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.
Tags: Politics by Brad Spangler
11 Comments »
