Loving Animals: Toward a New Animal Advocacy

One. What’s Behind Animal Advocacy?

IT’S IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND THE ABSTRACT ETHIcal theories that underpin any social movement because those theories form a foundation for the various directions a movement takes. The easiest way to see this is in retrospect with other social movements, movements that are perhaps more self-reflective about their foundations than animal rights is today.The women’s movement, for example, spent many years debating different strategies for the eradication of sexism. Some feminists sought equality and worked for change within existing political and economic structures; other feminists sought ways to celebrate women’s differences and focused on cultural changes to valorize women and the feminine aspects of many different spheres. Still others sought to correct economic hardships for women and children in poverty, while many found ways to build coalitions with different kinds of women across national and cultural boundaries. Forty years into the movement, feminists have become pretty adept at figuring out how these agendas differ and even sometimes conflict, and how we can all work together to build a better world for women.The same kinds of differences exist in all contemporary social movements from civil rights to gay rights to environmentalism to Latino liberation to union building; competing goals are ONE WHAT’S BEHIND ANIMAL ADVOCACY? 1 evident, such as assimilation versus separation, equality versus difference, extremism versus moderation.The animal rights movement is no exception , and a rudimentary understanding of the terrain of these strategies is essential. The map that follows is in no way intended to offer an exhaustive discussion or review of the philosophical literature concerning ethics and animals. Rather, it is simply intended to show that most of the philosophies and strategies associated with animal advocacy pay very little attention to things like identity, affect, culture, emotion, or narrative. This map examines the principles that stand behind current animal advocacy, in part to see how competing principles lead to competing practices, and in part to show how a different orientation could add to and legitimate the movement as a whole. Animal Rights Although the term “animal rights” is often inaccurately used to refer to the whole movement of animal advocacy (in much the same way that “women’s rights” is sometimes used to mean everything feminist), for accuracy’s sake we should start by thinking more precisely about what a right is and what kinds of rights are being advocated for animals. Put as simply as possible, a right is a legal way of protecting a particular interest , even when that interest may conflict with the interests of either what is perceived as the common good or more powerful agents such as governments or corporations. Humans are born with a catalog of rights that, in the United States, stems from the basic commitments to life, liberty, and property. According to this view of rights, we are free to pursue our interests in these three realms as long as our engagements do not compromise the rights (i.e., the interests) of other humans. We are free, for example, to purchase medical care to extend our lives or to purchase property and goods that will make us happy. We are free from being owned as property by other human beings or other entities such as corporations or nations. In this approach, we are thought to be agents of our own creation , protected from undue interference or coercion, free to become whoever we want to be. Animals, of course, have no such protection. One form of animal rights advocacy works to secure specific rights 2 WHAT'S BEHIND ANIMAL ADVOCACY? for specific types of animals in specific conditions. Certain animals have a right not to suffer unduly, advocates claim; these animals have an interest in not being treated cruelly. Those who hold this position work to pass legislation that would prevent humans from, for example, keeping dogs on chains outside, keeping calves in veal crates, using pipes to forcefeed ducks for the production of pâté de foie gras, selling pets for scienti fic experimentation, slaughtering horses for meat—the list goes on and on. Stated differently, in most existing laws pertaining to animals, the animal in question is protected only as a form of property. Although some states do currently have anticruelty laws in place, the vast majority of laws protecting animals do so...