ZOOPOLIS – A political theory of animal rights

Sue Donaldson, Will Kymlicka, Oxford University Press, 2013

When it comes to animal rights, classic theories aim to protect animals from the violence they may suffer, and erect a protective barrier around them. However, such an approach does not yield any significant practical results. This is why the authors focus not on the rights of animals, but on our concrete obligations towards them. This means examining our relationships with them. They propose three categories of animals: domestic, wild and liminal.
And for each, three models of living together: citizenship, sovereignty, resident status. To do this, they draw on work concerning people with disabilities and how they can be lifted out of social and political invisibility. Today, theories of justice are finally incorporating the notion of vulnerability, thereby relegating the idea of second-class citizens to the background.
The authors of Zoopolis suggest applying this recognition, both moral and political, of vulnerable individuals to animals.

FICTIONS

“Un animal d’expérience” by Patricia Farazzi, Editions de l’Eclat, 2018

Josephine, cantatrice of the mouse people, is without doubt the most enigmatic and extraordinary figure in Franz Kafka’s bestiary. Does the parable of her imperceptible song speak in its own way to the infinite suffering of the animal, subjected in turn to the disquieting metamorphosis of man’s experiences?

“Les animaux dénaturés” by Vercors, 1952

In New Guinea, a team of scientists joined by journalist Douglas Templemore are searching for the famous “missing link” in the evolution from ape to man. Instead of a fossil, they find a living colony. A colony of quadrumans, in other words, monkeys. But have we ever seen troglodyte monkeys? Burying their dead? While scientists wonder about the nature of their “tropis”, a businessman sees them as a potential source of cheap labor. The only way to counter Vancruysen’s dark intentions is to prove the tropis’ humanity. Thinking like a zoologist rather than a paleontologist only half-solves the problem, but it does offer Doug Templemore a means of obtaining the necessary proof. This leads him to risk his head for our amusement and edification, for beneath the laughter of this light-hearted satire lies the serious question of what we “human persons” are, denatured animals.

Free expression

In an article published in The Conversation, Laurent Bègue-Shankland, Professor of Social Psychology at Grenoble Alpes University, looks at the relationship between obedience through submission to authority, as demonstrated in S. Milgram’s famous experiment of the 1960s, and animal experimentation.

S. Milgram’s initial interpretation was that “individuals subjected to authority behaved as simple, disempowered agents who blindly carried out orders” (the so-called “agentic” state). But other interpretations have been proposed. “The application of Milgram’s experiment to the practice of animal experimentation allows us to introduce a new reading of submission to authority.” The same factual results are observed whether it’s an animal or a human: people asked to administer increasing electric shocks to victims responding poorly to a test, finish the experiment for the majority of them, until administering the maximum shocks.

In the case of animal experimentation, it is scientific knowledge and its biomedical applications that justify the unpleasantness or suffering of the animals used. In fact, Milgram’s results show that “identification with scientific goals was a major component of the experiment”. The individual involved is not to be considered as a performer, but as an actor who believes he is serving science. “The value attributed to the aim of the experiment is therefore a decisive cause of behavior, and not simply the authority that is physically present in the laboratory. Through support for animal experimentation, it is the value and promises of science that are often affirmed.”

Work is currently underway at the University of Grenoble on this theme, demonstrating that, faced with the moral dilemma in which the experimenter is placed, “the cultural authority of science is a key factor in understanding animal sacrifice”.

Full article : click here