The Rights of Animals

Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights argues for a vision of a just society (or a just earth) in which humans and animals share, on the basis of equal moral status, their living space. To achieve this goal, political categories hitherto reserved for humans would be extended to animals. Thus domesticated animals, such as dogs and cats, would become fellow citizens, and wild animals are to be understood as constituting sovereign countries. Animals that fall into neither category, such as starlings, Canada geese or neighbourhood raccoons, are to be given the legal protection of human groups that fall into such in-between categories as migrant workers, tourists or the Amish.

Do authors Sue Donaldson, a professional writer, and Will Kymlicka, one of Canada’s most distinguished political philosophers, want us to take these proposals literally? Or are they using suggestive analogies and metaphors to further animal welfare, while fully understanding that these figurative devices are purely for rhetorical effect? The answer is that Donaldson and Kymlicka unreservedly want us to take their proposals literally. In a just world, dogs and cats would literally be fellow citizens and groups of wild animals would be sovereign states. My statement of Donaldson and Kymlicka’s thesis is apt to provoke a “that is just silly” retort, even perhaps by readers sympathetic to animal rights. But “that is just silly” is not an argument, especially with reference to a book as deeply serious and brilliantly written as this one. We need to examine the book’s arguments and then decide what our response should be.

The ethical foundation of Donaldson and Kymlicka’s proposals is that animals have equal moral status to humans. This grounding argument progresses through four stages. Stage one maintains that the best explanation for our attributing equal moral status to humans is the fact that they have a subjective life, or that they are, in this sense, selves: there is “someone there,” as the authors put it. It is only this property, according to Donaldson and Kymlicka, that can both explain and justify the equal respect owed to all humans, as reflected in doctrines of universal rights. Having a subjective life, a unique perspective on the world, is as true of people with severe intellectual disabilities as it is of people with high intelligence, of infants as much as adults, and of bad people as much as good people. Stage two recognizes that possession of a subjective life is in itself a singular and wondrous fact about an entity, and puts it in a different moral category, whatever its other traits, from beings without a subjective life such as rocks or plants. Stage three argues that entities with a subjective life, given their vulnerability, should be protected from harm by a spectrum of moral and legal rights. Step four is the argument that steps one to three apply every bit as much to animals (or at least those with subjective lives) as they do to humans. That an entity is not a member of the species Homo sapiens is no more reason to violate with impunity its subjective life than being black or female are reasons to violate their subjective lives (this point regarding the moral arbitrariness of biological membership in the way we treat a sentient being is at the core of Australian philosopher Peter Singer’s ground-breaking philosophical manifesto, Animal Liberation, published in 1975).

Most of Zoopolis consists of drawing out the political implications of the above multi-step argument. It is evident to me (and, I believe, to the authors) that the acceptance of such an argument involves much more than a cool consideration of objective reasons, however clearly and reasonably argued. Such a major shift in perspective requires both the triggering of emotions, such as empathy, but also, and importantly, a background social ethos that helps a person make sense of an emerging change of outlook (these are points to which I shall return below). Donaldson and Kymlicka clearly have deeply internalized an egalitarian view about animals and humans. Here they are speaking eloquently from out of this perspective:

Many readers may find Donaldson and Kymlicka’s argument for animal rights extreme to the point of unintelligibility, or even a mere philosophical game. Of course, it is true that a significant number of people in the West are deeply troubled by the exploitation of animals as found, for example, in animal farming or the killing of whales. And there is a small but growing minority of these people who are moral vegetarians and actively support animal rights groups. But would even this small group be willing to countenance equal fundamental rights, on the same footing as humans, for any animal that has a subjective life?

The fact is, however, that our behaviour regarding animals is deeply inconsistent. Many people, for example, care profoundly (love is not too strong a word) for their pet dog or cat, but eat pigs raised in the most horrific conditions, while knowing that pigs are as intelligent and sensitive as their pet. Even vegetarians and animal rights advocates often find themselves puzzled by where their moral commitment should consistently take them (Should they give up even free-range eggs? What about zoos?).

Here is where philosophy has an essential role to play. Philosophy pushes us to uncover and eliminate inconsistencies in our beliefs and to weigh our commitments in the light of fundamental values, values that themselves are open to revision in pursuit of consistency. It is precisely this dialectical process that Socrates exemplified in his work and life. Often enough, as Socrates’s execution shows, philosophy can sometimes upset conventional wisdom and force people to face ideas that are strange or deeply upsetting. We should see Donaldson and Kymlicka’s arguments in the light of this Socratic tradition. So let’s see what political implications the authors draw from their view about animal rights. I will mainly focus here on Donaldson and Kymlicka’s argument regarding citizenship.

As members of a nation-state, citizens possess rights that are specific to being members of that state. Thus in Canada citizens have the right to health care, the right to vote in elections, the right to take someone to court if their constitutional rights have been violated and so on. These rights go beyond the universal basic rights owed to all humans, such as the right not to be killed or tortured. Animal rights theorists have mainly emphasized the importance of extending such universal rights to animals. Donaldson and Kymlicka maintain that this emphasis on universal rights, although valid, falls short, and that rights generated by group membership (relational rights), such as citizenship, should also be extended to domesticated animals. There are two main reasons Donaldson and Kymlicka want to see rights of citizenship, as well as other relational rights, extended to animals.

