Enlarging the Sphere of Recognition: A Hegelian Approach to Animal Rights

Abstract

The problem of extending our ethical duties and obligation to animals is an issue of considerable philosophical interest. Even as animals have continued to be the focus of certain forms of rights, the problem of extending moral consideration to animals remains controversial. But it can be argued that a firmer ethical foundation for the extension of ethical obligation and laws protecting the welfare of animals can be grounded within the unique approach to ethical life laid out by Hegel, specifically through his concept of recognition. Animals possess certain traits and characteristics that endow them with recognitive status and, as a result, are also constitutive of our own ethical life and ethical self-understanding. Allowing the harm, abuse, or exploitation of animals constitutes a distortion in our recognitive relations not only with animals, but with ourselves and with other human beings as well. What results from this is a pathology of ethical life, an erosion of our ethical sensibilities and concepts. From this it follows that the inflicting of pain on animals degrades the ethical capacities and the ethical status of human agents themselves and therefore the recognition of their protection from unnecessary harm and suffering ought to be defended on those grounds. Perhaps of greater importance is the question of the legitimacy of extending our ethical obligation to animals, securing that ethical duty, and creating a compelling pretext for the legal protection of animals from abuse. In this sense, an ethics that is reflexive in nature can provide us with a more compelling perspective that can justify the ethical treatment of animals but also be extended to other areas of moral philosophy as well. In his Philosophy of Right, Hegel puts forth an intriguing thesis with roots in much of his earlier writings and ideas about ethical life and rational agents.