Francione and Charlton (2017), "Animal Rights"

Gary L. Francione and Anna E. Charlton, “Animal Rights.” Chapter 1, pages 25-42, in The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies, Linda Kalof, editor, 2017.

• The term “animal rights” is not used in a consistent fashion; here, a right is “a way of protecting an interest [p. 25]” 

• Rights protect interests even when the consequences of protecting that interest might not be desirable -- though rights need not be absolute, they can give way to extreme consequences.

• Animals traditionally have been “things,” and mistreatment was bad if the mistreated animals were someone else’s property, or if such behavior might cascade to direct human harms.

• Francione and Charlton suggest that any balancing of interests will always shortchange animals, as long as they are considered property. 

• Some early animal rights activists include: Lewis Gompertz (1784?-1861), an SPCA founder, author, and vegan; Henry Shakespear Stephens Salt (1851-1939), author of Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress (1892); the Vegan Society (1944) (including the word “vegan,” from Donald Watson and his (future) wife Dorothy); and the Oxford Group, coalescing in the mid-1960s.

• Singer's review of the Oxford Group's book helped to publicize animal issues. But Francione and Charlton's abolitionism differs considerably, in their view, from Peter Singer’s utilitarian approach. Singer "clearly regards animal life as having less value than human life [p. 32];" so, he leaves room for allowing human interest to almost always trump animal interests.

• Further, Singer is a proponent of “so like us” (in Martha Nussbaum's phrase) thinking, in that he believes that the genetic and cognitive similarity between humans and great apes suggests that primates "deserve greater legal protection than other nonhumans [p. 32]." 

• Singer also supports animal welfare (as opposed to animal rights) and single-issue causes (like cage-free eggs), and he ignores the property issue that is central to Francione and Charlton-style abolitionism.

• Tom Regan, the author of The Case for Animal Rights (1983), comes close than does Singer to abolitionism, and his book is really the impetus for modern animal rights (as opposed to welfare), in that the rights do not give way when overbalanced by bad consequences. For Regan, animals are “subjects of a life,” with equal inherent value to humans.  We need to respect that inherent value, and cannot use animals solely as a means to our ends; thus “institutionalized exploitation” must be abolished. 

• Francione and Charlton diverge from Regan with respect to the lifeboat case. Regan maintains that "if we are in the proverbial lifeboat with a dog and a human and have to decide whether to throw out the dog or a large number of dogs or the human, the harm suffered by the human will be worse than that of any of the dogs because a human has more 'opportunities for satisfaction' than a dog does, so death is a greater harm for the human [p. 34]." But this exception could swallow the rule, and allow institutionalized exploitation in due to qualitatively different values of human versus animal lives. 

• “The abolitionist approach rejects all animal use [p. 34].” Why? Animals matter morally, so they cannot be mere means to our ends, and hence, cannot be property. Therefore, all institutionalized exploitation of animals must end. 

• Alternatively (but equivalently and without invoking rights), we can’t impose unnecessary suffering, while the common uses of animals for our pleasure impose harms without necessity. 

• A potential exception is the use of animals for medical advancements, but even this cannot be justified if we would not be willing to use “similarly situated humans [p. 35].” 

• Abolitionists don’t support reforms for better conditions for animals, like cage-free initiatives. These types of reforms wrongly suggest that there is a humane way to exploit animals, and might perpetuate such exploitation. For similar reasons, abolitionists do not support “single-issue” campaigns, like fur bans. 

• The way to promote the goal of eliminating human exploitation of animals is through non-violent vegan advocacy. 

• As with Bentham, for abolitionists, sentience is the only condition: any sentient being cannot be used as property for our purposes. 

• In practice, animal welfare laws only rule out economically inefficient procedures – they forbid unnecessary suffering, while accepting customary suffering within industries that are themselves unnecessary. 

Singer, "All Animals Are Equal...," from Animal Liberation Now (2023)

Peter Singer, “All Animals are Equal…” Chapter 1, pages 1-29, in Animal Liberation Now, New York: Harper Perennial, 2023. 

• Almost half a century on from the publication of Animal Liberation, Peter Singer offers a major update in the form of Animal Liberation Now.

• Start with humans, and the common (but factually false) claim that all humans are equal. “The principle of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings [p. 3].” 

• “The basic principle of equality does not require equal or identical treatment; it requires equal consideration [p. 2].”

