Animals and the Moral Community by Steiner Gary;

Author:Steiner, Gary;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: NAT039000, Nature/Animal Rights, PHI000000, Philosophy/General
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2008-08-24T16:00:00+00:00

THE LIMITATIONS OF LIBERAL APPROACHES TO THE MORAL STATUS OF ANIMALS

As we have seen, liberal approaches to the moral status of animals, both classical and contemporary, seek to marshal the tools of liberal political theory to vindicate the moral status of animals. In my judgment none of them goes far enough in this endeavor. Their adherence to concepts proper to the sphere of social justice imposes limitations on their ability to do justice to the moral status of animals in the cosmic sphere. The error or limitation of traditional approaches has been the endeavor to conceptualize the moral status of animals in terms that properly apply only within the narrow scope of social relations between human beings, that is, in terms of what I call social justice. I take the limitations of liberal theory to be signs of a latent anthropocentrism that must be overcome if we are to do complete justice to the moral status of animals. I believe that all attempts to conceptualize the moral status of animals in terms of social justice end up, if only unwittingly, subordinating animals to the interests and prerogatives of human beings. What is needed is an approach that inscribes social justice within the larger framework of cosmic justice, which relates human beings to the rest of nonhuman living nature. As I argue in the next chapter, only such an approach promises to give genuine force to moral claims on behalf of animals.

To better understand the inherent limitations of liberal approaches, consider Julian Franklin’s arguments. He suggests that the fundamental question with regard to the moral status of animals “is whether [animals] are entities which, by their inherent nature, are to be included in political justice,” by which he seems to mean what I mean by “social” justice.58 To the extent that animals are sentient beings, Franklin believes that they have a fundamental right not to be treated as mere means by human beings.59 Where Kant argues that all and only autonomous, rational agents have a right not to be treated as mere instrumentalities, Franklin argues that the categorical imperative must be understood as applying not simply to Kantian “persons” but to all sentient beings generally. In doing so, Franklin implicitly follows the reasoning of Regan, who argues that Kant cannot non-arbitrarily deny equal moral consideration to moral patients while extending it to moral agents.60

Franklin argues that “concern for the well-being of animals becomes mandatory only when they become participants in a scheme of cooperation instituted by humans.”61 Franklin would dispute my contention that concern for the well-being of animals is mandatory even in situations that do not involve schemes of cooperation initiated by humans. I take concern for animals in the context of human activities to be a subset of a larger sphere of concern for animals. While suggesting that we should not be indifferent or gratuitous in our treatment of wild nature, Franklin expresses what I think are several pointedly anthropocentric moral commitments that bear closer scrutiny.

The first is that

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