‘Real’ Animal Rights: Anthropocentric, zoocentric, and ecocentric rationales
There is a discrepancy between animal rights theory and animal rights practice. Animal rights in 'theory' are typically justified with reference to some morally relevant rights-generative natural quality of animals. Animal rights in 'practice' is only partially motivated by intrinsic, ethical concern for animals, it is also concurrently catalysed by instrumental concern for a variety of human interests and environmental objectives. It is this interplay of anthropocentric, zoocentric, and ecocentric rationales that is driving the emergence of real animal rights alongside human rights and environmental rights.
SASKIA STUCKI: Since its inception, the idea of animal rights has had a mostly theoretical existence, occupying the minds of moral philosophers, legal theorists, and social reformers. In the absence of any legally institutionalised rights, the concept of animal rights typically relates to potential fundamental rights that (nonhuman) animals should have and that ought to be recognised and respected by human laws. Only very recently, but with accelerating pace, have legal animal rights begun to emerge in the real world, brought into existence through the powerful (because social reality-shaping) words of legal rules as enacted by lawmakers or – more often – as interpreted and developed by judges. Notably, actual legal rights of animals have started to be deliberated and, in some instances, recognised by courts around the world, such as the Supreme Court of India, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador, the Islamabad High Court, or a lower court in Mendoza (Argentina). The present is thus an exciting time for animal rights scholars and advocates. We are witnessing in real-time animal rights’ gradual crossover from theory to practice – a transition from the realm of ideas into reality.
Against the backdrop of this transitional moment, I submit that a new conceptual distinction is in order: between real and ideal animal rights. By way of a preliminary definition, I understand real animal rights to be the legal rights that animals have in the real world (ie that are legally recognised and grounded in legal practice), as opposed to the ideal legal rights that animals ought to have based on their moral rights, but that exist merely in theory or as an idea. My overall hypothesis is that the real animal rights that are emerging in practice differ from the ideal animal rights that are the subject of traditional animal rights theory, and that as a result, there is a discrepancy between animal rights theory and animal rights practice…
That is, while animal rights in theory are typically justified with reference to some morally relevant rights-generative natural quality of animals, animal rights in practice seem to be grounded in a broader and more heterogenous mix of anthropocentric, zoocentric, and ecocentric rationales. It is this aspect of justificatory pluralism that I want to focus on in this chapter. Elsewhere, I have argued at length that there are both principled and prudential reasons that warrant institutional recognition of animal rights.18 In short, the principled argument for animal rights is of an ethical nature (a matter of justice or morality) and operates with intrinsic criteria, such as animals’ sentience, dignity, vulnerability, exploitability, or experiences of injustice. By contrast, the prudential argument for animal rights is of an instrumental nature (animal rights as a means of promoting other ends, eg the protection of humans or the environment) and relies on extrinsic considerations, such as social and environmental benefits that may result from cultivating animal rights-respecting practices. Here, I want to chart a slightly adapted, tripartite typology, based on the anthropocentric, zoocentric, and ecocentric justifications underpinning the recognition of animal rights in legal practice…
Anthropocentric Animal Rights: From an anthropocentric point of view, animal rights are justified instrumentally with their utility or benefits for human individuals or society. Here, the recognition of animal rights is primarily motivated by and derivative of human interests, and functions as an indirect way of protecting or promoting certain human goods, such as human rights or health. Commonly invoked anthropocentric justifications for animal rights relate to (A) the socio-psychological interconnections between (human and animal) rights-generative phenomena of social (in)justice; (B) cultural or religious sensitivities towards (certain) animals; and (C) the environmental and health impacts of animal exploitation…
Zoocentric Animal Rights: Within a zoocentric framework, animal rights are justified with intrinsic qualities of animals, such as their dignity or inherent value, sentience, personhood, subjecthood, ‘selfhood’, or vulnerability. Here, the recognition of animal rights is primarily motivated by and centred on moral and legal concern for animals and their interests per se, irrespective of any instrumental or utilitarian considerations. In the words of the Constitutional Court of Ecuador, ‘animals should not be protected only from an ecosystemic perspective or with a view to the needs of human beings, but mainly from a perspective that focusses on their individuality and intrinsic value’. The Supreme Court of India, too, has adopted a zoocentric approach – calling it the ‘Species Best Interest’ standard – that is primarily focussed on the welfare interests of animals, rather than the use interests of humans. Courts typically arrive at zoocentric animal rights through two legal avenues: (A) via a rights-based interpretation of (ie by ‘subjectifying’) animal welfare laws and the duties contained therein or (B) via a dynamic-extensive interpretation of (ie by ‘animalising’) fundamental (human) rights…
Ecocentric Animal Rights: From an ecocentric perspective, animal rights are recognised in an eco-constitutional legal context and as part of a holistic approach to environmental protection and rights. For example, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador has placed its recognition of animal rights in the context of a constitutionalism that ‘goes beyond the classic anthropocentrism … to embrace a socio-biocentrism’, one that is ‘based on the diverse and harmonious coexistence with Nature’. Similarly, the Supreme Court of Colombia has framed the recognition of animal rights with the need for a wider ‘ecocentric-anthropic ecological public order, where we all participate with an explicit ethical and environmentalist vocation that springs from a sense of individual, collective and inter-generational responsibility’. Against the backdrop of exacerbating ecological pressures in the Anthropocene, the environmental dimension of animal rights (as well as, conversely, the animal dimension of environmental rights) has become increasingly important. Some courts have been responsive to this human-animal-environment nexus, by interrelating and converging the rights of humans, animals, and nature…
As this overview has demonstrated, the recognition of animal rights in practice is only partially motivated by intrinsic, ethical concern for animals and concurrently catalysed by instrumental concern for a variety of human interests and environmental objectives. It is this interplay of anthropocentric, zoocentric, and ecocentric rationales that is driving the emergence of realanimal rights alongside human rights and environmental rights. SOURCE…
RELATED VIDEO: