Nonhuman animals and the all affected interests principle

ABSTRACT

Some authors have suggested that the All Affected Interests Principle, an influential principle of political inclusion, requires that animals have their interests politically represented. In this paper, I provide a systematic formulation, assessment, and defense of this argument, and suggest a middle way between two strategies found in the literature. On the one hand, I argue that applying the All Affected Interests to animals inevitably requires that we make some (potentially controversial) assumptions about the weight and scope of animal interests, and cannot remain morally noncommittal. This is because most formulations of the principle do not apply to all interests, but only to those that satisfy a relevancy test – which requires first-order moral reasoning. On the other hand, I also contend that one can defend some substantive claims about the inclusion of animals via the All Affected Interests Principle without having to endorse a comprehensive account of animal rights, or a theory about the worth of natural entities. For the All Affected Interests Principle to apply to animals, all that we need are instances of normatively relevant interests systematically affected by political decisions. The interest of mammals in avoiding pain and suffering, I contend, provides such an example.

KEYWORDS:

• All affected interests principle
• political inclusion
• animals
• political representation
• political participation

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful, for their comments, suggestions and encouragement, to Iñigo González Ricoy, Adrián Herranz, Rubén Marciel, José Luis Martí, Eze Paez, and two anonymous reviewers for this journal.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Pablo Magaña: [email protected].

2. By ‘political agency’, I mean the ability to use the participatory mechanisms typical of large-scale, mass democracies (such as the right to vote or to demonstrate). Some authors have noted that animals can communicate with us to some degree, express their preferences and desires, or even regulate their behavior according to some rudimentary social rules – which, in their view, amounts to some kind of political agency – for a defense, see, Donaldson and Kymlicka (2011) and Meijer (2019); for criticism, see, Pepper (2021). By assuming a minimalist definition, I remain deliberately agnostic about this broader notion of political agency.

3. As such, this paper clearly belongs to what has been labelled the political turn in animal ethics. For a good overview of this trend, see, Cochrane et al. (2018).

4. To the best of my knowledge. Some authors, however, have mentioned the third element (Andrić, 2017, p. 266; Bengtson & Lippert-Rasmussen, 2021).

5. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pressing me to clarify this point.

6. For criticisms of the principle, see, Beckman (2008), Erman (2014), and Bengtson and Lippert-Rasmussen (2021).

7. Of course, different theories will include different items, and some will even want to reduce them to a single value.

8. Cf., (Shapiro, 2003, p. 52); Goodin (2007, p. 51); Ekeli (2009, p. 445); Koenig-Archibugi (2017, p. 2); Arrhenius (2019, p. 9).

9. Another issue (which I will just mention, as it does not affect our argument) is whether the All Affected Interests Principle applies only to interests that are actually affected, or also to those who can be possibly or probably affected. Cf., Goodin (2007).

10. Some people might deny that this can be described as ‘representation’. I deal with this objection in section 2.2.

11. I want to thank Eze Paez for pressing me to make this explicit.

12. One important virtue of this distinction is that it allows defenders of the All Affected Interests Principle to resist some common criticisms of the principle. As Robert Goodin (2007, p. 35) famously put it, the expansive nature of the principle appears to entail that we should give ‘virtually everyone everywhere a vote on virtually everything decided everywhere.’ Many people regard this as a reduction ad absurdum. In principle, one might resist this implication by moving from a possibilistic to a narrower probabilistic formulation of the principle (see viii). Now, by endorsing the second (and especially the third) versions of the principle, one can also alleviate some of the worries that underlie the objection, since those formulations are not concerned with the distribution of voting rights. On those versions, the principle can be satisfied if institutional devices are set which represent the interests of the (probably) affected parties. This possibility allows for a much more flexible institutionalization, and might provoke less hostility. For example, a prominent critic of the (stronger versions) of the All Affected Interests Principle, López-Guerra (2014, p. 95) rejects granting voting rights to non-residents, but shows some sympathy towards the possibility of reciprocal representation, in which representatives of one country (with voice but no vote) are sent to the legislatures of other countries. Of course, some critics will still deem the principle objectionably overinclusive. For some responses to the ‘overinclusivenes’ objection see, Goodin (2007); Garner (2017, pp. 470–473); Cochrane (2018, pp. 69–72); Vink (2020, p. 43–45).

