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).

Hessler, Jenkins, and Levenda (2017) on the Wild-Caught Fishing Industry

Kathy Hessler, Becky Jenkins, and Kelly Levenda, “Cruelty to Human and Nonhuman Animals in the Wild-Caught Fishing Industry.” Sustainable Development Law & Policy 8(1): 30-38 and 56-63, Fall 2017.

• Something like 1 to 3 trillion fish are caught each year for human consumption (fishcount.org.uk).

• The wild-caught fishing industry encompasses the catching of finfish; crustaceans (including shrimp); mollusks (snails, clams, etc.); cephalopods (octopuses, etc.); and cetaceans (whales, dolphins, etc.).

• Some wild-caught fish are consumed by humans, but much is consumed by livestock and pets, too; most fishmeal and fish oil is now used for aquafeed.

• Common fishing methods include trawling (dragging a net); purse seining; gillnetting; tangle and trammel netting; rod & line, trolling; pole & line, longline (often with bait fish). [Each of these fishing methods has its own set of welfare concerns, but all of the methods seem quite horrid to me, alas.]

• Underappreciated(?) welfare issues with capture include: by-catch; exhaustion and high mortality of captured fish pre-slaughter; decompression; crushing; predators; hooks; and ghostfishing. 

• The slaughter of wild-caught fish is often gruesome: it can be long and painful, with death typically due to suffocation or live gutting. Fish are not given protection via the US Humane Slaughter Act.

• The authors offer some suggestions (pages 32-34) for improving the welfare of wild-caught fish. Among the suggested measures are: a ban on the use of live bait; limiting the duration of suffering by emptying nets and lines more frequently; banning j-shaped hooks and gillnets; permitting only near-surface-level fishing; banning gaffing and shortening the landing stage; and, rendering fish unconscious prior to slaughter.

• Towards the end of the article (pages 34-37) the authors move away from fish welfare to concentrate on the welfare of the humans who work in the wild-caught fishing industry. Commercial fishing is dangerous and often deadly, and abuses are hard to monitor on the high seas; it also is hard to provide emergency medical care in remote areas at sea.

• Forced labor seems to be commonplace in the global fishing industry. Migrant workers in fishing, who face barriers in seeking justice for violations of their rights, are sometimes exploited. 

• Seafood importers, and not just exporters, need to address production and labor issues (page 35).

Liebman (2022) on US Animal Law

Matthew Liebman, “Key Animal Law in the United States.” Chapter 33, pages 436-448, in Routledge Handbook of Animal Welfare, Andrew Knight, Clive Phillips, and Paula Sparks, editors, Routledge, 2022. 

• Early legal protections for animals were aimed at securing human property and preventing a brutalization of human society.

• Most US laws on animal protection are state (via the “police power”) and local. The federal laws rely (for Constitutional imprimatur) upon the Commerce Clause, so transport and slaughter are the main areas addressed.

• Animals in US law are property (or, for wild animals, potential property), essentially “things”; but…

• …if someone intentionally kills your pet dog, do they only need to compensate you for the dog’s “market value”?

• But "every state has an anticruelty law, which limits how owners can treat their animals, at least in some limited contexts. This protection sets animals apart as a unique form of property: no other form of property receives legal protections based on its own interests [p. 438]."

• The federal Animal Welfare Act (1966): sets minimum care standards for some research animals, pets, and bred animals; dogs and primates get some special protection.

• The federal “28 Hour Law” (1873): animals in transport must have a food-water-exercise break every 28 hours; chickens and turkeys are not covered by this law.

• Humane Slaughter Act (1958, 1973): requires animals to be stunned before slaughter; chickens, the most commonly slaughtered land animal, are not covered.

• The federal Endangered Species Act (1973): offers protections to animal and plant species ruled to be threatened or endangered.

• Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act (2019): makes some types of animal abuse federal felonies.

• Custody disputes and companion animals: the interests of the animals might receive attention from the court.

• Anti-cruelty laws are based on the notion that some animals are sentient. Nonetheless, there might be legal consequences from explicit declarations of animal sentience in the law. The legislature of the state of Oregon has made such a declaration. This declaration, however, was insufficient to give a horse named Justice the opportunity to sue his human abuser for damages -- the lead attorney for Justice was Matthew Liebman, the author of the article we are outlining here.

• The Nonhuman Rights Project has tried to bring habeas corpus actions in the name of their clients, captive elephants and chimpanzees. So far these legal actions have not been successful, though some individual judges have been sympathetic.

• Animal cruelty laws generally must address several dimensions: What animals are covered? (Insects?; wild animals?; fish?); What conduct is proscribed? (Acts of omission?); What conduct is permitted? (Standard factory farm cruelties are typically exempt); and, What sanctions are applied? (Ban offenders from owning animals?) 

• Some states and localities in the  US ban animals (or some subset of animals) in circuses; some states ban testing of cosmetics on animals; and, some states ban stores that sell pets.

• “…animal laws in the United States still assume that animals are exploitable resources that humans are allowed to use [p. 447].”

Rowan, D'Silva, Duncan, and Palmer (2021) on Animal Sentience

Andrew N. Rowan, Joyce M. D'Silva, Ian J. H. Duncan, and Nicholas Palmer, “Animal Sentience: History, Science, and Politics.” Animal Sentience 31(1), 2021

• “…the lot of animals has worsened considerably since Bentham penned his famous phrase.”

• Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness (2012, pdf): humans are not special when it comes to consciousness! Birds, for instance, demonstrate consciousness.

• The best evidence is that all mammals, all birds, and many other species (like octopuses) possess the neural/physical capacity for consciousness, and they also demonstrate intentional behavior.

• Milestones include Ruth Harrison and her book, Animal Machines (1964); the Brambell Report (1965, pdf) (a report on farmed animal welfare prepared for the British government); and the formation of the British advocacy group Compassion in World Farming (1967).

• In assessing animal welfare, one of the difficulties involves measuring feelings and their intensity -- though clearly subjective feelings are central to wellbeing.

• One way to discern animal welfare is to offer animals two (or more) options, and see which one they choose -- a revealed preference approach. The next step is to gauge the strength of the preference, perhaps by altering the "price" (in effort, say) that animals are willing to pay to take their preferred option. 

• The “Five Freedoms” are well-known and widely adopted guidelines for animal welfare, growing out of the Brambell Report, where the focus was on livestock. 

• "Of all the stimuli or states of suffering in animal agriculture, pain is probably responsible for a bigger reduction in welfare than any other... [p. 6]." Bad flooring generates a lot of pain in farm animals.

• Other sources of pain include difficult social interactions in crowded settings, surgeries conducted without anesthesia, and fast-growth-related problems. Boredom also can harm animal welfare.

• Traditionally, examinations of animal welfare have focused on suffering, but pleasure also is important. 

• Animal sentience is now explicitly recognized in legal documents in many parts of the world, including in the EU, Colombia, and the post-Brexit UK.

• The Animal Protection Index (available at https://api.worldanimalprotection.org/) encapsulates country-level information on the legislative protections for animals.