Posted on 12/16/2014 11:01:01 AM PST by Kaslin
What if domestic animals — pets such as dogs and cats as well livestock like cows and chickens — were granted citizenship rights? That may sound like a crazy question, but Canadian philosopher Will Kymlicka thinks it's a critically important one.
Kymlicka, a professor at Queen's University, is a well-regarded figure in modern political philosophy. He's also the author, along with writer Sue Donaldson, of Zoopolis, a book making the case for animal citizenship. Their basic premise is simple: animals are already part of our society, as pets and work animals, therefore we should formally recognize them as such.
That's not just a head-in-the-clouds thought experiment. We already have basic laws forbidding animal abuse and regulating industrial slaughterhouses. But, as anyone who has visited an animal shelter or thought about the ethics of what they eat can attest, we as a society have not come anywhere close to solving the problem of animal mistreatment. If we really want to improve animals' lives, Kymlicka and Donaldson argue, we need to stop thinking in terms of merely treating animals better. Rather, we need to acknowledge on a fundamental level that animals are a part of society and deserve to be treated as such. That leads you, however improbable it might sound, to citizenship.
Kymlicka and I chatted over the phone about why he believes we ought to make animals citizens, how that would work in practice, and what a world in which animals have equal rights would look like. What follows is a transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.
Zack Beauchamp: The idea of animal citizenship sounds a bit strange. What does it mean for a dog to be a citizen? What rights do they get?
Will Kymlicka: The first idea is that we've brought dogs and other domesticated animals into our society. That's a decision we have made — to domesticate animals — and the very term domestication indicates that's process of incorporating them into our world. So we need to ask: what do we owe them in virtue of the fact that we've brought them into our world?
We owe them membership. We need to recognize domesticated animals as members of our society. And citizenship is the legal and political term that we have historically used to recognize membership. The ways in which humans stake claims to membership is by staking claims to citizenship. It's our legal and political tool for recognizing it.
We?
Mine will vote conservative, or else (and at least twice).
And when we saw what a P!$$ poor job he did, we put him and the wookie back in the White house.
Sure and then you could marry your dog or your cow and get government benefits and Obamanation care. You could take them to vote too!
...and Belly Rubs.
Citizens are already dogs and we’ve let ourselves become thus, so it’s not much of a stretch for dogs to become citizens...
YES! I want deductions and bennies for my kitties!!
Just another way to collect taxes on their CO2.
In general, I like animals better than people. But not so sure they should have the right to vote. I asked AndyCat who he’d vote for and I think he answered, “Rats.”
“A German Shepherd has the IQ of a three year old child.”
That’s still better than most of my neighbors here in northern Virginia.
I’d trust my Akita to vote correctly, but my boxer/whippet has the attention span of Homer Simpson.
This smells of PETA.
My 3 will for sure. They know who has the chewies at afternoon coffee time.
Since, like dogs, most “citizens” neither vote nor pay taxes, I think this prof might be on to something.
And if they’re a victim-group, then the Democrats will surely support their quest for their “rights.”
This fits right into my theory that small lap dogs actually rule the human race and make all of the important decisions.
See my tagline? Creepy weirdo animal worship is one of the many manifestations of the corruption.
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