Ethic Theory Moral Prac

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-018-9895-5

Can We Use Social Policy to Enhance Compliance

with Moral Obligations to Animals?

John Basl1 & Gina Schouten 2

Accepted: 7 May 2018

# Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature 2018

Abstract Those who wish to abolish or restrict the use of non-human animals in so-called
factory farming and/or experimentation often argue that these animal use practices are
incommensurate with animals’ moral status. If sound, these arguments would establish that,
as a matter of ethics or justice, we should voluntarily abstain from the immoral animal use
practices in question. But these arguments can’t and shouldn’t be taken to establish a related
conclusion: that the moral status of animals justifies political intervention to disallow or
significantly diminish factory farming and animal experimentation. In this paper, we set out
to do two things: First, we argue that while the arguments mentioned above may establish the
moral impermissibility or injustice of the practices they condemn, they are not sufficient to
justify political interventions or social policies to abolish or restrict such practices. It is one
thing to argue that some moral imperative or imperative of justice exists, and quite another
thing to call for the use of political power to induce compliance with that imperative. Our
second task is to assess the prospects for developing an argument that is sufficient to justify
political interventions to restrict or abolish the use of non-human animals in factory farming or
experimentation. Beyond establishing the immorality or injustice of animal consumption or
experimentation, one must show that the interventions in question constitute legitimate use of
political power. Would prohibiting or discouraging animal use be legitimate? We attempt to
answer this question within the context of fundamental liberal constraints on the legitimate use
of coercive political power.

Keywords Legitimacy. Neutrality. Animal justice . Animal ethics . Animal welfare . Political
philosophy

* John Basl
j.basl@northeastern.edu

Gina Schouten
gschouten@fas.harvard.edu

1
Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA
2
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
 J. Basl, G. Schouten

1 Introduction

Animal ethicists and animal advocates have raised objections to myriad practices involving the
use of non-human animals, including the treatment and use of such animals in what is often
referred to as Bfactory farming^ and scientific experimentation. One common theme in
objections to these practices is that their treatment or use of non-human animals is incom-
mensurate with animals’ moral status, including their status as subjects of justice.1 If sound,
these arguments would establish that, as a matter of ethics or justice, we should abstain from
using animals in these ways or contributing to the systems that use animals in these ways. But
these arguments should not be taken to establish a further conclusion: that the moral status of
animals justifies political intervention to disallow, significantly diminish, or alter the treatment
of non-human animals in practices such as factory farming and animal experimentation.2 In
this paper, we set out to do two things: First, we argue that these moral status arguments are not
sufficient to justify political interventions or social policies to abolish or restrict the targeted
practices. It is one thing to argue that some moral imperative or imperative of justice exists,
and quite another thing to call for the use of political power to induce compliance with that
imperative. Our second task is to assess the prospects for developing an argument that is
sufficient to justify political interventions to restrict or abolish the use of non-human animals in
factory farming or experimentation. Beyond establishing the immorality or injustice of animal
consumption or experimentation, one must show that the interventions in question constitute

1
Those who appeal to animals’ moral status to criticize the treatment of non-human animals in various practices
do not necessarily agree about what should be done in response to these arguments, i.e., there is not agreement
about the implications of recognizing the moral status of animals. Those with Utilitarian commitments, like
Singer (2009), are more inclined to accept that animal experimentation might be justified under some circum-
stances and that humane treatment of non-human animals in agriculture might make raising animals for food
permissible. Those who advance moral status criticisms of these practices and have deontological normative
commitments, such as Regan (1983), Gruen (2011), and Francione (2009), argue that any use of animals in these
practices, no matter how humane, is inconsistent with animals’ moral status. Our concern is not about how
practices should be revised in light of moral status concerns, but about whether moral status arguments suffice to
justify political intervention to bring about those revisions. Much of the discussion is framed in terms of
argument for the abolition of certain practices, but we take the concerns we raise to apply equally well to
arguments for political policies that merely restrict animal use in certain ways: for example, to arguments that we
should legally permit the use of non-human animals only when that use can be justified on Utilitarian grounds, or
only when the interests of non-human animals aren’t discounted simply because they are the interests of non-
humans.
2
It is often hard to tell whether those who advance moral status criticisms of practices such as factory farming or
animal experimentation take their arguments to justify political intervention. For example, calls to abolish animal
experimentation might be taken as just another way of saying Bthis practice is always immoral^; they might be
taken more strongly to claim that individuals should take action so as to stop animal experimentation on moral
grounds; or, more strongly still, such calls might be construed as demands for political responses to animal
experimentation, such as legal prohibition or tighter regulation. We think that at least some proponents of these
moral status criticisms take their arguments to have legal implications. For example, Francione (2009) argues
against the property status^ of non-human animals on grounds that treating animals as property is
incommensurate with their moral status. Since the property status of animals is codified in law and
Francione takes his arguments to undermine the property status of animals, it seems like we are supposed to
see moral status arguments as having policy implications. It seems to us that, at least sometimes, proponents
of moral status criticisms flirt with the idea that their arguments justify political interventions on behalf of
animals. Our aim is to show that any such flirtations are to be avoided, or at least stand in need of further
justification. Furthermore, even though it is often difficult to tell whether a philosopher who advances a moral
status criticism of some animal practice intends to justify some political intervention, there are some relatively
unambiguous cases, and animal advocates who expressly advocate for political intervention often do appeal to
moral status considerations. See footnote 10 for further discussion.
Can We Use Social Policy to Enhance Compliance with Moral Obligations to...

legitimate use of political power. Would prohibiting or discouraging animal use—by, for
example, imposing punitive taxes on the purchase of animal products, or, more strongly,
prohibiting the sale of such products—be a legitimate use of political power? Appealing to
plausible liberal constraints on the use of coercive political power, we argue that the strong
protections for animals often endorsed by animal ethicists do not currently constitute legitimate
uses of political power.
This paper contributes to the existing literature on the ethics and politics of animal
consumption in two ways: First, much of the existing literature on animal ethics still fails to
distinguish between arguments that justify moral conclusions and arguments that justify
political action. Recently, some theorists have drawn attention to the difference between
questions about the ethics of animal use and questions of justice pertaining to animal use3;
still, little attention is paid to a third distinct set of questions: questions of legitimacy. Questions
of legitimacy concern the circumstances under which the state may permissibly interfere with
the choices of its citizens. In a liberal society, we take such interference to stand in need of
justification. Given that our animal use practices are social practices, reforming them requires
that we overcome collective action problems. This will likely require political solutions. But
the fact that animal use is immoral or unjust does not suffice to show that the state may
legitimately regulate citizens’ choices to support or participate in animal use practices. Our first
contribution, then, is to suggest the need for a significant paradigm shift in philosophical work
concerning animal use—a further shift toward the political.
Second, we hope to give some sense of the deep engagement with political philosophy that
this paradigm shift will require. We try to clarify the burden that must be met to demonstrate
that political protections for animals are legitimate and cast doubts on the prospects for
meeting it absent large-scale shifts in social attitudes concerning animal use. We might
conclude that robust political protections for animals are illegitimate; alternatively, we might
conclude that we should give up on the widely-held liberal account of legitimacy by which we
assess those protections. Though we do not defend the account of legitimacy we use in this
paper, we do identify the costs of rejecting it. Perhaps we should reject it anyway. In any case,
we hope to persuade proponents of robust political protections for animals that their burden
involves not only theorizing about justice or ethics; it requires theorizing about legitimacy as
well.

