Animal Property Rights by Hadley John;

Author:Hadley, John;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Legal Status of Animals: How Can Property

own Property?

An important objection to animal property rights relates to the status of animals in law.[18] In many jurisdictions, animals have the legal status of property, which entails they can be bought, sold, modified, and otherwise treated as property objects. In line with the objection, it is logically impossible to extend property rights to animals because they themselves are property. In essence, the rhetorical question posed by the objector is, “How can property own property?”

There are three responses to the objection. The first is to point out that animal property rights theory is a theory of property rights for ostensibly free roaming or so-called wild animals. Recall the basic justification for animal property rights given above: animals have an interest in property in so far as they use land and other natural “goods” (trees, soils, rocks, watercourses, etc.) to meet their needs and those of their offspring; the animal interest in using natural goods to meet their basic needs is important enough to pass the threshold test of significance and, thereby, qualifies for property rights status. Accordingly, animal property rights theory is a theory of property for wild animals because only wild animals are reliant on using natural goods to meet their needs and those of their offspring. And, the response continues, the property status of wild animals is an open question. In Australia, for example, a wild animal becomes the property of a person only once they have been killed by that person.[19] Whilst they remain alive, however, wild animals are nominally free and their legal status is opaque.

The objector might reply that even though wild animals may not have the status of property in legal statutes in Australia and the United States, an implicit assumption undergirding statute law is that wild animals are, indeed, property—held in common by everyone. In order to properly understand this reply it is necessary to return to the foundational property concept, the initial patrimony. It was suggested in chapter 3 that a central tenet of the existing property system is the natural law shibboleth that the Earth was given to everyone in common for human purposes. The objector is arguing to the effect that the meaning of the term “Earth,” for the purposes of understanding the initial patrimony, includes animals and, therefore, animals should be viewed as resources to be used like any other natural object. Indeed, such an interpretation is borne out in the present day by the attribution of a property right in a dead animal to the hunter responsible for killing it. In accordance with traditional property rights theory, giving a hunter a property right in a killed animal is recognition of their endeavor and, as such, it constitutes the playing out of the desert-based logic of the labor theory of appropriation which, in turn, is set against the background of the initial patrimony.

But, even if wild animals do, ultimately, have the status of property in law, there is still considerable logical space

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.