Animal rights and the libertarian movement
I like leather garments.
I remain an unrepentant carnivore, and a fan of barbecue in particular.
I think that where laboratory testing on mice or rats accomplishes any sort of productive ends in a non-cruel manner, or saves human lives in any manner whatsoever, it is a good thing.
I think that many animal rights supporters have a really problematic view of the world around them that puts them drastically at odds with the rest of humanity.
I also believe, though, that they’re not entirely wrong…
Libertarianism, properly defined, is solely a theory of when violence between people is justified and when it isn’t — the Zero Aggression Principle. Thus, libertarianism per se has no conflict with the advancement of science indicating that some creatures we previously thought of as “animals” are really “people”.
The balance of evidence appears to be leaning toward such an indication that some higher animals, dolphins and chimps, may be self-aware individuals. In addition to linguistic discoveries, they also pass the mirror test. It may be the case, then, that they possess the same natural (or God-given, if you prefer) individual rights all humans do. L. Neil Smith suggested as much in his novels, such as The Probability Broach.
I’ll say it — bushmeat, the killing of apes for food, is murder and cannibalism in my opinion.
That understanding, though, is only a direct consequence of libertarianism. There’s more that can be said as to how values subordinate to one’s libertarianism could manifest in a libertarian world.
Libertarianism consistently applied, in my opinion, defines anarchism — the desire for a stateless but lawful society (as opposed to nihilism). Libertarianism consistently applied to the problem of how we will get rid of the state is revolutionary agorism.
But what of puppies, kittens, tigers and bears — both now and later?
Those who advocate less cruelty to animals are often frustrated by libertarians who are reflexively dogmatic about a doctrine they themselves incompletely embrace. If those libertarians were completely libertarian, they would be agorists and talk about how the better world we can build without a state could protect the widespread aesthetic concern for the abolition of wanton cruelty to animals without violating any persons natural rights.
How is this so, you may ask?
A stateless but lawful society will have replaced statutory law with natural law and contractual law. A minarchist (or also, for that matter, a partyarch — an anarchist still trapped in the illusions of reformist politics) may find themselves always opposing advocates of less cruelty to animals because those advocates are operating through the only avenue that appears available to them — statutory law. When a libertarian frees their mind from the trap of reformist politics and becomes an agorist, though, it potentially opens up opportunities for new friendships and alliances.
Let me ask this of my readers…
As long as the natural rights of humans are the pinnacle of stateless law, where is the violation of libertarian principle in arguing for some subordinate form of “animal rights” protected through entirely voluntary contractual law? Nowhere that I can see.
Cross-posted to Axes Grinding.
Share This
Hear, hear!
I’m glad to finally hear someone with a reasonable position. I wish others would adopt your analysis that certain animals might possess natural rights. In my opinion, the strongest argument for natural rights is that we are self consious and thus own ourselves. If apes and dolphins are also self aware, then they must have similar rights. It appears similar to the situation children are in. They are not fully developed, so they do not have the full set of rights that adults have, but one still cannot wantonly agress against them. Walter Block’s discussion* of the right to guardianship of children, abandonment, and forestalling might provide a natural law, libertarian basis for the animal rights movement. One cannot truly own higher animals such as chimps, but you can become their guardian with the privileges and responsibilities that entails. If you mistreat the animals though, it is as if you have abandoned them, and anyone else would be free to re-homestead that right.
*http://www.walterblock.com/publications/block-children.pdf
I still don’t get the concept of natural rights at all. Either that, or the concept is not rationally justifiable.
But apart from that, I’m not sure if I understand what you mean by “animal rights”. Do I understand you right that you think that if a society is strictly built on the supposed “natural” rights to self-ownership and the ownership of one’s property, then I can own these kinds of animals which are believed not to have natural rights and thus that I can do to them whatever I want? You say that a dog has no natural rights, so could I torture my dog as I see fit because everyone who would try to prevent me from doing so would illegaly interfere with my property? So according to you, there are species which have natural rights and species who don’t. Those who don’t have natural rights can be owned and would therefore be treated in the same way as inanimate property. And then there would be the dolphins and the chimps who have, according to you, natural rights. Consequently, every dolphin and every chimp would have exactly the same rights to self-ownership and ownership to it’s own property. But how that be put into practice? You can’t communicate to a dolphin or a chimp their rights. So, you could sue a chimp if it steals your bananas but the chimp couldn’t sue you because he doesn’t know which are his bananas and which aren’t. Now, would that be fair?
Oh sorry, I forgot to describe how I would approach the whole thing.
I would say that the NAP is a pretty handy guideline by which we should organize ourselves. However, I would also add that the NAP shouldn’t be absolute.
So for example, I was at this store lately which sells fish and stuff. There was also an aquarium where live lobsters were stuffed into just like wood is arranged on a pile. I think this is incredibly cruel. So, I would sue the person who obviously mistreated these lobsters. Now, the courts would face the questions whether we should grant every animal the a great amount of rights. It would come to the conclusion that such a thing is practucally impossible if we don’t want to change our own way of life radically. So, the courts would pretty certainly not punish the person who mistreats the lobsters. I would be unhappy but I would have to realize that being able to live the way I want to live includes doing cruel things to animals.
What do you think of Nozick’s position on animal “rights”? I.e., they shouldn’t have the same degree of protection of humans (in the sense that humans are always treated as an end rather than a means), but there should be a side-constraint requiring some proportionality between ends and means when it comes to violating an animal’s welfare.
As I see it, the rights of any sentient individual come into play, from a purely practical perspective, when either they are able to claim them or somebody else is able to enforce them on their behalf. And my own inclination is that intervening to prevent gratuitous cruelty is more or less equivalent to intervening to prevent a big human beating up a small one. This probably sounds kind of Stirnerish, but that’s not really my intent.
“As I see it, the rights of any sentient individual come into play, from a purely practical perspective, when either they are able to claim them or somebody else is able to enforce them on their behalf.”
Exactly. But this is incompatible with strict property rights.
But I just thought of a way how this could work in practice. Imagine a community where it is widely accepted that it’s bad to beat up dogs. So, as a member of that community I see my neighbor repeadetly beating up “his” dog. I decide to break into his house and “steal” the dog. The next day, my neighbor sues me. However, his protection agency stops supporting him because it would be bad for the business if people found out that they’re protecting an animal abuser. So if people care about animals, they should accept the fact that property rights cannot be enforced under all circumstances. Thus, I think that animal rights activists would act in a similar way as they do today.
@Matt:
That’s one way of looking at it and I don’t really have any problems with that personally — but what I’m specifically *predicting* is that contractual codes of conduct will arise that generally reflect the values of the prevailing culture but implement them in a non-coercive way.
@Kevin,
I found Nozick tedious and couldn’t get more than 100 pages into his book. I kept wanting to refute every third sentence, as I recall (that was about 15 years ago).
@Matt,
Just offhand, I would look on the principle as absolute and its implementation as uncertain in some grey areas (mostly of academic dispute). If all matters were clear to all, no arbitrators would be needed.
“If all matters were clear to all, no arbitrators would be needed.”
Okay, that’s also a way of looking at it.
mAtt,
Just wanted to say you have a very original blog and I linked you on mine. Really liked the piece on issues surrounding vegetarianism. Shoot me an email if you interested and I’d add you to my blogmailing alerts list.
*your
Yikes! I type too fast Lol.