2 The Moral Status of Animals

Some of the moral case against factory farming and animal experimentation is anthropocentric:
Factory farming often results in products that are unsafe for human consumption (Horrigan
et al. 2002). It is a significant contributor to local environmental degradation and one of the
primary drivers of anthropogenic climate change (Steinfeld et al. 2006; Streiffer and Basl
2011). Biomedical experimentation on non-human subjects may be wasteful—or worse—in
cases wherein animals are not sufficiently good models for human systems (see for example
(Pippin 2005; Engel Jr. 2012)).
There are also animal-centric objections to animal experimentation, factory farming, and
various other forms of animal use. According to these objections, these practices are prob-
lematic because they wrong the non-human subjects at the center of such practices. The most

3
See, for example, (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011; Smith 2012; Garner 2013)
 J. Basl, G. Schouten

common animal-centric arguments against the relevant practices are arguments that such
practices treat non-human animals in ways that are incommensurate with their moral status.
Non-human animals, according to such arguments, are deserving of a level of moral respect,
concern, or consideration that is inconsistent with their treatment in these practices. There are
various ways that these moral status claims have been defended. One strategy is to identify a
class of interests that are shared by humans and non-human animals and then to argue that
there is no morally relevant difference between humans and non-human animals that justifies
differential consideration of those interests. If our interests in not suffering are sufficient to
justify the immorality of human experimentation, then the like interests of non-human animals
justify the immorality of experimenting on them (See Singer 2009; Regan 1983; Francione
2009; Gruen 2011).4
Not all moral status arguments depend on the strategy of extension outlined above. Some
argue directly that some practices of animal use are inconsistent with the moral status of non-
human animals. As an example, consider Engel Jr.’s argument that the case against animal
experimentation can be made on the basis of accepting that the conscious and sentient non-
human animals used in experimentation have sufficient moral status to justify the following
Bcommonsense moral principles^:

1. It is wrong to intentionally harm conscious sentient animals for no good reason.

2. It is wrong to cause conscious sentient animals to suffer for no good reason.
3. It is wrong to kill conscious sentient animals for no good reason (Engel Jr. 2012, 218
emphasis his).

The fact that someone might get mild pleasure from watching a kitten be microwaved is not
sufficient reason to justify such a practice; the moral status of the kitten makes such an act
impermissible. Similarly, on the basis of the above moral principles in conjunction with some
empirical facts about the inefficacy of experiments in generating goods for humans or non-
humans, Engel Jr. concludes that experimentation should be abolished.5
A recent Biopolitical turn focuses the conversation about animal moral status more
specifically on questions of animals’ status as subjects of justice.6 Here the primary strategy
has been to argue that our current animal use and consumption practices are unjust to
animals. In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls writes that principles of justice do not apply to
animals, or at least that we are not required to give strict justice to animals (Rawls 1999,
448).7 Subsequently, some theorists have been concerned to refute Rawls’s claim on his own
terms by arguing that his theory or an amended version of it can count animals as subjects
of justice (VanDeVeer 1979; Rowlands 2002; Rowlands 2009; Coeckelbergh 2009). Others
accept that Rawls’s theory rules out animals as subjects of justice, and reject his account for
that reason (Garner 2003; 2012; 2013); and still others accept Rawls’s exclusion of animals
from the domain of justice but argue that animals are adequately protected because we owe
them other kinds of moral duties

4
Again, the conclusions of such arguments vary widely depending on which normative theory the proponent of
the argument endorses. For a Utilitarian, for example, Bequal consideration of interests^ means that like interests
get equal weight in Utilitarian calculations independent of species membership. For a deontologist, Bequal
consideration of interests^ will entail that if a human interest in not suffering grounds a right against experi-
mentation, then a similar interest in a non-human will ground a similar right.
5
Another example of this form of argument is Norcross’s (2004).
6
For discussion of this trend see (Milligan 2015; Cochrrane et al. 2016).
7
For more on the development of Rawls’s views on animals and justice, see (Garner 2012).
Can We Use Social Policy to Enhance Compliance with Moral Obligations to...

(Abbey 2007). Finally, some theorists have tried to expand liberal justice to include duties of
justice to animals by focusing on our relationships with them. For example, Donaldson and
Kymlicka argue that obligations of justice to animals depend on the role those animals play in
relationships within human political communities (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011).8
Suppose we accept that animals have some kind of moral status. Why should theorists still
be concerned to establish that we owe animals certain treatment as subjects of justice?
According to Robert Garner, obligations of justice carry greater weight than simple moral
obligations, because justice has an extremely high status that other moral obligations lack
(Garner 2013, 1). Moreover, Garner maintains that obligations of justice carry a stronger link
with legal compulsion (Garner 2013, 8). Kymlicka and Donaldson share this view. They argue
that real reform of our animal use practices will come only once we devise a new moral
framework…that connects the treatment of animals more directly to fundamental principles of
liberal-democratic justice and human rights (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011, 3).
Indeed, obligations to animals may feel weightier insofar as we construe them as obligations
of justice. But to think that obligations of justice are categorically weightier than other moral
obligations is to misconstrue the concept of justice itself. Justice picks out the part of morality
that concerns social arrangements for sharing fairly in the benefits and burdens of social
cooperation (Rawls 1999). We can have very strong obligations that are not obligations of
justice; conversely, we can have obligations of justice that are weak. Moreover, as we will argue
presently, establishing that obligations to animals are obligations of justice would not yet suffice
to justify restricting or abolishing the unjust practices under consideration. Still, animals-as-
subjects-of-justice arguments are appealing because they seem more closely to align the
wrongness of animal use with the legitimacy of political measures to abolish or restrict it. As
we shall argue, this appearance obscures a great deal of complication.
The arguments considered above undertake to derive duties to animals from claims about
animals’ moral status—including, in some cases, claims about their status as subjects of
justice. Insofar as these arguments are taken to support conclusions about what particular
individuals should do—abstain from or protest animal consumption, for example—they may
be perfectly sound. However, those who employ moral status and justice arguments often take
such arguments to serve as a basis for coercive political interventions on behalf of animals.9
Such arguments are insufficient to justify political interventions. It is one thing to argue that, as
a matter of ethics or justice, individuals ought to abstain from a particular practice or refuse
goods derived from that practice. It is quite another thing to call for the use of political power
to limit or abolish that practice. Or so we shall argue.