• “Concern for the well-being of children requires that we teach them to read; concern for the well-being of pigs may require no more than that we leave them with other pigs in a place where there is adequate food and room to roam freely [p. 3].” 

•  The principle of equal consideration of interests is the basis for the condemnation of sexism, racism – or speciesism (pages 3-4).

• What quality is required before animals “count” in calculating overall well-being? Jeremy Bentham answers in the form of a series of questions: “The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” [From note 122 in chapter 17 of Bentham’s 1823 An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.]

• The argument for equal consideration of nonhuman animal interests might be made in terms of “rights,” but they are not fundamental (for a utilitarian like Bentham or Singer): rights are there to reduce suffering and increase well-being (things that are fundamental) (p. 7).

• How we feel about a given “unit” of suffering should be independent of the species of the animal that is suffering “sentience… is the only defensible boundary of concern for the interests of others [p. 7].” 

• Notice how we grant equal consideration to the interests of human infants, or severely disabled people – even if they are not rational or self-aware (p. 8).

• “Most human beings are speciesists…. ordinary human beings – not a few exceptionally cruel or heartless humans, but the overwhelming majority – are complicit in the continuation of practices that thwart the most important interests of members of nonhuman animals in order to promote far less significant human interests [p. 9].” 

• We are not certain that other people possess consciousness or can experience pain – but that doesn’t stop us from acting as if they do (p. 10). 

• The best evidence we have is that many nonhuman animals are sentient. The evidence comes from neurobiology, from aversive behaviors and responses to painkillers, from biological markers… 

• Parents can understand their infants even before the infants can speak – and many human companions to animals can do likewise.

• Most fish seem to be sentient. We are less sure about sharks and rays. Crabs, lobsters, octopuses, and other invertebrates also appear to be sentient. Insects? 

• Treating one human badly (in a way that is publicly known) can inspire widespread fear, but not so for an animal – so that is a reason, if bad treatment is required, to prefer to treat the nonhuman badly (p. 21). But note that the same reasoning means that it is preferable to mistreat profoundly mentally disabled people than their non-disabled con-specifics (p. 22).

• For policy guidance now, we don’t need precise information on the comparative suffering of humans and animals – the pain imposed on animals for the slight benefit to humans is unjustifiable (p. 22). 

• We also do not need to know the precise conditions under which killing is justified to know that factory farming and other animal abuse is wrong. 

• Most people who hold that human life is sacrosanct have no problem with killing animals – this is speciesist (p. 24). 

• We should generally avoid eating animal products because of animal suffering, not because of animal death (p. 28).

Porcher (2017), "Animal Work"

Jocelyne Porcher, “Animal Work.” Chapter 16, pages 302-318, in The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies, Linda Kalof, editor, 2017.

• Besides the more obvious ones, working animals include “rats who detect landmines, vultures who find bodies on mountains, and cetaceans who help in climate studies [p. 303]”

• The notion of "natural behavior" for domesticated animals is misplaced. Effective animal workers need recognition, though this need is generally neglected. 

• “We owe an immeasurable debt to domestic animals that we do not seem to have any intention of honoring [p. 303]”

• Both abolitionists and high-tech folks (behind animal-free foods) are seeking a world without domestic animals -- are we trying to reject our own animal nature?

• Animal work can be mutually rewarding, and can co-construct our identities; for anymals, work is important, but it is not about production. Our pets work.

• Anymal activity (like beavers building dams) is not work (in the author’s sense) unless it aims to make the world more habitable both for the anymals and for humans (p. 307).

• Human or anymal work is not just drudgery when its outcomes are judged to be useful by the hierarchy and beautiful by peers – again, social recognition is central.

• Farm animal death greatly complicates the “working” lens -- a complication that doesn't arise in other sectors.

• In anymal work, humans and anymals must successfully engage in inter-species communication (p. 311).

• Affection is needed for successful animal work, but humans often need to keep affection in check.

• Cooperation (and hence confidence) is indispensable for successful anymal work; rules and their infringements are negotiated.

• The anymal capacity to co-create and alter the rules makes the work interesting for them (p. 313). 

• But work isn’t play, as one can always stop playing.

• Anymals understand when work is over (p. 314).

• Anymals want to give pleasure to their human partners, and vice versa – they like connection, it is a part of recognition.

• Better retirements for working anymals are a neglected element of recognition.

• Affection and death are the elements of (large-scale) animal work that are not a part of human work.

