Martha C. Nussbaum: Embracing a new philosophy that demands dignity and justice for animals
Animals do not speak human language, but they have a wide range of language. They actively express themselves in many ways, and it is our responsibility to translate that into political action.
MARTHA C. NUSSBAUM: Animals suffer injustice at our hands. We need a powerful theoretical strategy to diagnose injustice and suggest remedies. As a philosopher, I recommend a version of the theory of political justice known as the “Capabilities Approach,” to shift the way we think about animal rights from other influential approaches to animal justice, such as anthropocentric approaches that rank animals in terms of likeness to humans, or the promising but flawed approach supplied by classical Utilitarianism.
Originally developed to guide international development agencies working with human populations, the Capabilities Approach, I believe, provides a good basis for animal entitlements as well. (The original architect of the approach is the Nobel Prize–winning economist and philosopher Amartya Sen, with whom I collaborated on this theory but soon developed my own very different version.) The approach focuses on meaningful activities and on the conditions that make it possible for a creature to pursue those activities without damage or blockage. In other words, to lead a flourishing life.
Other frameworks for animal welfare focus narrowly on pain as the primary bad thing a creature experiences. But this approach focuses on many different types of meaningful activity (including movement, communication, social bonding and play), any of which can be blocked by the interference of others, whether by malice or by negligence… Essentially, then, my approach is about giving striving creatures a chance to flourish. This emphasis on flourishing and on a wide plurality of key opportunities is what makes it so suitable as a basis for a theory of animal justice, as well as human justice…
Just like humans, animals live amid a staggering number of dangers and obstacles. They too have an inherent dignity that inspires respect and wonder. We see that dignity intuitively when we watch dolphins swimming freely through the water in social groupings, echo-locating their way around obstacles and leaping for joy; when we see a group of elephants caring communally for their young and attempting to rear them in safety, despite the ubiquity of man-made threats…
Animals do not speak human language, but they have a wide range of language – like ways of communicating about their situation, and if we humans happen to be in the driver’s seat politically, it should be our responsibility to attend to those voices, to figure out how animals are doing and what obstacles they face. They actively express themselves in many ways, and it is our responsibility to translate that into political action.
The stories animals tell us give us ideas about how law needs to promote the flourishing of both companion animals and wild animals — preventing cruelty, promoting nutrition and, more generally, conveying ideas of reciprocity, respect and friendship. This task is so exhilarating and so urgent… The ideal outcome would be for all the nations of the world (listening astutely to the demands of animals and those experts who most knowledgeably represent them) to agree to a legally enforceable constitution for the various animal species, each with its own list of capabilities to be protected, and each supplied with a threshold level beneath which non-protection becomes injustice.
Animals would then be protected no matter where they are, just as whales would be protected all over the world by the International Whaling Commission — if that flawed body did a decent job. This constitution could then be supplemented by more specific nation-based laws for animals living within a given national jurisdiction, in a way tailored to those specific contexts… There is no nation in which animals are citizens, though they should be seen as citizens with rights whose nonfulfillment is injustice. We are only at the beginning of a political journey toward justice for animals. SOURCE…
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