Selected Papers from the European Animal Rights Law Conference 2022

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Public Policy, Politics and Law".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2023) | Viewed by 6036

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Politics and Society, University of Winchester, Winchester SO22 4NR, UK
Interests: animal welfare science, ethics and law

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Guest Editor
St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0BN, UK
Interests: animal rights law

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

This special edition of Animals is based on the European Animal Rights Law Conference 2022, organised by the Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights at St. Edmund's College, University of Cambridge, in the UK. Keynote speakers at the conference were Dr Richard Ryder, who coined the term speciesism and spoke on ‘Painism, Speciesism, and the Law’, and Professor Justin Marceau, who gave a presentation entitled ‘Glass walls and animal protection messaging’. The programme included four panels: first, the foundations of animal rights; secondly, animals' changing legal status; thirdly, farmed animals and food justice; and fourthly, the constitutional turn in animal rights. This special edition is open to all speakers at the 2022 European Animal Rights Law Conference 2022. The conference and special edition complement the academic scholarship in the relatively new but rapidly growing field of animal rights law, by bringing together leading experts in the field and related disciplines including applied animal ethics and political theory and animals.  

Dr. Steven P. McCulloch
Dr. Sean Butler
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • animal rights
  • animal law
  • animal ethics
  • speciesism
  • political theory and animals
  • sentience
  • legal status
  • animal welfare
  • Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law
  • European Animal Rights Law Conference 2022

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 226 KiB  
Article
Rawls and Animal Moral Personality
by Guy Baldwin
Animals 2023, 13(7), 1238; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13071238 - 03 Apr 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1655
Abstract
The relationship between animal rights and contractarian theories of justice such as that of Rawls has long been vexed. In this article, I contribute to the debate over the possibility of inclusion of animals in Rawls’s theory of justice by critiquing the rationale [...] Read more.
The relationship between animal rights and contractarian theories of justice such as that of Rawls has long been vexed. In this article, I contribute to the debate over the possibility of inclusion of animals in Rawls’s theory of justice by critiquing the rationale he gives for their omission: that they do not possess moral personality. Contrary to Rawls’s assumptions, it appears that some animals may possess the moral powers that comprise moral personality, albeit to a lesser extent than most humans. Some animals can act in pursuit of preferences and desires (and communicate them non-verbally), which might be taken as implicitly selecting a conception of the good; further, scientific research demonstrating inequity aversion and social play behaviors suggests that some animals can have a sense of justice relating to their own social groups. I conclude that Rawls’s theory needs to acknowledge any animals that can be considered to meet the threshold of moral personality, while the concept of moral personality as a range property may also require reconsideration. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from the European Animal Rights Law Conference 2022)
12 pages, 211 KiB  
Article
Do Animals Have Rights?
by Bernd Ladwig
Animals 2023, 13(7), 1220; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13071220 - 31 Mar 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3747
Abstract
Do animals have moral rights? An affirmative answer follows from the best justification for human rights that we can give. The moral status not only of humans but also of animals consists in an egalitarian right to have rights. From this equal status, [...] Read more.
Do animals have moral rights? An affirmative answer follows from the best justification for human rights that we can give. The moral status not only of humans but also of animals consists in an egalitarian right to have rights. From this equal status, however, substantially equal rights follow only if the morally relevant interests are equal. A reasonably broad and differentiated understanding of our own, human animal nature reveals which interests we share with many other animals. Thus, sentient animals have basic rights to life and well-being, including volitional activities and access to beneficial social relationships. Further rights arise from special human–animal relationships that are also politically relevant. By subjecting animals and, thus, making them existentially dependent on us, we owe them more than mere protection and help in easily remediable emergencies. We thereby also assume associative duties, as they exist among fellow citizens. Therefore, we should open our understanding of the common good to the reality of species-mixed communities and represent animals politically. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from the European Animal Rights Law Conference 2022)
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