Bok (2011), "Keeping Pets"

Hilary Bok, “Keeping Pets.” Chapter 26, pages 769-795, in The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics, Tom L. Beauchamp and R. G. Frey, editors, Oxford University Press, 2011.

• Pets have interests that should be taken into consideration.

• Pets live in environments that are not designed for them, and pets are dependent on their human partners.

• When a human elects to sever a relationship with a pet, it often implies imprisonment or death for the pet -- this is not the case for intra-human sunderings.

• We cannot explain to our pets why we need them to follow certain rules, nor come to an explicit understanding about allowable behavior; again, these limitations do not similarly mark intra-human relationships. 

• "...we are responsible for ensuring that our pets do not pose a danger to other humans. This is a duty we owe not just to those humans but to our pets, since nonhuman animals who attack humans are normally killed [p. 772]."

• Unlike wild animals, dogs are trainable and care about how we feel about them. Dogs can control their behavior, and are sufficiently reliable that we might let them interact with small children. (Chimpanzees are not so reliable.) But the lack of a common language still puts a limit on the extent of agreed-upon reciprocity we can expect with dogs.

• Bok does not think that pet ownership is ethically wrong, even given the property status of pets. Current legal structures do not require that we treat our pets in a morally questionable manner (p. 776) -- though those structures might grant rights to humans that they should not have. 

• "...if someone who wants to take a dog into her home allows the law to describe her as 'owning' that dog, but does not allow this fact either to affect her treatment of her dog or to perpetuate that legal system, and if the alternative is allowing domestic dogs to die out altogether, it is hard to see how her action harms her pet in any way [p. 777]."

• The decision to acquire a pet is rather high-stakes and requires careful consideration: "To adopt an animal as a pet is to undertake to meet her needs, and to accept the responsibility of ensuring that one's relationship with her is good for all concerned [p. 778]." Again, wild animals do not make suitable pets, and when they nevertheless are adopted, they often end up in cages.

• Pet dogs have to be taught, though this teaching need not involve the exercise of power. "The most basic function of training is to enable us to tell dogs not to do something when it is very important that they not do it, to teach them to avoid behavior that is dangerous to themselves or to others, and to teach them how to function in human society [p. 783]."

• Sometimes dog training does require the exercise (but not abuse) of power. It is an unkindness to your dog not to make sure that it can live a "safe and decent life [p. 783]."

• Pet dogs that remain vicious and pose a danger to humans need to be put down -- our efforts to otherwise shield humans from our dog will prove insufficient. The issue is whether the dog is put down before or after it attacks someone (p. 785). 

• Despite emphasizing the occasional need for pet owners to make difficult decisions, Bok's article ends on an upbeat note: "For the most part, owning pets involves not serious moral dilemmas but minor inconveniences set against a background of wonder, delight, and the joy of opening our hearts to animals who are so willing to open theirs to us [p. 791]."

Kurki (2021) on Legal Personhood for Animals

 Visa Kurki, “Legal Personhood and Animal Rights.” Journal of Animal Ethics 11(1): 47-62, Spring 2021.

• The Nonhuman Rights Project (along with others) seeks to have animals in the US “given” legal rights; this approach has not yet succeeded in the US. (There has been a significant victory in Argentina, however.)

• The goal of having a court declare animals to be legal persons via writs for habeas corpus means that such cases hold high stakes for the judges involved.

• The high judicial stakes might pose a problem for improving the conditions under which animals live. Judges are generally not all that willing to go well beyond existing precedents, especially if the departure could imply sweeping changes, such as forbidding the keeping of companion animals like dogs and cats. A better framing for those seeking to improve the conditions under which animals are confined might be: animals already possess rights, and the question is whether in some cases those rights should encompass habeas corpus.

• Kurki pushes back against the view that a focus on improved animal welfare is in opposition to the provision of rights to animals, in part because of ambiguities in the use of the term "rights.". [Our blog has done something similar.] 

• Kurki also pushes back against the notion that only legal persons possess rights. Though not currently considered to be legal persons, animals already possess some “incidents” of the bundle of rights that typically come with personhood (pages 52-53). That is, Kurki supports (both here and in his open access 2019 book) a "bundle" theory of legal personhood, in which there are many potential sticks of rights, but that in any specific instance, only a subset of those sticks might be provided. Anti-cruelty laws indicate that animals already possess some sticks in the rights bundle.