3 From Moral Status Arguments to Political Interventions

G.A. Cohen distinguishes among three questions in political philosophy that are … distinct
but that are not distinguished as often as they should be.^ The questions are: What is justice?;

8
Smith (2012) also argues that we have political relationships with animals and that they are therefore subjects of
justice. On the political relevance of animals’ participation in civil society, see also O’Sullivan 2007.
9
Engel Jr., for example, takes his commonsense moral principles, their corollaries, and some additional facts
about the efficacy of certain forms of animal experimentation to entail that various experiments Bare wrong and
ought to be abolished (Engel Jr. 2012, 219). The abolitionist approach with which many prominent animal
rights theorists are associated seeks a prohibition on the use of animals by humans (Garner 2013). See the
Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach website: http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/.
 J. Basl, G. Schouten

What should the state do?; and Which social states of affairs ought to be brought about?
(Cohen 227). Cohen uses the distinctness of these questions to motivate several philosophical
points: First, justice may be pursued by agents other than the state. For example, individual
actors might undertake to enhance the extent to which justice prevails, as when a highly skilled
teacher opts to work in an unruly urban school rather than the more privileged private school
that offered her a higher salary. Second, there may be constraints on what the state or any other
agent may permissibly do in pursuit of justice. For example, it might be illegitimate for the
state to force the highly skilled teacher to take the more challenging and less highly paid job,
even if her doing so serves the ends of justice. Finally, furthering justice need not exhaust the
aims for which either the state or other agents should act; the state might, for example, regulate
the side of the street on which cars are permitted to drive even if doing so does not further the
cause of justice. According to Cohen, failure to distinguish among these questions—and
failure to see that their answers need not be the same—accounts for a great deal of confusion
in political philosophy.
Arguments for political intervention derived from moral status arguments are emblematic of
one sort of this confusion. Cohen’s first point articulated above is controversial,10 but our focus
here is on the second point: There may be constraints on exercises of coercive political power
even when those exercises would further the cause of justice. Even if principles of justice
would be better realized were the teacher to work in the unruly school, the state cannot
legitimately compel her to do so. Similarly, even if animals are subjects of justice, and even if
ending or reforming our current animal use practices would promote the cause of justice, other
considerations may restrict the extent to which—and the ways in which—political policies and
restrictions can be directed toward that end.11
Furthermore, these constraints apply equally well to non-justice moral imperatives. For
example, we might believe that abortion is morally impermissible while nonetheless recog-
nizing that its (alleged) impermissibility does not suffice to justify its legal prohibition. Or
consider an example concerning special relationships: Plausibly, we owe certain things to
people with whom we stand in particular morally-salient relationships. We might be morally
obligated to be faithful to spouses, to provide care to ailing parents, or to engage in certain
interactions with children for whom we are responsible. Plausibly, moral obligations also limit
the extent of permissible partiality to those whom we love. Certain forms of special treat-
ment—such as, perhaps, leaving large inheritances to otherwise privileged children—are
morally impermissible. These may constitute genuine moral requirements and prohibitions,
but the extent to which they are politically enforceable is a further question.
Because justice is conceptually distinct from legitimate enforceability, the fact that some
person or animal is owed something as a matter of justice or ethics does not suffice to justify
political interventions to enforce compliance with whatever prima facie obligation their
entitlement generates. Even if moral status arguments suffice to establish that various forms

10
A lively debate continues about the possibility and nature of individual citizens’ obligations to promote justice.
See (G. A. Cohen 1997; Murphy 1998; Williams 1998; Wolff 1998; Estlund 1998; Pogge 2000; J. Cohen 2001;
Tan 2004; Scheffler 2006; Neufeld 2009; Schouten 2013).
11
If justice does not generate obligations for individuals, then obligations that the state cannot legitimately
discharge would cease to be obligations of justice at all, though they would remain cases wherein individuals’
actions—which they are not obligated to take—could promote the cause of justice. In this case, duties of justice
to animals would be, if they are duties of justice at all, prima facie duties of justice which become actual duties
only if they can be discharged by political institutions. We remain neutral on this issue. Though we use the
language of Bduties of justice^ throughout this paper, these may in fact be only prima facie duties of justice.
Can We Use Social Policy to Enhance Compliance with Moral Obligations to...

of animal use and consumption are morally impermissible, restricting those forms of animal
use and consumption may still be illegitimate.
Assume that our society would be more just or otherwise morally better if we were to
reform our animal use practices. What further argumentative burden must be met in order to
justify the political interventions—like prohibitions, taxes, or regulation— that could bring
about the reforms called for by justice? Political exercises like prohibitions, discouragements,
and regulations are coercive. Put simply, they restrict our freedom to act as we choose. To
justify social policies to reform our animal use practices, we must show not only that those
policies promote justice; we must show too that the coercion involved constitutes a legitimate
exercises of political power.12 Above we clarified that legitimacy concerns the circumstances
under which the state may permissibly interfere with the choices of its citizens. More
specifically, in a liberal society, legitimacy concerns the constraints the state must abide by
in exercising power over citizens, given profound diversity and disagreement about what
morality and justice command, and given a general liberal commitment to respecting that
diversity.
Would prohibiting or discouraging animal consumption and experimentation constitute a
legitimate use of political power? In what follows, we examine that question within the context
of broadly liberal commitments regarding the limits on legitimate exercises of political power.
Within a liberal framework, exercises of coercive political power can gain legitimacy in two
ways: Some such exercises gain legitimacy simply by virtue of being authorized by citizens
through democratic or majoritarian processes. Other such exercises can be legitimate inde-
pendently of—or even in spite of—majoritarian processes. This latter set of interventions
include those necessary to protect a certain class of interests that liberalism regards as
sufficiently weighty to warrant protection even absent majoritarian approval.
In the next two sections, we argue that neither mechanism constitutes a promising route to
justifying political protections for animals as legitimate exercises of political power.13 Those
who are persuaded by our arguments but remain committed to political protections for animals
might be unbothered by our conclusion; it remains a live option, after all, simply to abandon
the liberal account of legitimacy we use to generate it. In concluding, we briefly consider the
(considerable) costs of doing so.

4 The Consensus Approach

First, consider the consensus approach for justifying coercive political intervention to
discourage animal use. On any plausible, democratic framework of political legitimacy, the

12
Presumably, we also face the burden of showing that the proposed interventions meet various standards of
efficiency: that they are cost-effective public expenditures, and that they do not generate negative consequences
whose disvalue outweighs the value of enhanced compliance with moral norms. For example, legal prohibitions
on abortion might be unwarranted if the consequences of prohibition would be sufficiently bad to outweigh the
good of reducing (ex hypothesi) immoral activity. We assume for the sake of argument that some version of
animal protection interventions can meet these standards of efficiency.
13
Clearly, the two mechanisms for establishing the legitimacy of political interventions are inter-related. For
example, the majoritarian processes of the first mechanism can justify intervention only within the parameters set
by the absolute protections of the second. To ensure that our conclusion is robust across various ways in which
the two mechanisms might interact, we argue that the consensus approach cannot currently justify intervention
even assuming those protections are otherwise consistent with applicable constraints on democratic decision-
making.
 J. Basl, G. Schouten

state legitimately may exercise some types of coercive power (within whatever parameters
apply) based on the actual preferences of citizens expressed through democratic processes
(Barry 1995). For example, the state may coercively enforce parking regulations by fines in
ways that issue from a legitimate democratic process, such as a majoritarian consensus.14
Similarly, we might democratically choose to enact policies that promote justice—for example,
by redistributing wealth or providing public education.
Many political protections for animals have issued from legitimate democratic processes.
The Animal Welfare Act and requirements for oversight of animal experimentation are good
examples of democratically enacted protections on behalf of animals, and thus protections that
are justified by the consensus approach.15 What are the prospects of consensus-based justifi-
cation of political interventions to induce or incentivize compliance with the moral require-
ments of moral-status-based arguments?16
The case might seem hopeful to some. Citizens of developed nations are concerned, in
some cases significantly, about the treatment of non-human animals used for experimentation
or raised for consumption. A 2015 Gallup poll in the U.S. found that 32% of people think that
animals deserve the same rights as people, up from 25% in 2008 (Gallup 2015). A majority of
citizens expressed concern about the treatment of animal use in both research and in livestock.
Despite these polling results, we think that further, serious regulation of animal use will not
occur by way of majoritarian consensus anytime soon. Whether there is sufficient popular
consensus for a policy of abolition or reduction is largely an empirical matter, but it seems
settled against those seeking such a consensus, at least at this time. While there is certainly
evidence that citizens are concerned about the treatment of animals in livestock and research,
the evidence does not point towards a consensus in favor of politically-enforced abolition. It is
harder to say whether there is broad public support for political constraints that fall short of
abolition—those that non-abolitionist proponents of moral status arguments think are justified
by their views. On such views, some use of animals in agriculture or experimentation may be
commensurate with animals’ moral status, but it seems to us that moral limits on permissible
use will be far more restrictive than what the public would support political enforcement of,
once all the costs were figured in. Consider what would be required to justify an experiment
using non-human animals on a typical Utilitarian equal consideration view: Not only would
the benefit of experimentation need to outweigh the costs to the animals; the ratio of benefits to
costs would need to be higher than if we performed the experiment on human subjects (Gruen
2011). In the case of factory farming, appropriate use of animals is even more restrictive, at

14
A direct majoritarian consensus is not the only democratic process by way of which to legitimately enact laws
or policy. For example, it might be legitimate for the state to allow an agency, like the NSF, to make autonomous
decisions. See (Brighouse 1995) for an example of this sort of autonomy and whether it is justified in the context
of decisions about state funding of the arts.
15
The Animal Welfare Act (AWA) of 1966 was in large part motivated by public outcry over the use of dogs in
animal experimentation. See (Adams and Larson 2015)
16
It is worth noting a distinction between two senses in which a majoritarian consensus might be relevant to
questions of political intervention on behalf of animals. One way it may be important is that a majoritarian
consensus will be practically necessary in order to effect change. Many of those who advance the claim that non-
human animals are not currently treated in a way that is commensurate with their moral status claim that we are
unlikely to realize commensurate treatment without broad public support. Along these lines, Francione claims
that Bon the social and legal level, there needs to be a paradigm shift as a social matter before the legal system will
respond in a meaningful way^ (Francione 2009 p. 109). This claim about the practical necessity of consensus is
consistent with the view that political intervention on behalf of animals might be legitimate absent such
consensus.
Can We Use Social Policy to Enhance Compliance with Moral Obligations to...

least if the main benefit of such farming is simply Bgustatory pleasure^ (Norcross 2004 p.
231). Voters remain strongly interested in retaining access to the goods that derive from current
animal use practices (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2012, 7).17 So, even if there is widespread
support for more humane treatment, it is not at all clear that this translates to widespread
support for interventions that would yield treatment of animals that is commensurate with their
moral status.
What of the possibility of building a consensus so that majoritarian democratic processes
might license robust animal protections at some point in the future? One reason for animal
advocates to be hopeful is that human interests and animal interests often coincide, and so
perhaps animal advocates can develop a broad consensus based on mutual interests.
Seeking such a broad consensus over policies that restrict or abolish morally objectionable
use of animals is potentially the best bet for securing protections on the consensus
approach.18 We won’t speculate on the likely success of building such a consensus except
to say that it seems distant to us. Must we wait for it? Perhaps we can justify animal
protections as legitimate exercises of political power even absent consensus. It is to that
possibility that we now turn.

5 Fundamental Liberal Commitments and Animals as Citizens

We have argued that having the moral status relevance of a particular interest doesn’t
suffice to show that one’s interest sit can legitimately be protected by way of coercive
intervention by the state. This is true even when that moral status establishes one as interest
belongs to a subject of justice. But intuitively, the status of some interests does suffice to
legitimize their political protection. The state may legitimately exercise coercive power to
protect certain basic liberties—for example, by ending slavery—even in the absence of
majoritarian approval. And the state may intervene to arrange social institutions so as to
secure protections for certain interests even before majority rule arrives on the scene; for
example, the state entrenches constitutional protections for equal franchise, thereby re-
moving that issue from the scope of majority rule. These measures are legitimate because
the interests at stake have a certain status that warrants their protection whether or not
democratic consensus approves such protection. Say that an interest is political if it can
ground the legitimacy of political protections independently of majoritarian democratic
processes.
Political interests are simply those interests that are especially morally weighty, or those
whose frustration is especially harmful. Consensual adult relationships can be profoundly bad
for those involved, and yet coercive political dissolution of those relationships seems paradig-
matically illegitimate. Whether—and how—the state can protect against any particular harm or
injustice depends on a theory of legitimate political action. Among other things, such a theory

17
As Donaldson and Kymlicka note: BFar more animals are being harmed today to serve human interests than
40 years ago, and every projection is that even more animals will be harmed and killed to serve humans 20 or
40 years from now. As a society, we remain addicted as ever to the exploitation of animals for human benefit^
(Donaldson and Kymlicka 2012, 7).
18
See O’Sullivan (2007) for a strategic proposal for building consensus in favor of new animal protections by
drawing attention to internal inconsistency in our current animal treatment practices: that is, by drawing attention
to cases wherein different sets of standards regulate our treatment of animals in morally relevantly similar
circumstances.
 J. Basl, G. Schouten

must offer a criterion for what constitutes a political interest, so that we can determine which
moral obligations or obligations of justice can legitimately be coercively enforced, even absent
democratic approval.
In the remainder of this paper, we argue that even if animals are morally considerable and
even if they are subjects of justice, animals’ interests are not political interests by the lights of a
plausible liberal framework of political legitimacy. On this framework, political interests are
citizenship interests: those implied by our status as citizens in a pluralistic democratic society.

