Postscript

Abstract

This postscript explores contemporary debates about animal ethics that both replicate late nineteenth-century concerns and present a more nuanced picture of the role of pain in accounting for nonhuman lives. By the turn of the twenty-first century, pain was joined by claims about animals' intrinsic values or special capacities. It is too early to know how transformative the attempts are to go beyond pain in animal ethics and how—if at all—they will be translated into law. Advancing a legal vision of these questions could broaden the scope of vivisection regulation to include standards beyond the reduction of pain. Another potential consequence is a shift in the decisions as to which species to protect, or in priorities among them, according to the levels of their cognitive capacities. The postscript considers how alternative approaches to traditional utilitarian animal ethics emerged against the backdrop of decades of scientific research into animal cognition and social behavior. Ethicists and lawyers are now harnessing the fruits of these studies to make new claims for the protection of nonhuman animals. Following the lessons of the history of the Vivisection Act, one can expect the coproduction of knowledge and normative order.