A Political Theory of Animal Rights

I will argue for animal rights from a perspective of social justice, based on John Rawl's theory of Justice and specifically his thought experiment of the Original Postion or the Veil of Ignorance. To summarise Rawls' Veil of Ignorance real quick; it is a thought experiment on social justice, what social justice means and it is supposed to give us insight in how we should organise society.

The thought experiment goes as follows: imagine that you are about to enter society (or the world in a broader sense), but you don't know anything of the situation of your 'birth'. You might be born white, black, asian, man or female, gay or hetero, etc. In a rich or a poor family, handicaped or gifted. With this in mind, how would you want society to be organised?

He argues that it will lead to what he calls the 'principles of justice': The first states that

"Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all". The second is the difference principle and entails that inequality is only justified if it results in the worst of being as well off as possible.

I think Rawl's thought experiment has much more potential than just telling us what the principles of justice would be. It is a tool of practising empathy as it asks us to imagine what it is like to be another, while leaving everything that is me behind. From there it can inform us of how we would want to be treated in that position and thus how we, outside the veil of ignorance, should relate to them.

Here it becomes clear how relevant it is who is allowed in the original position. As whom can you enter?

One of Rawl's premisses was that the agent in the original postition is rational, which meant he did not include or accept mentally impaired people or animals in the original postion. It is understandable why he thought only rational agents were allowed behind the veil of ignorance, for he wanted the agent to make a rational decision. Not some kind of gamble. But that is to suppose that the lack of rational ability is madness, irrationality is making foolish decisions that don't make any sense, yet I don't consider animals mad. They might not have the rational capability to do advanced mathematics, but their choices make sense. They have their own preferences and desires, they can experience joy and pain and know what they want and what they don't want. Their decisions might not be the result of a rational deliberation, but we can ask whether that is the case for us. Most of the time that is not how we make decisions either, yet that doesn't make them irrational. This shows us that emotions and rationality are not opposed, as so often is assumed in philosophy. Acting upon our feelings might in fact be, what we would call, rational.

[When I first read the veil of ignorance thought experiment I had the idea it applied to a specific country, especially since it talked about how to organise society. But talking about social justice, why do we draw the line at the borders of a country? Are we justified to do so? Are we justified to draw a line anywhere from the start?

To do justice to justice we aren't justified to draw a line anywhere. I feel this thought experiment is about making visible the intuitions of empathy and compassion. So even if there was someone that is irrational, they would still deserve our compassion.

So the answer is that from an ideal perspective we aren't. So let's redo the thought experiment and see what we get if we include everyone and everything. Now we suddenly have to consider stones as well. What would they want? Luckily for us, stones most likely aren't sentient, so they can't want anything really, it does not care whether it is used in a construction or just lays around somewhere. Then we move on to animate objects such as plants. Although plants have a certain sense of awareness and a drive to life, they have no brain, so probably they don't suffer when we eat them, at least not in the same way sentient aninals do. Respecting them as much as possible won't hurt ourselves though, so we might want to do that. Then we turn to animals. They are sentient and can experience pain and joy pretty much the same way we do. It is clear that they have a will to live, have a fear of death and try to avoid suffering. So being born as an animal you would have preferences for how society is organised.

So alright, let's grant it; we can't justify not giving animals any rights. But what kind of rights should they have then? Surely it would be absurd to give them voting rights!? The question can be solved fairly easily by just doing the thought experiment again. Once you are in an original position and you might enter as an animal, what would you want? What rights would you want? Would you care about voting rights? Probably not, but you would care about not being born in slavery, you would want to be able to keep your babies and take care of them, you wouldn't want to be exploited for your body or your bodily excretions. You just want to live your life in peace.

It is all about viewing the issue not from the perspective of the one that had luck, the advantaged, in this case even the oppressor, but from the perspective of the disadvantaged, the oppressed, of the victim. We have to consider animal rights not solely from our human perspective, but also from their perspective. Would you want to be enslaved, oppressed and killed for your body or your bodily excretions? In that sense veganism is about compassion and empathy and understanding that we wouldn't want it for ourselves and also don't want to bestow that upon them. Like the golden rule from Christianity "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". For now we are talking about it from a distance, from a political point of view. But the reasons why these animals suffer - and I hate to say it - is because of you. It is because you paid someone to take away their babies, exploit their bodies and slit their throat. The choices we make have very real implications in the real world and go beyond any abstract principles in philosophy. And you can be held accountable for those choices. Are you ready to take responsibility for those choices? Can you justify the horrors you are complicit in? And even if you think you can, do you want to? Do you really want to try to justify their needless suffering? Is that the kind of person you would want yourself to be? Or would you rather be compassionate, kind and loving? Let animals be your friends, not your food.

If you still want to deny animals moral consideration and rights, you have to give arguments as to why they don't deserve it. You would have to name a trait which humans have and animals lack which explains the difference in treatment, which if certain humans lack it strips them from moral considerations / rights and if certain animals happen to have the trait gives them the right on moral consideration. If you can't identify this trait, you will have to submit after all. Otherwise you are logically inconsistent and just plainly speciesist, which is a form of discrimination on basis of species. Which is irrational and immoral.