5.1 Political Interests in the Liberal Framework: Citizenship and Reciprocity

Why impose requirements of legitimacy in the first place? Why is injustice not enough to
justify political intervention? A fundamental commitment of liberal societies is to limit
political intrusion so as to protect a substantial prerogative for citizens to live out a life of
their own choosing. Obviously, this presumption against state interference is defeasible.
Certain pursuits should enjoy no protections against state intrusion. For example, someone
who makes it her business to violate the rights of minorities should enjoy no protection against
state intrusion aimed at frustrating (or reforming) that pursuit. Non-objectionable pursuits may
also legitimately be restricted under certain circumstances; for example, the (ex hypothesi)
permissible pursuit of becoming a doctor might legitimately be restricted if one’s admission to
medical school can be secured only by way of policies that unfairly privilege members of an
advantaged race group at the expense of a disadvantaged race group.
Political liberalism aims to offer a principled way of distinguishing legitimate from
illegitimate uses of political power.19 The motivating idea is that reasonable pluralism is
inevitable: In a democratic society with free institutions, reasonable citizens will disagree
about how best to live, and how most fairly to share in the benefits and burdens of social
cooperation. In such a society, mutual respect requires that we exercise our collective power
over one another only in ways that abide by a reciprocity criterion for legitimacy: To be
legitimate, an exercise of political power must be defensible on the basis of reasons that, in
principle, we can all recognize as such (Rawls 2005, p. xliv). In such a pluralistic society, what
could such reasons be? Within the framework of political liberalism, such reasons are those
implied by our basic political equality, or citizenship. When we eschew partisan considerations
and restrict our justification for coercive political interventions to reasons that derive from our
status as equal citizens, we exercise civic respect: We hold ourselves to be in a justificatory
community with other reasonable citizens, whether or not we share their values or way of life.
We recognize that, when we authorize the state to interfere with others’ lives, we owe them a
justification that they can recognize as adequate.
One type of adequate justification has already been considered: Because we have a
shared interest in jointly setting ends and regulating the terms of their pursuit for our shared
political lives, we can all recognize the value of democratic decision-making. Thus, the
dictates of a suitably-constrained majority can justify coercive intervention consistent with
the reciprocity criterion. But the reciprocity criterion also imposes the principled con-
straints within which democratic decision-making confers legitimacy. The other type of
adequate justification obtains when political reasons, reasons based on the interests of

19
We follow the Rawlsian articulation of political liberalism most closely. See Rawls 2005. Other defenses and
elaborations of political liberalism can be found in (B. A. Ackerman 1980; B. Ackerman 1994; Larmore 1987;
Larmore 1996; Moon 2012; Quong 2011).
Can We Use Social Policy to Enhance Compliance with Moral Obligations to...

citizenship, decisively favor certain protections with or without majoritarian approval. It is

only within the bounds of respect for such political reasons that democratic decision-
making confers legitimacy.
Since many reasonable citizens reject the conclusion that animals have morally impor-
tant interests, we seem not to share an interest in restricting or abolishing animal use. But
the concept of citizenship interest is more nuanced than this. Political reasons are not those
derived from the professed interests of actual citizens. A theory of legitimacy that restricted
acceptable reasons for intervention to those that all actual citizens in fact accept would risk
jeopardizing even the most basic political protections expected in any just democratic
society. For example, actual citizens who don’t value political participation might believe
that social resources necessary to protect voting rights could better be spent pursuing other
projects. A theory of legitimacy must approve certain basic protections even if some actual
citizens do not recognize the protected behaviors as valuable. Political liberals thus
construe citizenship interests—and thus political reasons—in terms of an idealized con-
ception of citizenship. It is from the idealized standpoint of citizenship that we determine
whether reasons are political—whether they can justify political intervention absent ma-
joritarian consensus.20
Citizenship as political equality is not a description of actual citizens, then, but a normative
ideal to animate the liberal project of specifying fair terms of cooperation for a pluralistic
democratic society. Citizens are characterized as having a certain set of capacities: a capacity
for a sense of justice, a capacity for a conception of the good, and a higher-order interest in
protecting their capacities as citizens. This characterization Bis given by certain ideals,
principles, and standards, and these norms articulate certain values, in this case political
values^ (Rawls 2005: 11n.). These political values are permissible as starting points for the
characterization of citizenship because they are implied by the very project of arranging fair
institutions in a pluralistic democratic society. For example, we assume that in such a society,
citizens will come to endorse different values, and that under normal circumstances they can
rightfully be held accountable for their pursuit of those values; thus, we ascribe the moral
capacity to form and revise their conception of the good. Because the values invoked in the
characterization of citizenship are implied by the project of finding fair terms of social
cooperation for a pluralistic democratic society, that characterization can be accepted by all
who endorse the project of democratic social cooperation itself.21 If the characterization in turn
implies certain interests of citizenship, then those interests generate reasons that we can all, in
principle, recognize as such. In this way, citizenship interests generate political reasons that
serve as grounds to justify political interventions—even absent majoritarian consensus—
consistent with the reciprocity criterion for legitimacy.
We can see, now, why protections for certain basic liberties like freedom of conscience are
legitimate exercises of political power, whether or not there is a consensus in favor of those
protections. Without protections for the basic liberties, citizens’ moral power to form a

20
We think that something like the mistake identified in this paragraph leads Garner prematurely to reject
liberalism’s commitment to respecting pluralism (Garner 2003).
21
Notice also that the justification for citizenship encompassing certain capacities is why the account of
citizenship is not Bspeciesist.^ Appeals to agency or moral capacity to ground the moral status of humans is
problematic because agency is not a morally relevant difference between humans and non-humans; no justifi-
cation can be given, according to moral status arguments, for why the interests of non-agents should not be
accommodated. On the other hand, such a reason has been given for the political idealization of citizenship to
include these capacities.
 J. Basl, G. Schouten

conception of the good is jeopardized. Because the protection of that moral power is a
citizenship interest—one that we share—it generates political reasons. Those reasons can
justify political intrusions necessary to secure that interest, consistent with the reciprocity
criterion, even without majoritarian approval.22 Because citizenship interests call for strong
political protections whose legitimacy does not depend on democratic processes, those who
endorse political protections for animals might hope to justify those protections by arguing that
citizenship interests are jeopardized by our current practices regarding animal use and
consumption.

5.2 The Case against Animal Citizens

Do our current practices regarding animal use and consumption jeopardize interests of
citizenship? If so, and if such interests are not outweighed by countervailing interests of
citizenship, then political protections against immoral or unjust animal use are justified as
legitimate. If such a justification exists, our animal use practices are not only morally
problematic or unjust, but also legitimately susceptible to regulation through the use of
coercive political power.
One possibility is to argue that our current animal use practices infringe on anthropocentric
citizenship interests. If factory farming generates products that are unsafe, or if it contributes to
environmental degradation, then the harms of our animal use practices may generate political
reasons that have nothing to do with the animals’ interests.23 But this provides no basis on
which to regard animals’ interests themselves as reasons for intervention, and thus its
justification for protecting animals is contingent. We might protect the relevant citizenship
interests by politically restricting the use of animals; alternatively, we might devise ways to
maintain the practices in question while reducing the negative consequences for humans,
thereby protecting the threatened citizenship interests without reducing our morally objection-
able use of animals.
Those seeking an animal-centric basis for animal protections must establish that citizenship
interests favor such protections for animals’ own sake. But on an initial assessment, such an
argument seems unlikely to succeed. Nonhuman animals lack all three of the capacities that
characterize citizenship: a conception of the good (including the capacity to reflect on and
rationally to revise that conception); a capacity for a sense of justice (which entails the capacity
to act from principles of justice, and not merely in compliance with them); and a higher-order
interest in the preservation of those capacities. Of course, the interests these citizenship
capacities generate might apply to animals even if animals lack the capacities. It is not as if
each particular citizen must take an interest in her own capacities of citizenship in order for
citizenship interests to justify protecting the capacities in her particular case. But the political
protections the interests demand are protections for the exercise of the capacities in question,

22
Similarly, protections of bodily integrity are called for by the importance of physical security to having even
the most rudimentary capacity to pursue our chosen conception of the good; certain curricular requirements for
children’s education might be justified on the grounds that they are necessary to ensure that all children can
develop a capacity for a sense of justice; and redistributive social policies and other social services might be
justified on the grounds that they ensure the material preconditions for the effective exercise of our basic liberties.
23
Given the causal relationship between factory farming and global climate change, there may in fact be
citizenship interests at stake that would justify actions that political intervention to significantly limit factory
farming, for example. See (Flanders 2013) for a public reasons argument in favor of animal protections that’s
based largely on appeal to human benefits that would be derived from such protections.
Can We Use Social Policy to Enhance Compliance with Moral Obligations to...

