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Tagged: animal rights

Animals / Climate / Environment / Governance / Rights

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Missing the Animal for the Forest? The Limits of the ‘Rights of Nature’ Approach

This is a guest post by Pablo Serra Palao.

A photograph showing a large body of water surrounded by forested hills.
San Marcos Lagoon, Ecuador / Photo by Marcelo Trujillo from Pixabay

Philosophers are well aware of the tension between protecting ecosystems as a whole and defending the rights of individual sentient animals. Social movements and the general public are aware of it too, especially when a case of culling animals classified as ‘invasive species‘ gets coverage in mainstream media. Both ethical positions seem to have grown apart for some time, but could the increasing legal recognition of nature as a rights holder actually improve the legal treatment of individual animals?

The answer, as it turns out, is far messier than a simple yes or no. I argue that existing legal cases where rights of nature are recognised tend to perpetuate the tension between ecosystem-level protection and the rights of individual animals. But this need not be so.

The Estrellita case: setting the scene

Over the past two decades, legal systems around the world have begun to recognise nature in general, or specific ecosystems, as a rights holder. In so doing, they are pushing law beyond anthropocentrism and Western legal thought, at least on paper (see the UN Harmony with Nature Initiative for an overview of rights of nature cases globally).

However, the results are not what animal rights advocates would expect, and they can give rise to perplexing questions: Can a court recognise the rights to life and physical integrity of individual sentient animals and, at the same time, a human right to eat meat? Well, apparently, it can, and both were recognised under the umbrella of the rights of nature.

In 2022, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador ruled on a case originating from a habeas corpus action (a legal mechanism against unlawful detentions traditionally reserved for human individuals) filed in 2019 to defend a woolly monkey named Estrellita. Known as the Estrellita case, the Court saw an opportunity to clarify the content and scope of the rights of nature enshrined in the 2008 Ecuadorian Constitution (Art. 10 and 71 to 74), determining whether this framework also included individual animals as rights holders or, at least, individual wild animals.

A woolly monkey climbing a tree.
Woolly Monkey / Photo by Evgenia Kononova from Wikimedia

Where the tension lies

The Court tried to have it both ways, embracing holistic and individualistic approaches —that is, ecosystem-centred versus individual-centred. The Court stated that nature acquires the status of subject of rights from a system-based approach, encompassing all the biotic and abiotic elements that shape this ‘complex subject’. Yet the Court also held that sentient animals are rights holders and must be considered individually, not merely as components of ecosystems. It recognised the rights to life and physical integrity for all sentient animals and certain specific rights of wild animals, such as the right not to be hunted, fished, captured, trafficked, etc., and the right to free animal behaviour.

These are significant legal claims that, taken seriously, would change current human practices drastically. Yet the Court also introduced interpretive principles that pull in the opposite direction. According to the ecological interpretation principle, animal rights must be understood through the lens of biological interactions that maintain ecosystem balance. Under this logic, the Court stated that environmental authorities may eliminate ‘invasive species’, doing little to smooth out the alleged incompatibility between protecting the environment and respecting animal rights.

This principle also allows the Court to acknowledge that human food practices and domestication are part of these legitimate ‘biological interactions’ and, therefore, must be respected. However, this hardly describes today’s intensive livestock farming, embedded in capitalist dynamics of exploitation. The kind of domestication characteristic of this system does not seem to be a desirable biological interaction fundamental to ecosystem balance.

There is no human right to eat tofu, but neither to eat animals

The most striking piece of reasoning, though, is that the Court also recognises a human right to eat animals based on two reasons: a) humans are natural omnivores; and b) food is a biological condition of human beings and a legally protected human right. This reasoning is questionable.

First, the Court flirts with the naturalistic fallacy: the fact that humans are omnivores only means that we can feed on a wide variety of organisms, but it says nothing about what we ought to eat. And it says nothing about killing animals for food (especially if there are also strong moral reasons against doing it).

What we do have is a human right to food, which brings me to the second point. If we follow a needs-based approach to the philosophical foundation of rights (as the Court seems to do), the human right to food is grounded in the basic need for food and nutrition. But eating animals is just one existing means, among many others, to satisfy that basic need. It is important to distinguish between the basic need itself and the diverse means to satisfy it. Only the former grounds the existence of a right. Therefore, there is no such thing as a human right to eat animals any more than there is a right to eat tofu.

Better friends than foes, right?

The Estrellita case is just an example among many others. However, the lesson is not that the rights of nature and animal rights are inherently incompatible. Both serve the project of expanding legal consideration beyond the human.

