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The Ethics of Animal Liberation

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The Ethics of Animal Liberation The Ethics of Animal Liberation A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Politics 2012 Stephen Cooke School of Social Sciences Table of Contents Abstract...............................................................................................................................5 Declaration..........................................................................................................................6 Copyright statement...........................................................................................................6 Acknowledgements.............................................................................................................8 Introduction........................................................................................................................9 1 Animal liberation in the United Kingdom...............................................................15 Part I...................................................................................................................................21 1 Respect for animals.........................................................................................................22 1 Moral patients and moral agents...............................................................................24 2 A life worth living: the good of animals...................................................................27 3 Suffering in humans and other animals.....................................................................32 4 Value and reasons........................................................................................................39 4.1 Indirect duties views...........................................................................................55 4.2 Reasons and values.............................................................................................55 5 Vulnerability................................................................................................................59 6 Conclusions................................................................................................................61 2 Duties to non-human animals........................................................................................63 1 Duties of respect and beneficence.............................................................................64 2 Differential treatment................................................................................................67 2.1 Species membership and partiality....................................................................68 2.1.1 Relationships and species...........................................................................71 2.1.2 Humans and non-humans: differences of kind........................................81 2.2 The importance of personhood.........................................................................88 3 Duties of remedy and aid...........................................................................................93 4 Conclusions................................................................................................................94 3 Justice and animals..........................................................................................................95 1 Justice..........................................................................................................................98 1.1 Liberalism and democracy................................................................................100 1.2 Social contract theories....................................................................................102 2 1.3 Justificatory liberalism.....................................................................................104 2 Rawls, contractualism and animals..........................................................................106 2.1 The problem of equal justice............................................................................119 3 Respect for inferior creatures: equality and justice................................................121 3.1 Value incommensurability................................................................................134 3.2 Unequal beings in the Original Position.........................................................135 3.3 The mixed society.............................................................................................138 4 Scanlonian contractualism.......................................................................................140 5 Contracting animals.................................................................................................143 6 Carruthers: against animals in the contract............................................................145 7 Conclusions..............................................................................................................147 Part II...............................................................................................................................149 4 Direct action in defence of non-human animals.........................................................152 1 Political obligation and the duty to obey the law...................................................153 2 Civil disobedience....................................................................................................164 2.1 Civil disobedience and animal liberation........................................................167 2.2 Violent disobedience.........................................................................................168 2.3 The special status of non-human animals.......................................................176 2.4 Procedural unfairness and majoritarianism.....................................................180 2.5 The Opportunity of life...................................................................................184 2.5.1 Do captive animals live worthwhile lives?...............................................185 2.5.2 The good of living wild.............................................................................188 2.5.3 Wrongful life and the Non-Identity Problem.........................................189 2.6 Conclusions......................................................................................................200 5 Acts of rescue and sabotage.........................................................................................202 1 Acts of Rescue..........................................................................................................204 1.1 Positive duties to aid non-human animals: a re-cap.......................................208 1.2 Third-party intervention..................................................................................210 1.2.1 Identifying duty bearers...........................................................................212 1.2.2 Paradigmatic intervention........................................................................213 1.2.3 Harm to humans.......................................................................................215 3 1.2.4 The permissibility of violence..................................................................221 1.2.5 Culpability.................................................................................................224 1.2.5.1 Ownership and the legality of harm to non-human animals..........225 1.2.5.2 Innocence and culpability.................................................................230 1.2.5.3 The use of defensive violence against innocent attackers..............244 1.3 Sabotage.............................................................................................................248 1.4 Concluding remarks.........................................................................................252 Epilogue...........................................................................................................................255 Bibliography....................................................................................................................258 Word Count: 80749 4 Abstract This thesis addresses the moral permissibility of illegal acts of animal liberation in the form of civil disobedience, acts of rescue, and acts of sabotage. Animal liberation movements have been the subject of much media and political attention, with particular focus on use liberationist strategies of intimidation, vandalism, and harassment. Governments have mobilised state apparatus in surveillance, infiltration, and investigation, and have characterising radical activism as ‘terrorism’. The variety of illegal activities aimed at preventing harm to non-human animals, particularly those involving violence towards property or persons, have often been classified together under the term 'animal liberation' and assumed to be wrong. I argue that the assumption of wrongness is questionable because it fails to give significant weight to the justification for acts of animal liberation. I pose the question as to whether and what illegal practices of animal liberation are ethically justifiable. I begin by arguing that non-human animals are worthy of moral consideration for their own sake, because their sentience above a basic level, particularly their capacity to suffer, gives moral agents reasons to acknowledge and respect their goods. Following this, I defend the claim that liberal democratic states that fail to treat animals living within them with respect
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