and so it is difficult to see what they could demand on behalf of animals who lack the
capacities.
Perhaps this assessment relies on too narrow a conception of citizenship. Donaldson and
Kymlicka argue that, although we tend to think of citizenship as a highly cognitive and
rationalistic form of democratic agency involving deliberation and voting in light of principles
and values, citizenship is actually more expansive (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011). It is a status
of belonging, and a value that governs our interactions with other citizens. Understood this way,
citizenship includes the practice of democratic agency; but it also includes rights to an actual
physical place in the world and membership in an aggregate of people on behalf of whom the
state acts. Though democratic agency is important, it cannot be a necessary condition for
eligibility for citizenship, because such a condition would rule out not only animals but also
children and severely intellectually disabled adults as non-citizens. Once we dispense with the
misguided notion that democratic agency is a necessary condition for citizenship, Donaldson
and Kymlicka argue, we will see that domesticated animals should be included as full citizens in
society.
If the goal is to secure the status of animals, generally, as subjects of justice, Donaldson and
Kymlicka’s extension of citizenship status to domesticated animals seems both too limited and
too strong. The relationship in which domesticated animals stand relative to our political
community does not extend to other animals, as Donaldson and Kymlicka readily acknowl-
edge, and in any case the relationship in which any animal stands to human political
communities is a highly contingent matter. On their account, then, protections are owed to
animals only contingently, and those protections currently apply only to a small subset of the
animals whose morally relevant interests our current practices violate. On the other hand, we
might worry about the extent of the duties owed to those animals on this account. The status of
citizen implies full and equal membership in society, with all the rights and privileges that
entails. Even those who want very strong protections for domesticated animals in particular
might be concerned about extending such an extensive battery of rights and privileges to those
animals.
For our purposes, however, the plausibility of Donaldson and Kymlicka’s conception of
justice for animals is largely beside the point, because it is just that: a conception of justice for
animals. In their argument for a broader extension of citizenship, citizenship picks out subjects
of justice: those actual members of society to whom duties of justice are owed. Animals may
well be citizens in that sense without being members of the justificatory community whose
shared interests provide a basis for legitimate political coercion in a profoundly diverse society.
For the purposes of theorizing liberal legitimacy, citizenship refers to the set of normative
political commitments characterizing an idealized perspective from which we can determine
what exercises of coercive political power are legitimate. We do not claim that these uses of the
term are, or should be, independent of one another. But even if Donaldson and Kymlicka are
right that certain animals should enjoy full membership as actual citizens, the ways in which
coercive political power may legitimately be used to uphold the rights and privileges of that
membership must be determined from the perspective of idealized citizenship. Similarly, that
you or we are actual citizens does not yet tell us what rights and privileges we have, nor, more
importantly, what coercive political means we may avail ourselves of in enforcing those rights
and privileges. Donaldson and Kymlicka associate citizenship with legal status and legal rights
(Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011, for example, 52). But the association is, as we have seen,
mediated by questions of legitimacy. We may be owed things as a matter of justice that the state
cannot legitimately demand on our behalf. Perhaps, in claiming citizenship rights for animals,
 J. Basl, G. Schouten

Donaldson and Kymlicka mean simply that these are moral rights that justice demands. They
may be right about this, but they have not yet justified policies and regulations to protect those
rights. Animals might be citizens in Donaldson and Kymlicka’s sense and still lack citizenship
interests in the technical sense relevant to judgments about legitimacy.
One way to understand the thrust of recent writing on justice and animals is as an attempt to
dispense with the fundamental role of reciprocity in justice. If a capacity for reciprocity is not
necessary for being a subject of justice, then animals can be included. This may be right. The
problem is that reciprocity still plays an apparently fundamental role in questions of legitimacy,
whatever role it plays in questions of justice. In a liberal democracy, the authority of the state
comes from the citizens it represents. Political coercion is the collective power of citizens
wielded over one another. Mutual respect requires that we wield our collective power only in
ways that are mutually justifiable on the basis of reasons that we can all recognize as such. A
political conception of the person is necessary to make principled judgements about what is
mutually justifiable. The Rawlsian characterization of citizens we adopt could be wrong; the
conception of citizens might be idealized in other ways; but embedded in the very idea of
mutual justifiability and civic respect is a notion of reciprocity-based assessments of legitima-
cy. While animals might be members of the political community in some sense, they are not
part of the justificatory community among whom coercive political interventions must be
mutually acceptable to be legitimate. Considerations of reciprocity are essential to determining
that kind of mutual justifiability, and the idealized notion of citizenship that models the
justificatory community rightly embodies a capacity for reciprocity. Subjects of justice or
not, animals seem not to be a part of the justificatory community among whom an ideal of
mutual respect constrains legitimate exercises of coercive political power.

6 Extending Political Status

Many of the most compelling arguments for the moral status of animals invoke the problem of
species overlap24: Once we recognize the moral relevance of the interests of individuals like
children and the mentally disabled, we can’t deny the moral relevance of similar interests in
non-human animals. Is there a parallel argument to make with respect to political interests? In
exploring this question, we might examine political liberalism’s treatment of other groups
whose members seem to fall outside of the justificatory community implied by the reciprocity
requirement. Perhaps political restrictions on animal use can be justified by deploying
strategies similar to those that political liberals use to license protections for children or for
individuals with certain kinds of disabilities.
Extending the political community to include animals on the basis of its inclusion of
children is unpromising. Whether or not children are citizens at any particular moment, with
the capacity to modulate their behavior and act from principles of justice, they are future
citizens. The goal of political liberalism is to specify conditions under which a just state can
stably regulate society over time. Citizens are characterized as themselves being animated by
this interest, derived from their higher order interest in the preservation of citizenship and in
the exercise of their moral powers, which practice requires just and stable political institutions.

24
Or what has traditionally been called the problem of marginal cases This alternative phrasing, due to Mylan
Engel Jr., identifies the problem without suggesting that the individuals under consideration are in any way
marginal. DeGrazia offers another alternative, Bnon-paradigm humans,^ in (DeGrazia 2014)
Can We Use Social Policy to Enhance Compliance with Moral Obligations to...

