Animal rights, political theory and the liberal tradition

Abstract

Those scholars who have sought to argue for a higher moral status for animals, including the granting of rights to them, have come primarily from the liberal tradition. Their accounts are persuasive, albeit practically unrealistic. Animals can be incorporated into a liberal theory of justice whether they are inferior morally to humans or regarded as their moral equivalents. This article argues that where animals are excluded from theories of justice, as in the work of Rawls, the relationship between liberalism and the protection of animal interests becomes problematic. In theoretical terms, the influential emphasis within liberal thought on moral pluralism, whereby society or the state are prevented from intervening in what is regarded as the private realm, is clearly inimical to the protection of animal interests. Even more significant is the fact that the practical utilization of this moral pluralism in liberal democracies is detrimental to the welfare of animals.

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