13. These are two prominent justifications that are of particular relevance for our discussion. This list, however, needn’t be exhaustive. For a third account, grounded in the value of self-government, see, Näsström (2011, p. 123).

14. At least not in their current form. Whether they may still be carried out illegally is a different question.

15. On the problem of wild animal suffering see, for instance, Faria and Paez (2015). Note that wild animals can also be directly harmed by humans (and, importantly for our discussion, by political decisions). In addition, political decisions also affect the well-being and lives of liminal animals (i.e. non-domesticated animals who reside near or among humans, such as raccoons and rats). Thanks are due to an anonymous reviewer for inviting me to make those two points explicit.

16. Cf., Cochrane (2009), Giroux (2016), and Paez (2021).

17. For an interesting discussion on the philosophical and scientific aspects of invertebrate pain, see Birch (2020).

18. Cf., (Carruthers, 1992; Frey, 1980).

19. It is accepted by utilitarians like Peter Singer (1979) or Kantians like Christine Korsgaard (2018).

20. Thus, even a defender of the will-theory of rights may accept the argument defended here.

21. To be sure, a complete account of the political inclusion of animals should say something about this issue. Likewise, a complete account of the scope of the All Affected Interests Principle must also determine whether the principle applies or not to those other animals about whose interests there is indeterminacy and reasonable disagreement – and here, again, appealing to controversial moral theses will prove inevitable.

22. Cf., Ch and Sebo (2020, Ch. 6).

23. And, as I will argue in a later section, the same goes for animals.

24. Cf., Smith (2012, Ch. 4), Garner (2016), Cochrane (2018), and Magaña (Forthcoming).

25. https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/2867.

26. This definition is also compatible with what Pitkin (1967, pp. 118–119) called ‘substantive representation’, which she defined as ‘acting in the interests of the represented, in a manner responsive to them’.

27. There is a somewhat different version of this argument, which states that political representation requires some degree of effectiveness in promoting, protecting or considering someone’s interests. Coupled with the empirical claim that no representative arrangement can perform those tasks in the case of animals, we get the conclusions that animals cannot be, as an empirical (not conceptual) matter, politically represented. As noted earlier, the arguments on this paper are conditional on the possibility of representative arrangements for animals being effective to some extent, which is an open empirical question. My main point here is that this question cannot be settled on purely definitional grounds.

28. Some of these features plausibly underpin speciesism (discrimination on the basis of species-membership), although perhaps speciesism itself can constitute a relevant factor on its own. See, for discussion, Caviola et al (2019).

29. I am here drawing from Magaña (Forthcoming).

30. Accessed at: https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/lobbying.php?ind=G2300.

31. Cf., Peter (2017).

32. The locus classicus here is Rawls ([1993] 1996).

33. I thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this objection.

34. Of course, one might argue that leaving open this possibility shows that the All Affected Interests Principle is mistaken as a principle of inclusion for humans, as it makes the justification of their political inclusion excessively too contingent. Two replies are available. In response, one might argue that the All Affected Interests Principle is inadequate for humans and adequate for nonhumans.

35. I wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for pressing me on this issue.

Additional information

Funding

work was supported by the Ministerio de Universidades [FPU17/02300]

Notes on contributors

Pablo Magaña

Pablo Magaña is a PhD candidate at Pompeu Fabra University. He works at the intersection of animal ethics and political philosophy, with a specific focus on the relevance that animals should have in theories of democratic inclusion and political legitimacy.