But the case reveals that simply folding animal rights into the rights of nature does not resolve the deep disagreements between holistic and individualistic ethical positions. It may, instead, reproduce those disagreements inside the law, quietly overriding the possibility of improving the legal treatment of animals individually considered. If we want to take both frameworks seriously, we also need to confront hard legal-philosophical questions. If rights are legal artifacts that serve to protect individuals so they can live together in society, is our current understanding of legal rights well suited for such a complex subject, i.e., ‘nature’? Legal rights, as artifacts, can change and adapt, but they are also embedded in a long history that has shaped its concept, content, and scope. Beyond the recognition of rights itself, interpretation and legal reasoning play a prominent role. The coherence of our legal systems depends on getting these and other questions right.

Pablo Serra-Palao is a PhD Candidate and Predoctoral Fellow in legal philosophy at Comillas Pontifical University (Madrid, Spain), and has written on topics including ecological justice, green criminology, and animal rights theory.

This post is based on the author’s open-access article ‘Naturaleza, animales, derechos: encuentros y desencuentros en la Corte Constitucional del Ecuador’

Animals / Rights / Social justice

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Relational equality and the status of animals

a photograph showing three calves, a dog and a monkey resting in the shade in an Indian street
Dogs, calves and a monkey photographed in a city in India. Image by Simon from Pixabay

This is a guest post by Pablo Magaña and Devon Cass

Three challenges

Relational egalitarians believe we should eradicate certain inequalities of rank and status, such those based on gender, race, or caste. Almost without exception, these concerns are focused on humans (typically adult and able-minded). But it is worth noticing that nonhuman animals have also held, across time and space, drastically different statuses. Some have been treated as divinities to be revered, many more as plagues to be eradicated, and even a few as war enemies—as in Australia’s failed campaign against Emus. One might wonder then: can we apply the ideal of relational equality—or, more generally, a relational approach to justice—to our relationships with the other animals? This is a question few have addressed. (Two commendable exceptions are Andreas Bengtson’s “Animals and relational egalitarianism(s)”, and, with Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, “Relational egalitarianism and moral unequals”)

Well, that’s unsurprising, or so one may think. For the extension of relational egalitarianism to animals seems to stumble, at first glance, upon three significant obstacles. First, relational equality requires that we treat one another as equals, a kind of reciprocity to which animals cannot correspond (the absence of social relations problem). Second, even if humans and animals are socially unequal, it’s not clear why this would be objectionable. After all, animals do not seem to possess a sense of self-worth that could be damaged when treated as inferiors (the absence of understanding problem). Third, relational equality seems dependent or grounded on moral equality. But, many argue, humans and animals are not moral equals (the absence of moral equality problem).

In a recent paper in Philosophical Studies, we argue that this pessimism is premature. To answer the above problems, one may call into question their empirical assumptions. Perhaps, one could suggest, maybe some animals do possess a sense of self-worth that can be damaged when treated as inferiors. In our article, we pursue a different strategy: whatever the truth of the empirical assumptions, the three problems rest on a controversial (and, we suggest, mistaken) understanding of the demands of relational equality—or, more generally, relational justice.

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Animals / Duties / Education / Environment / General / Health / Moral values

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Using wonder to achieve animal rights

In this post, Steve Cooke, (University of Leicester) discusses his article recently published in the Journal of Applied Philosophy on the experience of wonder as a route towards justice for nonhuman animals.

Par Arnaud 25 — Travail personnel, CC BY-SA 3.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27321151

Every year, more than 90 billion land animals are killed for food. Most are raised in factory farms. Campaigns for animal rights often rely upon shocking images of their suffering to gain attention and drive change. Whilst this often succeeds, it can also be counter-productive and drive people away. Being confronted by the harms we cause is uncomfortable. Rather than change behaviour, many people instead try to escape feelings of shame, disgust, horror, and sadness. They do this through rationalisation and carefully avoiding evidence. Hence, there’s a need for other strategies, ones that make use of more pleasant emotions. The feeling of wonder is just such an emotion. Cultivating wonder at nonhuman animals has the potential to change how they are treated.

Wonder is an emotion we feel when confronted by the mysterious and magical and we often feel it when confronted by things we don’t fully understand. When we encounter something wonderous, our attention is grabbed and we begin to search for meaning and understanding. For this reason, wonder has been considered an important emotion many philosophers. One important feature of it is that things we feel wonderment at cannot easily be ignored. Because wondrous things press us to find meaning and significance, wonder can also cause an ethical re-evaluation. Not only that, but wonder is by nature a positive attitude. When we experience wonder towards something, we attend to it closely and regard it as especially valuable. 

