The Normative Animal

Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights by Sue Donaldson My rating: 5 of 5 stars As I understand it, Donaldson and Kymlicka's Zoopolis is something of a must-read for those interested in understanding the contemporary political turn in animal ethics. In this post, I'll discuss the first half of Zoopolis, where Donaldson and Kymlicka explain the theory underlying their proposed way of incorporating animals within political communities. Summary The book begins by portraying the modern animal advocacy movement as more or less a failure. Although we can find moderate victories (such as California's Prop 2 and the subsequent Prop 12, which together banned animal products sourced from gestation crates, veal crates, and battery cages), these reforms are but a blip on the screen. Once we zoom out, we see a larger picture of increased harm and exploitation. Since 1960, wild animal populations have dropped by 1/3; since 1980, world meat production has tripled; and these t

An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory by Alasdair Cochrane My rating: 5 of 5 stars Summary My goals in reading this book were twofold. First, I wanted to strengthen my understanding of the major schools of thought in contemporary political theory. Second, I wanted to educate myself on the so-called "political turn" in animal ethics: the broadening of questions about our obligations towards animals to include questions about political institutions. Cochrane's excellently written book helped me to achieve these two goals. Having read this book, I now feel prepared to dive into more detailed discussions about animals and political theory. I recommend it as a great starting point and reference for anyone who shares these two goals. Cochrane begins the book by highlighting the importance of the animal question in political theory: how ought political communities treat animals? Political communities must take some position on this question since human-animal inter

Last time we examined the prevailing theory of legal personhood, according to which one is a legal person precisely when one possesses rights or duties. When combined with either the interest or the will theory of rights, we saw that this theory generates false positives and false negatives, respectively, and thereby fails as a theory of legal personhood. In light of this, we looked at Visa Kurki's alternative account of legal personhood as a cluster concept  composed of distinctively human rights and duties. However, satisfied as we might be with this account, we still might object to the existing legal bifurcation of entities into persons and property. After all, if we think that animals have some rights — but not a sufficient number of distinctively human rights to be classified as legal persons — they will be considered property, putting sentient beings with rights in the same group as mere things. How can this be right? Stakes Before looking to alternatives, it is worth asking

Last time we discussed the distinction between legal personhood, personhood simpliciter , and moral standing. Whereas the latter two are general philosophical notions, legal personhood has to do with an entity's legal status. We now turn to an analysis of legal personhood, discussing what the concept is supposed to represent and what function it is supposed to perform. Prevailing Theory Black's Law Dictionary, an authoritative text, embodies the prevailing theory of legal personhood when it says: "So far as legal theory is concerned, a person is any being whom the law regards as capable of rights or duties.”  Reiterating the distinctions from earlier, we see that legal personhood's presence or absence is determined by facts internal to a legal system, unlike philosophical personhood which relies on external considerations. The usage of "rights" here is restricted to legal rights — properties whose attribution is determined by positive law rather than philoso

In my last post, I motivated the importance of legal personhood. This post will focus on the origins of the concept and its difference from related concepts such as personhood simpliciter and moral standing. Origins Modern legal systems have all been considerably influenced by Roman law. This is especially true regarding legal ontology: following Roman law, modern legal systems divide the world into "persons" and "property." The word "person" (and its Latin correlate "persona") has its etymological roots in the Greek word "prosopon," denoting a mask used in theatre. Just as actors are distinct from characters, so too were persons and humans distinct within Roman jurisprudence. One human could occupy multiple "masks" or roles under the law and thus possess different rights and obligations in different circumstances, a thesis embodied in the slogan: unus homo sustinet plures personas . Over time, the idea of personhood as a kin

This is the first in a series of posts on legal personhood. Legal Personhood Legal personhood takes center stage in important debates about who can (or should) be protected by the law. For instance, the Nonhuman Rights Project has put forward petitions focused on "establishing the legal personhood of Petitioner, a chimpanzee known as Tommy, and granting him immediate release from illegal detention" ( The Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. on behalf of Tommy, Petitioners, v. Patrick C. Lavery, 2013). In particular, legal personhood is often thought to have a special relationship with legal rights. In a press release concerning the previously mentioned petition, Steven Wise, Nonhuman Rights Project President, remarked that "no one has ever demanded a legal right for a nonhuman animal, until now,” suggesting that legal personhood is a prerequisite for the possession of legal rights (Press Release re. NhRP Lawsuit, Dec. 2nd 2013). Despite its practical import, the concept's c