1.1 Why Disagreement About Animals Matters
People disagree widely over the moral status of animals and the treatment we owe to them. The disagreement touches upon whether animals have a moral status, and, if so, what such a status demands of us. Some people care about animal welfare, others campaign for animal rights and animal liberation. Other people use (some may say exploit) animals for economic purposes. Some people have deep affective relations with animals and see them as fundamental to their lives. Others seem to care about none of the above. Whatever oneâs view on the matter, animals clearly play an important role in everyoneâs lives, even in the lives of those who deny any moral status to animals: indeed, all human beings have at least some indirect relation with animals, for instance, when one eats meat or uses a drug which has been tested on animals prior to its use by humans. This is something of a platitude. But what bearing does this issue have on public rulings?
When thinking about these issues, it is important to bear in mind that many practices involving human-animal relations (in particular, food production and scientific experiments on animals) have a public dimension and cannot merely be confined to the private sphere. Why? Because such practices require public regulation, at least insofar as matters of safety are concerned (regarding meat and drug production, for instance), and because most people think that this is not a morally indifferent domain. Hence, in virtue of the pervasiveness and ubiquity of relations between human and non-human animals, and the importance of such relations to the lives of those who consider animals worthy of moral concern and those who do not, animal treatment is a matter of public concern: it touches upon fundamental interests and either directly or indirectly affects us all.
Although what I have been saying so far might seem rather trivial, it immediately becomes non-trivial if we consider how widely people disagree on the moral status of animals and the way we ought to treat them morally. How should we deal with such disagreement? What bearing does it have on the need for a public ruling? Unlike standard approaches in animal ethics, in this volume I will argue that we should take the disagreement on this issue seriously. Theories in animal ethics, by contrast, have typically overlooked the disagreement on the moral status of animals as unjustified and have variously urged that public institutions and citizens adopt a comprehensive and controversial ethical stance on animalsâbe that utilitarian, rights-based, feminist or otherwise. But a liberal response to a situation of disagreement over an issue that should be ruled publicly requires that a method of justification be compatible with a pluralistic background. As a way out of this unsettling situation, we ought to find a form of public justification that is suitable to addressing the treatment of animals in such a way that its results are acceptable to all those who are subject to them.
The primary aim of this book is to propose a change of perspective in dealing with the issue of the treatment of animals. Unlike the vast majority of existing theories in animal ethics, I will argue that we should start from the disagreement on the moral status of animals and the treatment we owe to them. Given the profound diversity of perspectives on how animals ought to be treated, we should start from this disagreement and take it as the baseline for a normatively informed public ruling. This claim, which has become the standard approach of (political) liberalism in nearly all domains, has never been pursued in respect of animals, despite the recent and notable political turn in animal ethics. Indeed, even Robert Garnerâs (2013) theory of justice for animalsâwhich is admittedly political and non-ideal (sentience position), that is to say, it seeks to outline a proposal that could be feasibleâdoes not recognize the importance of disagreement as an unavoidable and constitutive background. Rather, for Garner, the disagreement is merely a component of the feasibility constraint ruling out the possibility of fully implementing the animal-rights ideal (enhanced sentience position).
In a sense, my theory follows the overall political turn in animal ethics because it is preoccupied with the problem of justice, namely our collective enforceable duties toward animals which are to be distinguished from what we owe to animals as a matter of morality (Cochrane et al. 2016). However, unlike other ethical theories toward animals, I do not assume a substantive moral accountâwhether utilitarian, rights-based and so onâbut rest within a purely political set of duties toward animals; and unlike other political theories regarding animals, my proposal is based on and starts from the disagreement about the moral status of animals. Hence, it is not just a political theory; it is also, and just as importantly, a liberal theory in that it seeks to outline an inclusive set of principles that can be accepted by all. For this reason, my proposal significantly differs from that of Donaldson and Kymlicka (2011), since they start from a rights-based approach and outline a political account only with regard to animalsâ inclusion in human communities. It also differs from the most recent political theory of justice for animals, namely that outlined by Cochrane (2018). Cochrane is coherent in drawing the implications of animal rights for a polity in terms of the institutions that should enshrine and implement the recognition of animalsâ equal worth. Moreover, he discusses issues about its implementation and the problem of what such a sentientist political order should tolerate. Hence, his theory is properly political because he is concerned with the institutional issues and with the problem of diversity. However, he starts from (and argues for) a position of animal rights which I do not take for granted. As we will see below, there are some fundamental issues regarding animalsâ interests that need to be reconsidered. Therefore, a liberal position on animals does not consist in deploring the mere fact that the recognition of animal rights would restrict peopleâs liberties. Rather, it starts from the idea that disagreement should be taken seriously and draws the normative implications of this recognition.