Thus, the interests of citizenship imply strong protections for the interests of children—even if
children are not themselves citizens–on the basis of which political interventions may permis-
sibly be defended (Rawls 2005 especially, e.g., p. 474). Because animals are not even potential
citizens, this strategy cannot be extended to justify protections for them.
What of the possibility of executing a political strategy of extension based on persons with
disabilities that irremediably undermine their capacity for reciprocity? In her book The
Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership, Martha Nussbaum explores
questions of justice on the Bfrontiers^ of liberal political philosophy, including problems
ofensuring justice for those with physical or mental impairments, and problems of ensuring
just treatment for nonhuman animals.25 To address these Bunsolved^ problems of justice
(2007, 9), Nussbaum modifies and extends her version of the capabilities approach, which
draws on an Aristotelian notion of human dignity and flourishing to identify a list of basic
potentialities that all members of society are entitled to exercise. The capabilities Nussbaum
enumerates include life; bodily health, nourishment, and shelter; bodily integrity, including
opportunities for sexual satisfaction and reproductive choice; senses, imagination, and
thought; emotional attachment and development; practical reason; affiliation, social
interaction, and the social bases of self- respect; relationships with other species; play and
recreation; and control over one’s political and material environment. To protect the dignity
of all members of society, Nussbaum argues, we must protect their opportunity to exercise
these basic capabilities up to a threshold required by justice. Because the notion of human
dignity at the heart of the capabilities approach is not dependent upon the capacity for
rationality or reciprocity, Nussbaum thinks that the capabil- ities approach can offer a unified
approach to ensuring justice for persons with disabilities and for nonhuman animals.
More relevant for theorizing about legitimacy, Nussbaum argues that her capabilities
approach to grounding claims of justice on behalf of these groups is Bemphatically liberal^
(p. 217). Protecting the capabilities requires legal preservation of specified rights and oppor-
tunities, but does not license coercion to induce individuals actually to exercise the capabilities,
so individuals retain the prerogative to choose which capabilities to enact from among their
capability set. The account is liberal, then, because it respects a diversity of conceptions of the
good life. Because it does not rely on any divisive and controversial value commitments,
Nussbaum argues, her list of capabilities can be the product of an overlapping consensus (see,
for example, p. 163). An overlapping consensus exists when reasonable citizens agree on a
political conception of justice, each from within her own system of values. Their distinct and
incompatible values overlap in such a way that they can agree on certain political commit-
ments of justice (Rawls 2005).
If Nussbaum is right that her capabilities approach is free of controversial value commit-
ments, then it may indeed be the subject of an overlapping consensus and thereby license
political interventions on which citizens can agree despite their profound diversity. We think,
however, that there are compelling reasons to be skeptical of this approach. First, the
capabilities approach is not, as Nussbaum claims, free of divisive and controversial value
commitments. She draws her list of capabilities from an Aristotelian/Marxian notion of what
constitutes a life fully worthy of dignity, including a strong emphasis on the mutual interde-
pendence and social commitments of such a life. Consequently, some of the capabilities—
sexual satisfaction and reproductive choice, for example—seem paradigmatically

25
For an assessment of the (lack of) attention to disability among philosophers generally, see (Tremain 2013).
 J. Basl, G. Schouten

controversial. Nussbaum emphasizes that her approach legitimizes interventions to protect

only the capability, and not to coerce individuals to act on it. Still, the grounds for protecting a
capability are parasitic on the value of the activity itself; thus, controversy regarding that value
of the activity challenges Nussbaum’s claim to have given a non-controversial argument for
protecting the capability.
Neither is the extension of the capabilities to non-human animals uncontroversial. Even if
the enumerated capabilities did characterize a human life fully worthy of dignity, there is no
consensus that these same capabilities measure non-human animal flourishing. There is no
consensus, more specifically, on the BAristotelian sense that there is something wonderful and
worthy of awe in any complex natural organism^ that animates Nussbaum’s theory of animal
well-being (p. 94). Even if there were consensus on her account of animal well-being, there is
certainly no consensus that justice demands political protections for animals’ ability to exercise
the capabilities. On the contrary, these are highly controversial commitments, as our earlier
assessment of the consensus approach demonstrates.26 Nussbaum’s capabilities approach is
ultimately an unpromising approach to extending political status from people with disabilities
to non-human animals, because while we could develop an overlapping consensus in favor of
robust political protections for humans with disabilities, this is not true in the case of non-
human animals.
Because the capabilities approach relies on controversial value commitments despite
Nussbaum’s assurances to the contrary, and because its extension to animals is more contro-
versial still, political protections for animals do not seem justifiable by way of Nussbaum’s
approach after all. Perhaps some basic capabilities can be protected among citizens as a direct
requirement of justice grounded in citizenship interests, and plausibly those protections can be
extended to persons whose disabilities undermine their capacity for reciprocity. But the
protections appear not to extend to non-human animals. Strong political protections for
animals’ basic capabilities seems not to be a part of a political theory of justice that is
supportable by an overlapping consensus.

7 Conclusion

Some will regard our conclusion as a reason to reject political liberalism as a framework of
political legitimacy.27 Perhaps this is the right response. But we should bear the costs of doing
so clearly in mind. We agree with those who reject reciprocity requirements for membership in
the moral community. We are open to arguments rejecting such requirements for membership

26
Nussbaum’s approach appears less controversial when we examine the actual animal policies she thinks it
licenses, including guidelines for the ethical treatment of the animals we use or consume, including those in
circuses and zoos, and those consumed for food. She argues that, over the long term, we should work toward a
consensus against eating sentient animals, but she does not argue that her capabilities approach can justify
outlawing or even seriously restricting any of these practices. These policy recommendations may well be less
controversial than the capabilities approach that Nussbaum uses to support them, but they fall far short of what
would be required to seriously reduce immoral use and consumption of animals. Indeed, as the policy
implications claimed for the capabilities approach become stronger, the claim that the approach can maintain
the support of an overlapping consensus becomes correspondingly less plausible.
27
Besides Nussbaum’s capabilities approach and the other alternatives examined in this paper, see Abbey (2016)
and (2017) for discussion of liberalisms that might have more permissive implications for the legitimacy of
animal protections absent majoritarian approval.
Can We Use Social Policy to Enhance Compliance with Moral Obligations to...

in the community of justice. But reciprocity requirements for membership in the justificatory
community that determines the legitimacy of coercive political intrusions is neither speciesist
nor arbitrary. We think little hangs on the particularities of the Rawlsian framework developed
above. Any plausible liberal account of political legitimacy that imposes a reciprocity require-
ment meant to preserve justificatory community within an ideologically diverse society is
likely to render similar verdicts regarding animals. Because political power is institutionalized
social power that we authorize the state to enact on one another, it seems plausible that liberal
accounts of legitimacy should rely, ultimately, on considerations of reciprocity: To protect
individuals against illegitimate intrusions, it is plausible to require that political power be used
only if its use is, in some morally relevant sense, acceptable from the perspective of affected
parties.
Within certain parameters, exercises of power approved by democratic consensus meet this
criterion of reciprocity, but such consensus on robust animal protections does not exist. The
other way to show that animal protections constitute legitimate exercises of political power is
to show that they are supported by shared political reasons derived from citizenship interests.
Different theories might disagree about what idealizations to impose in formulating a liberal
conception of citizenship, but without giving up on the association of legitimacy with mutual
justifiability, we cannot see how to dispense with reciprocity as a component of that
characterization.
In short, we think that the space of available plausible alternatives to the framework
under discussion is not a space within which one can move from compelling moral
arguments about animal moral status to conclusions that justify political intervention. We
would like to see reform to our animal use practices to bring them into greater conformity
with our moral obligations to animals. But if our argument in this paper is sound, then such
reform needs to come about either by way of consensus-building, so that political protec-
tions for animals can gain legitimacy through majoritarian approval, or by way of individ-
ual activism and consciousness-raising that bypasses social policy solutions altogether.
Indeed, individual activism may bring about large-scale behavior-change that makes policy
solutions unnecessary for generating reform to our social practices. Given the extent to
which our current practices are misaligned with the moral obligations implied by the moral
status arguments canvassed at the beginning of this paper, we are not optimistic that these
solutions will bring our practices into conformity with these claimed obligations anytime
soon. If we think that political legitimacy is a matter of justificatory reciprocity, then those
who would seek to reform our animal use practices must either content themselves with
reform that comes slowly through persuasion, or think creatively about how the interests of
animals figure among the political reasons that are consistent with preserving justificatory
community in a diverse, liberal society.

