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Species Membership and the Veil of Ignorance: What Principles of Justice would the Representatives of all Animals Choose?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 December 2016

HALLIE LIBERTO
HALLIE LIBERTO*
Affiliation:
University of Connecticuthallie.liberto@uconn.edu
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Abstract

Mark Rowlands gives a compelling argument that, if John Rawls's contractarianism is consistently applied, and Rawls's premises fully explained, then we have powerful reasons to believe that representatives behind the Veil of Ignorance should be blind to species membership in the same way that they are blind to economic status and natural talent.1 I argue that even if we suppose this to be correct, these agents would not choose the two principles of justice, but instead ones that more closely resemble utilitarian principles.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , September 2017 , pp. 299 - 320
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

1 Rowlands, Mark, Animal Rights: Moral Theory and Practice, 2nd edn. (London, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. More recently, Rowlands's argument has been used as the basis for other inquiry into contractarianism and duties to animals. Julia Tanner, for instance, accepts Rowlands central argument but suggests that there are some circumstances in which contractarianism would allow for animal research. See Tanner, Julia, ‘Rowlands, Rawlsian Justice and Animal Experimentation’, Ethical Theory Moral Practice 14 (2011), pp. 569–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Rawls, John, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 42–3Google Scholar.

3 Rowlands, Mark, ‘Contractarianism and Animal Rights’, Journal of Applied Philosophy 14.3 (1997), pp. 235–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 238.

4 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, 1999), p. 9 Google Scholar.

5 Rawls, Theory of Justice, p. 4.

6 Rawls, Theory of Justice, p. 63.

7 Rawls, Theory of Justice, p. 10.

8 Rawls, John, Political Liberalism (New York, 1996), p. 282 Google Scholar.

9 Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 63.

10 Rowlands, Animal Rights, p. 148.

11 Rawls, Theory of Justice, p. 18.

12 Rawls, Theory of Justice, p. 18.

13 Rowlands, Animal Rights, pp. 139-42.

14 Rowlands, Animal Rights, p. 139.

15 Rowlands, Animal Rights, p. 149.

16 Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 283: ‘Thus even if an equal distribution of natural assets seemed more in keeping with the equality of free persons, the question of redistributing these assets (were this conceivable) does not arise, since it is incompatible with the integrity of the person.’ Also, on p. 284: ‘We have a right to our natural abilities and a right to whatever we become entitled to by taking part in a fair social process.’

17 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 508.

18 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, pp. 506-7.

19 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 505.

20 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, pp. 509-10.

21 Regan, Tom, The Case For Animal Rights (London, 1983), p. 232 Google Scholar.

22 Regan, Tom, ‘Utilitarianism, Vegetarianism, and Animal Rights’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 9.4 (1980), pp. 305–24Google Scholar, at 322.

23 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 4.

24 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 505.

25 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 4.

26 Peter Singer, Animal Liberation (New York, 1975), p. 23.

27 Donaldson, Sue and Kymlicka, William, Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (Oxford, 2011)Google Scholar.

28 Leopold, Aldo, ‘The Land Ethic’, in A Sand County Almanac (Oxford, 1949)Google Scholar. Aldo Leopold suggests extending the moral community to all members of the ecosystem. Even if we do want to say that non-sentient members of an ecosystem have interests (Singer would say they do not, Judith Jarvis Thomson would say they do), what matters in the Original Position is that it would be irrational for an agent who might become a flower to make policies just for the sake of protecting the interests of the flower. This is because a rational agent, though she will care whether she will become a sentient creature or a flower, will not care if the flower she becomes goes plucked or unplucked. Even if things can go better or worse for something that is non-sentient, as Thomson argues, it will not matter to the non-sentient thing if affairs get better or worse for it ( Thomson, Judith Jarvis, ‘The Right and the Good’, The Journal of Philosophy 94 (1997), pp. 290–8)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Because any representative of a flower, if he knew he was one, would, rationally, experience complete ambivalence as to what principles of justice were chosen in the Original Position, it seems safe to assume that there is no reason of justice to include the representatives of non-sentient beings behind the Veil.

29 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 20.

30 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 21.

31 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 22.

32 Regan's view is that animals have basic rights just like people have rights (Regan, ‘Utilitarianism, Vegetarianism, and Animal Rights’, p. 322).

33 Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 316.

34 Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 315.

35 Rawls, Political Liberalism, pp. 318–19.

36 Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 319.

37 Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 322.

38 Harsanyi presents a scheme for social justice very much like Rawls's original position except that agents maximize utility. Harsanyi, John, Rational Behavior and Bargaining Equilibrium in Games and Social Situations (Cambridge, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Rawls, Justice as Fairness, pp. 97-8.

40 Rawls, Justice as Fairness, p. 98.

41 If Rawls had intended that any subset of these conditions be sufficient to justify maximin decision-making behind the Veil of Ignorance, he presumably would have said so here.

42 Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 18.

43 Parfit, Derek, ‘Overpopulation and the Quality of Life’, Applied Ethics, ed. Singer, Peter (Oxford, 1986), pp. 145-64, at 145-54Google Scholar.

44 Singer, Animal Liberation, p. 20.

45 For valuable comments and discussion, I owe thanks to Robert Streiffer, Benjamin Hale and Mylan Engel.