One is pragmatic. As Donaldson and Kymlicka see it, the animal rights movement is at an impasse. True, there are pockets of hope where the lives of animals are improving, but there are still billions of animals that are being exploited and tortured, at any given moment, for the purposes of humans. Animal rights theorists and on-the-ground activists, for all their good work, seem at a loss regarding how to make the breakthroughs that are needed. Donaldson and Kymlicka hope that their exploration of how to think of animals in terms of relational rights will help overcome the impasse. The second reason, closely related to the first, is that respecting another being as an equal has as much to do with relational rights as with universal rights. Think of the human case. If one group of people is denied citizen rights that others possess—say the right to vote or the right to move around the country—then those people are not being treated as moral equals (consider, for example, Jim Crow laws or apartheid South Africa or the political situation of women through most of human history). It is easy enough, then, to understand why Donaldson and Kymlicka would want to see citizenship rights extended to animals, if such a thing were possible. But to most people the idea would appear highly impracticable. How then do the authors justify their proposal?

Donaldson and Kymlicka’s strategy is to show that what appears impracticable can in fact be done. In effect, they provide a set of roadmaps. As they say, the proof is in the pudding. Indeed, one of the strengths (and pleasures) of Zoopolis is the richly informed detail with which the authors explore specific proposals. (In what other philosophy book could one learn about diverse methods for shearing sheep, the difference between North American and French ways of making public space available for companion animals, the danger mowers pose to corncrakes, projects for building pigeon lofts in Spain and much more?) Regarding citizen rights, for example, Donaldson and Kymlicka discuss how domesticated animals could acquire rights connected to medical care, sex and reproduction, diet, the use of animal products and labour, political representation and mobility. The authors handle each category of rights with attention to pragmatic detail while not compromising their egalitarian ideal. Thus, for example, there is a subtle discussion of mobility rights, balancing the general right not to be constrained with practical considerations for human and animal safety. Donaldson and Kymlicka pay particular attention to how restraints on mobility can be ways of stigmatizing others. These considerations help the authors sort out their recommendations for constructing a fair but realistic system of citizen mobility rights for domesticated animals.

The right to influence the laws of the land, by voting or other means, is essential to democratic citizenship. This right would seem to present the most difficult case for Donaldson and Kymlicka. Animals cannot vote directly, nor do they understand what voting is. Nevertheless, animals have interests and preferences, and can show unhappiness with their condition. Disability studies regarding humans have introduced the concept of “trust-based dependent agency,” the use of trusted collaborators to communicate the preferences of the severely intellectually disabled. Collaborators can then convey the interests and preferences of disabled persons through social mechanisms set up for that purpose. Once we shift our perspective and see animals as our moral equals, then similar mechanisms could be used to represent the views of animals. In this way, animals could exercise their democratic right to influence the law of the land.

Some people will recoil at the comparison of animals to disabled humans, believing that we thereby demean and stigmatize the disabled. History shows that comparisons of outlier groups to animals have been used as a form of degradation. But this is because animals have always been thought of as occupying a much lower moral status than humans. In the case of Donaldson and Kymlicka’s argument, however, the comparison does not make this presupposition—in fact, just the opposite. There is also historical evidence that pushes in the opposite direction. When previously debased groups have been granted full rights, there is not thereby a lowering in status of other groups. Indeed, the humanity shown by granting full rights to an underclass often leads to a spread in humane treatment to other members of society.

We could accept the equal status argument, and admire the way Donaldson and Kymlicka have worked out their vision of a world of full citizen and sovereignty rights for animals. At the same time, we could doubt that such a world could ever come about in the form the authors envision. As I said earlier, radical changes in perspective require not only reasonable arguments but a background social ethos to help make sense of the new perspective. We can have doubts, however, that our social ethos, even at its most humane, would ever permit the kind of radical integration of animals in the manner that Donaldson and Kymlicka’s vision requires. (Taking seriously such doubts would not diminish the urgency of improving the lot of animals, but it would imply that another moral framework would be needed to achieve that goal.) In what follows, I explain one such doubt.

Donaldson and Kymlicka rightly argue that the property of being human, as often invoked, is not a morally legitimate way to distinguish ourselves from other animals. Biological species is morally arbitrary when it comes to the wrongness of inflicting suffering or imposing exploitation. On the other hand, our humanity is also something we can prize in the way that we value belonging to a nation. We can prize our humanity, for example, because human beings have produced music, art, science, democracy and moral theories that encompass respect for animals. This form of attachment to our humanity can have the same psychological resonance and moral legitimacy as belonging to any other social group.

As the world is now, loyalty to nations or ethnic groups outweigh, in the minds of most people, any attachment to something as seemingly abstract as humanity. But we can imagine a time when this would change. World travel, student exchanges, information technology, the work of a body such as the United Nations, as well as threats like climate change, could make our membership in humanity as salient in our minds as nationality is for many people now. People who have undergone such a change of consciousness, as I imagine them, would take pride in belonging to a group that includes fellow members such as Mozart, Nelson Mandela, Aristotle, Helen Keller and Aung San Suu Kyi.

To prize such people, and such achievements, is not to belittle the respect that is owed to any being, including animals, with subjective consciousness. It is to focus on the fact, however, that we qua humanity have qualities of great significance (significance to us) that animals do not possess. Given this fact, I have to wonder whether many people would ever find it makes sense to extend a relationship like citizenship, which embodies so many aspects of our humanity, to animals. On the other side, having read Zoopolis, I am less confident in my view than I was before reading the book.

Zoopolis is in fact a courageous book and an intellectual tour de force. It is the most important philosophical work on human-animal relationships since Singer’s Animal Liberation. Even if Zoopolis’s vision never completely materializes in the literal sense hoped for by Donaldson and Kymlicka, it could still be, through the clarity of its reasoning and the suggestiveness of its analogies, an inspiration to those people who want to change how humans treat animals.