• The notion that a being can only possess legal rights if that being is capable of bearing legal duties is misguided, as the case of human infants indicates, but a version of that reasoning has been adopted by a court in arguing against legal personhood for the chimpanzee Tommy (page 54).

• Animals can be granted habeas corpus rights without there being some uncontrolled revolution that would force people to stop having pets, for instance. Kurki endorses making this case to courts, instead of asking them to undo millennia of perceived precedents with far-reaching consequences: "What if the stakes in the habeas corpus trials are not whether animals should be included in the community of legal right-holders, but rather whether certain animals should receive the right to personal freedom, protected by habeas corpus [page 55]?"

• Kurki's approach is paralleled by the well-known concurring opinion (pdf here) by Judge Fahey in the Tommy (the chimpanzee) case. 

Still Earlier Singer: A Book Review, 1973

Peter Singer's Animal Liberation grew out of book review he wrote for The New York Review of Books in 1973, a full fifty years ago. Here is a bullet-point summentary of that review; I am using the reprinted version of the review, pages 11-30 in Why Vegan?, Penguin Books – Great Ideas, 2020. The book reviewed was Animals, Men and Morals, edited by Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch and John Harris.

• “…a demand that we cease to regard the exploitation of other animals as natural and inevitable, and that, instead, we see it as a continuing moral outrage [pp. 11-12].”

• Bentham gets a look in (which now (2023) is more-or-less obligatory)!: ‘The question is not, Can they reason? Nor Can they talk? But, Can they suffer?’

• Do animals suffer? (People seem to want to believe that the answer is no.) But animal physiology and behavior seems to suggest the capacity for suffering -- which also is pretty much all that we have to go on when we consider whether other human beings are capable of suffering. (The capacity of our commonly farmed animals to suffer is not now contested, really. Controversy continues with respect to bivalves and insects.)

• Singer is frequently associated with the word “speciesism” (a parallel, for example, to sexism and racism). But he is always careful to indicate, as he does in this book review, that the term originates with Richard Ryder, not with Singer himself.

• The paradox of animal experimentation: the animals we experiment upon need to be like us (so that we can learn something about ourselves from the experiments) but also not like us (so we can justify the cruel experiments that we would not allow upon humans).

• “Man may always have killed other species for food, but he has never exploited them so ruthlessly as he does today [p. 27].”

• Some of the worst abuses of farm animals: veal, battery cages, maiming and removing body parts without anesthesia

• Will people change their behavior? (Fifty years later, the answer is still no, for the most part.)

Early Peter Singer: Preface to Animal Liberation (1975)

We now have almost 50 years later Peter Singer, in the form of Animal Liberation Now. But maybe there is something to be said for a short glance at the original. The version I am using is a reprint of the original preface, pages 1-10 in Why Vegan?, Penguin Books – Great Ideas, 2020.

• “This book is about the tyranny of human over non-human animals [p. 1].”

• “The struggle against this tyranny is a struggle as important as any of the moral and social issues that have been fought over in recent years [p. 1].”

• The moral issue at stake has nothing to do with being an animal lover; the argument concerns “reason, not emotion [p. 5].” Portraying activists as “animal lovers” is a method of excluding animal welfare from serious moral or political consideration.

• The crux of the matter: the rational and moral imperative to provide “equal consideration of interests [p. 3]” to animals and to humans...

• ...and that means all animals: “When the United States Defense Department finds that its use of beagles to test lethal gases has evoked a howl of protest and offers to use rats instead, I am not appeased [p. 4].”

• “I ask you to recognize that your attitudes to members of other species are a form of prejudice no less objectionable than prejudice about a person’s race or sex [pp. 6-7].”

• The animals themselves cannot organize, cannot voice a protest.

• Many people (including meat eaters) are beneficiaries of the current system, so they are hard to persuade.

• Another prejudice is the unexamined view that concerns with animal suffering are trivial in a world where many humans suffer.

• The unfortunate near necessity of using the term animal to refer to only refer to non-human animals, which seems to support a notion of difference between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. (Singer was writing before the coining of the useful word "anymal!")

• The wastefulness of animal agriculture, feeding billions of farm animals who then we eat, instead of cutting out the middle anymal. (This resource-intensive approach to feeding humans is one of the main reasons that plant-based meat (and dairy and egg) alternatives will eventually out-compete the morally-unacceptable industrial farms.)