Animal Rights/Liberation

İnsanın hayvan üzerindeki her türlü tahakkümü toplum fertlerinin gözünde meşru ve kabul edilebilir kılmak için bugüne kadar çeşitli gerekçeler sıralandı. Ancak kimse bir kalbin atmak için ne kadar çaba sarf ettiğinden bahsetmedi.

Belki evinizi bir kuş, kedi ya da köpekle paylaşıyorsunuz. Belki de her sabah işe gitmeden mahallenizde dolaşarak sokakta yaşayan hayvanlara mama bırakıyor; hasta olanları iyileştirmek için zamanınızı ve paranızı ayırıyorsunuz. Belki de, bir adım daha ileri giderek, her türlü hayvansal ürünü tüketmeyi reddediyor ve çevrenizi de bu yönde etkilemeye çalışıyorsunuz. Yine de bunlar hayvanlara yöneltilen şiddet ve örgütlü saldırganlığı engellemek için yeterli değil… Hayvan sömürüsü hayatımızın her alanında bizleri sarmış durumda. Ve hayvan deneyleri meselesi belki de bunların en başında geliyor. İyileşmek için aldığımız bir ilaç başka bir canlının ölmesine neden olabiliyor. Diğer insanlara daha güzel gözükmek için kullandığımız krem bir canın çektiği ıstırabın izlerini taşıyor. Bindiğimiz araçların yakıtı, ofisimizdeki kalemin mürekkebi, elimizden düşmeyen cep telefonumuz kısacası yaşamımız hayvanlara yapılan zulümle kuşatılmış durumda. Bu durumdan ancak konuyu derinlemesine irdeleyerek kurtulabiliriz.

Gerçekten dünyayı değiştirmeyi ve bütün türlerin sömürüsüz bir şekilde birlikte yaşamasını istiyorsak kendimizi kandırmaktan artık vazgeçmeliyiz. Bu şiddetin, adaletsizliğin, yaşam hakkı ihlalinin son bulması belki de yüzyıllar sürecek. Türcülük duvarı yıkılırken, bir tuğlasını da biz çekip kopartabilirsek, ne mutlu bize.

Bu kitap, hayvan deneylerine karşı mücadelenin prensiplerini olabildiğince anlaşılabilir bir dille ortaya koyuyor. Ayrıca hayvanlar üzerinde yapılan biyomedikal araştırmalara karşı sağlam zemine oturan etik ve bilimsel bir muhalefetin doğuşunu müjdeliyor.

In 2005 the Dutch Minister of Agriculture announced his intention to
draft a new law in which all aspects of animal health and animal welfare
would be covered and to cancel the Animal Health and Welfare Act. The
working title for this project is “Animals Act”. Dutch animal protection
organizations argue that before a new law is introduced, fundamental ethical
and legal principles should be agreed upon. A coalition of more than twenty
organizations (CDON) drew up a concept General Animal Protection Act
covering the basics of legal protection of animals and their welfare, which
should be used in drafting any new animal related legislation.

For centuries, animals have worked alongside humans in a wide variety of workplaces, yet they are rarely recognized as workers or accorded labour rights. Many animal rights advocates have argued that using animals for their labour is inherently oppressive, and that animal labour should therefore be abolished. Recently, however, some people have argued that work can be a source of meaning, self-development and social membership for animals, as it is for humans, and that our goal should be to create good work for animals, not to abolish work. In this volume, an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars explores the benefits and drawbacks of animal labour as a site for interspecies justice. What kind of work is good work for animals? What kinds of labour rights are appropriate for animal workers? Can animals consent to work? Would recognizing animals as “workers” improve their legal and political status, or would it simply reinforce the perception that they are beasts of burden? Can a focus on labour help create bonds between the animal rights movement and other social justice movements? These and other questions are explored in depth. While the authors defend a range of views on these questions, their contributions make clear that the question of labour deserves a central place in any account of justice between humans and animals.

