Meets Animal Ethics: The Case for Aiding Animals in Nature (Oscar Horta) 17. Afterword (Carol J. Adams) Index
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