Acknowledgements We are grateful to the following people for feedback at various stages of this paper: Jeff
Behrends, Brian Berkey, Eric Blumenson, Michael Bukoski, Candice Delmas, Mylan Engel Jr., David Faraci, Bo
Kim Kopek, Matt Kopec, Katie McShane, Stephen Nathanson, Ronald Sandler, Eric Stencil, Daniel Wodak. We
also received exceptional feedback after presenting these materials at the Rocky Mountain Ethics (RoME)
Congress in 2015. We are especially grateful for Katie McShane’s comments on this work. We apologize for not
being able to list all the attendees that offered feedback. Finally, we are thankful to anonymous reviewers for their
thoughtful, helpful comments that much improved this paper.
 J. Basl, G. Schouten

References

Abbey R (2007) Rawlsian resources for animal ethics. Ethics Environ 12(1):1–22
Abbey R (2016) Putting cruelty first: exploring Judith Shklar’s liberalism of fear for animal ethics. Politics and
Animals 2:25–36
Abbey R (2017) Closer kinships: Rortyan resources for animal rights. Contemporary Political Theory 16:1–18
Ackerman B (1980) Social justice in the liberal state. Yale University Press, New Haven
Ackerman B (1994) Political liberalisms. J Philos 91(7):364–386
Adams B, Larson J (2015) Legislative history of the animal welfare act: National Agricultural Library.
https://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/legislative-history-animal-welfare-act-introduction. Accessed 13 Mar 2018
Barry BM (1995) Justice as impartiality. Oxford University Press, New York
Brighouse H (1995) Neutrality, publicity, and state funding of the arts. Philos Public Aff 24(1):35–63
Cochrrane A, Garner R, O'Sullivan S (2016) Animal ethics and the political. Crit Rev Int Soc Pol Phil 21:261–
277
Coeckelbergh M (2009) Distributive justice and co-operation in a world of humans and non-humans: a
contractarian argument for drawing non-humans into the sphere of justice. Res Publica 15(1):67–84
Cohen GA (1997) Where the action is: on the site of distributive justice. Philos Public Aff 26:3–30
Cohen J (2001) Taking people as they are? Philos Public Aff 30(4):363–386
DeGrazia D (2014) On the moral status of infants and the cognitively disabled: a reply to Jaworska and
Tannenbaum. Ethics 124:543–556
Donaldson S, Kymlicka W (2011) Zoopolis: a political theory of animal rights. Oxford University Press, New
York
Donaldson S, Kymlicka W (2012) Do we need a political theory of animal rights? In: Minding animals
international conference. Utrecht, Netherlands
Engel M Jr (2012) The commonsense case against animal experimentation. In: Garret J (ed) The ethics of animal
research: exploring the controversy, 1st edn. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp 215–236
Estlund D (1998) Debate: Liberalism, equality, and fraternity in Cohen’s critique of Rawls. J Polit Philos 6:99–
112
Flanders C (2013) Public reason and animal rights. In: Wissenburg M, Schlosberg D (eds) Political animals and
animal politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp 44–57
Francione GL (2009) Animals as persons: essays on the abolition of animal exploitation. Columbia University
Press, New York
Gallup. 2015. BIn U.S., More Say Animals Should Have Same Rights as People.^ Gallup.com. http://www.
gallup.com/poll/183275/say-animals-rights-people.aspx
Garner R (2003) Animals, politics and justice: Rawlsian liberalism and the plight of non-humans. Environmental
Politics 12:3–22
Garner R (2012) Rawls, animals and justice: new literature, same response. Res Publica 18:159–172
Garner R (2013) A theory of justice for animals: animal rights in a nonideal world. Oxford University Press, New
York
Gruen L (2011) Ethics and animals: an introduction. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Horrigan L, Lawrence RS, Walker P (2002) How sustainable agriculture can address the environmental and
human health harms of industrial agriculture. Environ Health Perspect 110:445–456
Larmore CE (1987) Patterns of moral complexity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Larmore CE (1996) The morals of modernity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Milligan T (2015) The political turn in animal rights. Politics and Animals 1:6–15
Moon JD (2012) Constructing community: moral pluralism and tragic conflicts. Princeton University Press,
Princeton, NJ
Murphy LB (1998) Institutions and the demands of justice. Philos Public Aff 27:251–291
Neufeld B (2009) Coercion, the basic structure, and the family. J Soc Philos 40:37–54
Norcross A (2004) Puppies, pigs, and people: eating meat and marginal cases. Philos Perspect 18:229–245
O’Sullivan S (2007) Advocating for animals equally from within a liberal paradigm. Environmental Politics 16:
1–14
Pippin JJ (2005) The failure of animal tests of COX-2 inhibitors. http://www.physiciansforresponsiblemedicine.
org/pdfs/research/testing/exp/COX2Report.pdf
Pogge TW (2000) On the site of distributive justice: reflections on Cohen and Murphy. Philos Public Aff 29:137–
169
Quong J (2011) Liberalism without perfection. Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York
Rawls J(1999) A theory of justice. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Rawls J (2005) Political liberalism. Columbia University Press, New York
Regan T (1983) The case for animal rights. University of California Press, Berkeley
Can We Use Social Policy to Enhance Compliance with Moral Obligations to...

Rowlands M (2002) Animals like us. Verso Press, London

Rowlands M (2009) Animal rights: moral theory and practice. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke
Scheffler S (2006) Is the basic structure basic? In: Sypnowich C (ed) The egalitarian conscience: essays in honour
of G. A. Cohen. Oxford University Press, pp 102–129
Schouten G (2013) Restricting justice: political interventions in the home and in the market. Philos Public Aff 41:
357–388
Singer P (2009) Animal liberation: the definitive classic of the animal movement. Harper Collins, New York
Smith KK (2012) Governing animals: animal welfare and the liberal state. Oxford University Press, New York
Steinfeld H, Gerber P, Wassenaar TD, et al (2006) Livestock’s long shadow: environmental issues and options.
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.
HTM
Streiffer R, Basl J (2011) Ethical issues in the application of biotechnology to animals in agriculture. In:
Beauchamp TL, Frey RG (eds) The oxford handbook of animal ethics. OUP USA, pp 826–854
Tan K-C (2004) Justice and personal pursuits. J Philos 101:331–362
Tremain S (2013) Introducing feminist philosophy of disability. In: Disability studies quarterly
VanDeVeer D (1979) Of beasts, persons, and the original position. The Monist 62:368–377
Williams A (1998) Incentives, inequality, and publicity. Philos Public Aff 27:225–247
Wolff J (1998) Fairness, respect, and the egalitarian ethos. Philos Public Aff 27:97–122