Justice, Caring, and Animal Liberation

Carol Gilligan bas described justice and caring as two distinct moral frameworks or orientations to ethical concerns. (Gilligan 1982) The justice framework is characterized by abstraction, the application of general rules ofconduct, an emphasis on restraining aggression, and a concern for consistency and the fair resolution of conflicting claims and interests. The caring framework, on the other hand, is characterized by its focus on the concrete and particular, its emphasis on the maintenance and extension of connection, and by its concern for responsiveness and the satisfaction of needs. Animal liberation is often framed as a justice issue, though, I will suggest, it may more appropriately be understood in terms of caring. By "animal liberation" I mean opposition to institutions of animal exploitation such as vivisection, hunting, and animal farming. Two prominent philosophical defenders of animal liberation are Tom Regan and Peter Singer. Both work exclusively within the justice framework, presenting animal liberation as a matter of consistency and fair treatment, rather than in terms of responsiveness and the satisfaction of needs. We can start to see how the justice approach is ill-suited for animal liberation by considering the arguments of Regan and Singer. Regan attempts to move the reader from a commit­ ment to the respectful treatment of humans to a like commitment to the respectful treatment of normal adult mammals. (Regan 1983) Regan points out that we do not in general think it justifiable to harm one human to benefit others-we would object, for example, to killing a healthy man against hjs will in order to use his organs to save three sick people. We do, however, think it appropriate to harm one animal to benefit other animals, human or otherwise; at least this is the way that vivisection, hunting, and animal farming are usually justified. Regan argues that we are being inconsistent in treating humans and other mammals differently in this respect. The notion of inconsistency here is not self­ contradiction but contradiction with the formal principle of justice, according to which like individuals should be treated alike. Now we protect humans against being vivisected, fanned, or hunted, presumably because such treatment would harm them through the infliction of pain and death. But Regan has shown in the first three chapters of his book that pain and death are also harms to normal adult mammals. So these animals are just as deserving of protection from vivisection, farming, and hunting as are humans. Because both humans and other mammals are harmed by pain and death. the two groups are relevantly similar, and we are inconsistent to treat them so differently.