The striking fact of ethical and political theories about the treatment of animals is that despite the wealth of alternative approaches, to date no coherent liberal theory has been outlined. We will consider why this is the case in due course, but for now, it is worth delving into the foreground of my proposal. In a sense this book takes up Jeremy Waldronâs initial statement in Law and Disagreement (1999) about justice and applies a similar (but suitably modified) perspective. Waldron wrote:
Reflecting on the philosophical significance of our political disagreement is not just a matter of meta-ethics. ⊠A confident theorist of justice may announce, âWell, of course there is disagreement about justice; but as the moral realists have shown, the existence of disagreement is quite compatible with one of the contestant views being true and the others false.â He can say that, but it is hardly sufficient, particularly if it is just a prelude to his saying, âAnd of course the true view about justice is my viewâŠâ For if he is all self-aware, he knows very well that he will be followed, one by one, by all his ideological rivals. ⊠The vocation of the political philosopher is to examine philosophically, not just the metaphysics, but the morals and politics of disagreement. (Waldron 1999: 3)
Like Waldronâs theory, I do take disagreement seriously and as the starting point of my analysis. Unlike Waldronâs theory, however, I will not pursue this analysis through the lens of jurisprudence and the role of legislatures. Rather, my analysis will be focused on animals, but it will also devote much more space to the epistemic dimension of disagreement (Chap. 2) and the need for a theory of public justification (Chap. 3). Building on this meta-analysis I will also argue for a specific set of normative outcomes, rather than merely resting with an analysis of the political implications of disagreement. However, the normative implications I will suggest will not be put forward as a substantive first-order moral theory, which would rule out as false or insignificant the other substantive first-order moral theories. The normative implications, instead, will be the outcome of a public justification procedure that seeks to discover principles that are acceptable to all the moral views that can take part in the procedure.
If, in the literature on animal ethics, the concern for disagreement is almost absent, such a preoccupation is the focus of many political philosophers, who, however, have devoted scant attention to the specific problems posed by the treatment of animals. An exception to this relative neglect of animals in political philosophy is Jonathan Wolffâs (2011) proposed method for handling the issue of animal experimentations. He analyzes the issue of research on animals as one controversial problem which is deeply divisive in our contemporary societies and in need of some sort of normative settlement. I share this overall concern but, despite some similaritiesâtaking disagreement seriously and attempting to be as inclusive as possible of all the positionsâthere are some differences between our respective approaches. First, I try to propose a more systematic account of the nature of the disagreement on the moral status of animals. Unlike Wolffâs explicit bottom-up approach and his commitment to making sense of current practices and the status quo, the methodology employed here will seek a greater generality and will lead to a more revisionary outcome. Second, the kind of normative solution I advance is more principled and based on epistemic grounds, thus claiming for a general validity, whereas Wolff does not seem to require that his solution (a compromise) be principled, provided that it constitutes a step forward in public ethics and is politically acceptable.
Unlike Wolffâs account, a preoccupation for real disagreement is absent in Nussbaumâs (2006) avowed commitment to political liberalism. Although she does consider what most important religions teach about the treatment of animals, and on this point she is optimistic about a possible agreement on this issue, Nussbaum does not engage with the details of this and rather assumes that an agreement is possible, even relatively straightforward, without analyzing the real arguments stemming from each religion. Moreover, her approach is not consistent with one of the tenets of political liberalism. Indeed, she subscribes to an animal-rights approach, and as such is not neutral with respect to this issue. In sum, Nussbaum describes her approach as politically liberal, but in fact she does seem to smuggle in a substantive approach under the guise of a politically liberal one.
Unlike Nussbaumâs , my theory will be distinctively liberal. In particular, it will subscribe to political liberalism in the sense that will be expounded in the chapters to follow. Liberalism has traditionally been seen to be at odds with the claims of animals, insofar as it relies on a Kantian priority granted to humans which presumably gives license to humans to pursue their own interests so long as such pursuits do not infringe the interests and rights of other persons. This, however, does not restrain human liberty when it comes to the use of animals. In Gary Steinerâs trenchant words, liberalism seems incompatible with a robust defense of animal interests:
Even if we acknowledge that animals, unlike trees and streams, suffer, their suffering nonetheless counts less than human suffering, because according to the anthropocentric logic of liberalism only human beings possess the ...