In this article, we develop and defend an account of the normative significance of nonhuman animal agency. In particular, we examine how animals’ agency interests impact upon the moral permissibility of our interactions with them. First, we defend the claim that nonhuman animals sometimes have rights to self-determination. However, unlike typical adult humans, nonhuman animals cannot exercise this right through the giving or withholding of consent. This combination of claims generates a puzzle about the permissibility of our interactions with nonhuman animals. If animals sometimes have rights to self-determination, but lack the capacity to consent, then when, if ever, is it permissible for us to touch them, hold them, bathe them, or confine them? In the second half of the article, we develop a solution to this puzzle. We argue that while we cannot obtain animals’ consent, they can engage in authoritative communications of will through acts of “assent” and “dissent.”

Despite the evidence concerning the substantial greenhouse gases emissions resulting from animal-based food production, climate policies and institutions around the world have barely made an issue of this link until very recently. To better understand this lack of attention, we focus on the discursive role of think tanks as prominent but under researched actors attempting to shape public policy. This contribution examines whether European think tanks have discussed animal-based diets regarding climate change policies and mitigation actions. We conduct a frame analysis study of 110 European think tanks, encoding all their available online output in English related to the link between global heating and animal-based food. We conclude that European think tanks have contributed to a manufacturing of ignorance regarding the impact our dietary choices have on the climate. Ideological reasons related to economic, anthropocentric and patriarchal worldviews explain this role. Free eprint: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/7PAMIHESZIZRUM9NWBKV/full?target=10.1080%2F09644016.2021.1933842&

On 10 October 2018, a symposium was held by the University of Sheffield Political Theory Research Group discussing Alasdair Cochrane's book Sentientist Politics: A Theory of Global Inter-Species Justice, published October 2019 by Oxford University Press. This forum contains extended versions of the papers at the symposium. Cochrane opens with a synopsis of the book. Siobhan O'Sullivan then reflects upon Cochrane's methodology of ideal theory and his cosmopolitanism, followed by a reply from Cochrane. Next, Josh Milburn explores the place of wild animals in Cochrane's sentientist cosmopolitan democracy, and Cochrane offers a reply.

Résumé

Distinguant deux sens de « communauté morale », cet article soutient que certains animaux appartiennent à la communauté morale dans les deux sens : (1) ils sont des patients moraux dignes de considération morale directe et équivalente, mais également (2) des agents moraux au sens où ils sont capables de reconnaître, d’assumer et d’adresser aux autres des exigences minimales de bonne conduite et de savoir-vivre. Au moyen de la notion d’« attitudes réactives » développée par Peter F. Strawson, je soutiens que les animaux sociaux qui sont à la fois objets et sujets d’attitudes réactives forment des communautés morales au second sens, dans la mesure où ils se traitent mutuellement comme des individus ayant des obligations et tenus à des exigences de bonne volonté minimale dans leurs interactions interpersonnelles. Distinguant l’agentivité morale du raisonnement moral, je soutiens que la capacité de raisonner abstraitement sur les principes et les conséquences de nos actions nous imposent plus de responsabilités que n’en ont d’autres animaux, mais que cela ne fait pas nécessairement de nous des agents moraux plus compétents que d’autres animaux sociaux. Je termine en donnant un aperçu de quelques implications de ce changement de perspective en éthique animale.

Abstract
This article draws the distinction between two meanings of “moral community” and maintains that certain animals belong to moral communities in both senses of the term: these animals are (1) moral patients worthy of direct and equivalent moral consideration, but also (2) moral agents in the sense that they are capable of recognizing and respecting minimal requirements of good conduct and manners as well as expecting and demanding the same from other members of their community. By way of the notion of “reactive attitudes” developed by Peter F. Strawson, I maintain that social animals who are at once objects and subjects of reactive attitudes constitute moral communities in the second sense of the term, in that they treat each other as individuals who have obligations and who are bound by the demand for a minimum of good-will in their interpersonal interactions. Distinguishing between moral agency and moral reasoning, I maintain that the capacity to reason abstractly about the principles and consequences of our actions gives us more responsibilities than other animals have, but that this does not necessarily make us more competent moral agents than other social animals. I conclude with an overview of some of the implications that this change in perspective has for animal ethics.