Abstract:This paper explores the international implications of liberal theories which extend justice to sentient animals. In particular, it asks whether they imply that coercive military intervention in a state by external agents to prevent, halt or minimise violations of basic animal rights ('humane intervention') can be justified. In so doing, it employs Simon Caney's theory of humanitarian intervention and applies it to non-human animals. It argues that while humane intervention can be justified in principle, using Caney's assumptions, justifying any particular intervention on behalf of animals is much more difficult -and in present circumstances impossible. If these claims are correct, a number of important conclusions follow. First, all states lack legitimacy because of the horrors that they inflict upon animals. As a result of this, all states are thus prima facie liable to intervention by external agents. To remedy this situation, all states have the responsibility to massively transform their relationship with non-human animals, and to build international institutions to oversee the proper protection of their most basic rights.
This paper outlines the moral contours of human relationships with companion animals. The paper details three sources of duties to and regarding companion animals: (1) from the animal's status as property, (2) from the animal's position in relationships of care, love, and dependency, and (3) from the animal's status as a sentient being with a good of its own. These three sources of duties supplement one another and not only differentiate relationships with companion animals from wild animals and other categories of domestic animals such as livestock, but they also overlap to provide moral agents with additional reasons for preventing and avoiding harm to companion animals. The paper concludes that not only do owners and bystanders have direct and indirect duties to protect companion animals from harm, but also that these duties have the potential, in some circumstances, to clash with duties owed to the state and fellow citizens.Keywords Companion animals Á Pets Á Duties to non-human animals Á Animal ownershipThe purpose of this paper is both to define the moral contours of our relationships with companion animals in terms of rights and duties, and to draw out special features which differentiate them from relationships with wild animals or other types of domesticated animal. The paper will examine negative duties of nonmaleficence and positive duties of aid, both to and regarding companion animals,
In this article I propose a cosmopolitan approach to animal rights based upon Kant's right of universal hospitality. Many approaches to animal rights buttress their arguments by finding similarities between humans and non-human animals; in this way they represent or resemble ethics of partiality. In this article I propose an approach to animal rights that initially rejects similarity approaches and is instead based upon the adoption of a cosmopolitan mindset acknowledging and respecting difference. Furthermore, and in agreement with Martha Nussbaum, and Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, I endorse the view that theories of animal rights need to be theories of justice and include a political component. Contra Donaldson and Kymlicka, however, I argue that the starting point for analysis of political theories of animal rights should be at the global rather than national level. Taking animals as strangers, I propose adopting a Kantian cosmopolitan mindset and ethic of universal hospitality towards them. I address how a ius cosmopoliticum that is hospitable to the interests of non-human animals can govern interactions with animals on fair terms, and I respond to concerns that cosmopolitanism cannot accommodate non-human animals because it is a democratic ideal, is grounded in logocentrism or rests upon ownership of territory by humans.Traditional theories of animal rights are based upon the argument that species membership is a morally arbitrary feature in ethical reasoning. Rather than base moral standing upon common humanity, animal rights theorists have claimed that all sentient creatures, or creatures above a certain level of sentience, belong to the same ethical community, and thus are rights bearers. In this way, animal rights theories appear broadly cosmopolitan in intent. Cosmopolitans, meanwhile, hold that all human beings belong to the same ethical community regardless of their other identities or affiliations. At the same time, to be cosmopolitan is also to possess a state of mind or to engage with others in a way that is open and accepting of difference. Animal rights theories therefore appear merely to widen the basic cosmopolitan ethical community so that it includes non-human animals, and to be more open in engagement with others. However, animal rights theories have stopped short of fully embracing cosmopolitanism in two significant ways: first, by focusing on similarities and relationships between humans and other animals as a means of cultivating ethical concern; and second, by demanding that humans and other animals lead rigidly separate lives.In this article I draw cosmopolitanism and traditional animal rights theory closer together in order to address problems with each. I argue that an ethic of respect for non-human animals requires us to approach them initially on the basis of difference. Respect for non-human animals demands that we defend those with whom we cannot easily find compassion in our hearts as much as it does for those to whom we find it easy to relate. I share the view of Martha Nussb...
Many philosophers have convincingly argued that non-human animals are worthy of direct moral concern for their own sakes and, further, that they are also rights-bearers. 1 Rights protect certain interests and place constraints upon what may be done to an individual in the name of producing social or personal goods. 2 In the case of humans, these protections and constraints are described by an extensive set of particular rights: rights to bodily integrity, personal and political freedoms, assistance and protection, rights to certain social and economic conditions, and so forth. For animals however, theorists have only recently begun to look beyond the most basic of animal rights, such as life, liberty, and bodily security. In order to move forward, animal rights theorists need to consider what these rights entail; whether non-human animals possess a richer more extensive set of rights; and what these rights demand of moral agents, particularly in cases of non-compliance. One such right that may be possessed by animals is a right to their habitat. Besides being killed for human consumption, one of the greatest threats to non-human animals comes from the loss of their habitats. When humans threaten the habitats of wild animals, they threaten the necessary conditions 3 for life and wellbeing. Determining whether and when non-human animals have rights 1 This claim has been extensively debated elsewhere and I shall not defend it here. For some defences of animal rights
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