What’s Good for the Goose Should Also be Good for the Gander

Abstract

In 1892 Henry Salt had little doubt that the emerging modern political state had the capacity to strongly protect the interests of animals, so long as the ‘humanitarians’ had the last laugh. I share his optimism. I am highly suspicious of claims that liberalism is an inherently anti-animal framework or that we must look to an entirely new political paradigm to comprehensively protect the interests of animals. Robert Garner may be correct when he claims that the moral orthodoxy places a higher value on toleration of individual moral choice than on the wellbeing of animals, and as such liberal theorists have traditionally denied that the types of strong liberal democratic principles used to protect humans from harm can be applied to animals.2 But such refusals by orthodox liberal theorists tell us nothing about liberalism per se. They simply tell us how some people have chosen to interpret liberalism at certain points in time. They reveal much more about a particular theorist’s personal bias than they do about liberalism as a political framework. Liberal principles have been successfully deployed for the benefit of so many marginal others; others with whom the ruling class did not wish to share the trappings of power. The persistent ability, on the part of advocates for change, to use the pre-existing tools in the liberal toolbox for the benefit of marginal others gives me great hope that liberalism can be deployed in defence of nonhuman animals.KeywordsNonhuman AnimalAnimal ProtectionCaptive AnimalEquity PrincipleActive DiscriminationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.