These features of wonder make it a useful emotion to for animal activists to encourage. One change is difficult is because animal lives have been made banal. For example, animals are frequently conceived merely as products and described in ways that remove individuality. Modern animal agriculture is directed at sameness, routine, and predictability. It treats animals as replaceable units of production. Mass killing is made routine and thus uninteresting. Finding wonder in the lives of individual animals acts as a counter to these processes of disenchantment.

For as long as it has been possible, the mass slaughter of nonhuman animals has been moved away from the public’s gaze. Studies have shown that the more visible the lives of animals are, the more legal protections they receive. As a result, the meat industry works hard to conceal and sanitise what goes on in factory farms and slaughterhouses. In response, animal activists use what is known as ‘the politics of sight’. This form of activism involves drawing attention to harm in order to stimulate compassion. But, because it makes people feel bad, it needs them to be willing to experience and attend to that discomfort. Many are not. Here, wonder can function to draw attention without provoking discomfort. Wonder can replace compassion or cause people to value animals enough to take on its emotional burden.

Radically changing how animals are treated, such as by ending factory farming, requires paying much more attention to animal suffering. Before they can be granted rights, animals need to be seen as unique and valuable individuals. Rational arguments, no matter how sound, often fail if made without heed to moral psychology. Hence, achieving moral progress requires us to also think about how we experience encounters with other beings. Documentaries like My Octopus Teacher have probably helped campaigns against octopus farming more than any rational argument. Those working towards justice for nonhuman animals should therefore consider how to harness emotions like wonder to support their objectives.

Steve Cooke works on animal rights and the ethics of activism. He is primarily interested theories of justice for animals, moral progress, and duties in non-ideal circumstances.

Animals / Climate / Distribution / Environment / General / Social justice

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From the Vault: Nature, Animals, and the Environment

While Justice Everywhere takes a short break over the summer, we recall some of the highlights from our 2023-24 season. 

Student climate strike in Melbourne, Australia (2021). John Englart from Fawkner, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Here are a few highlights from this year’s posts on issues relating to nature, the environment, and animals:

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Stay tuned for even more on this topic in our 2024-25 season!

Justice Everywhere will return in full swing in September with fresh weekly posts by our cooperative of regular authors (published on Mondays), in addition to our Journal of Applied Philosophy series and other special series (published on Thursdays). If you would like to contribute a guest post on a topical justice-based issue (broadly construed), please feel free to get in touch with us at justice.everywhere.blog@gmail.com.

Animals / Economics / General / Social justice / Work

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From the Vault: The Journal of Applied Philosophy

While Justice Everywhere takes a short break over the summer, we recall some of the highlights from our 2023-24 season. 

The cover page of a recent edition of Journal of Applied Philosophy. (c) Wiley 2024

Here are a few highlights from this year’s posts published in collaboration with the Journal of Applied Philosophy:

Stay tuned for even more on this topic in our 2024-25 season!

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Justice Everywhere will return in full swing in September with fresh weekly posts by our cooperative of regular authors (published on Mondays), in addition to our Journal of Applied Philosophy series and other special series (published on Thursdays). If you would like to contribute a guest post on a topical justice-based issue (broadly construed), please feel free to get in touch with us at justice.everywhere.blog@gmail.com.

Animals / Duties / General / Moral values / War

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If animals have rights, why not bomb slaughterhouses?

In this post, Nico Müller (U. of Basel) and Friderike Spang (U. of Lausanne) discuss their new article published in the Journal of Applied Philosophy, in which they look at the relation between animal rights and violent forms of activism. They argue that violent activism frequently backfires, doing more harm than good to the animal rights cause.

Created with DALL.E (2024)

In 2022 alone, some ten billion land animals were killed in US slaughterhouses. That’s ten billion violations of moral rights, at least if many philosophers since the 1960s (and some before that) have got it right. If the victims were human, most of us would condone the use of violence, even lethal violence, in their defense. So regardless of whether you agree with the values of the animal rights movement, you may wonder: Why isn’t this movement much more violent? It seems like it should be, on its own terms.

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Animals / General / Rights

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Why is the New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness morally important?

© Matt Perry

Last week was a milestone for animals. Prominent scientists, philosophers and policy experts came together to sign the New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness, a statement detailing a consensus that mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, amphibians, cephalopods (like octopuses), crustaceans (like crabs) and even insects most probably have subjective experiences, known as “sentience”.

This may not come as a surprise to many of us, but academic research is often characterised by disagreement. A public announcement of consensus is not only profoundly unusual, it also brings into view just how substantial the evidence is that many more animals have conscious experiences than we often assume.

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