Is Animal Labour a Viable Route to Interspecies Justice?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Is Animal Labour a Viable Route to Interspecies Justice?

AU - Pepper, Angie

PY - 2022/1/13

Y1 - 2022/1/13

N2 - In this commentary, I want to cast doubt on the idea that animals laboring for humans has the transformative potential to bring us closer to interspecies justice. Perhaps we can alter the conditions of animal labour to make good work possible. Perhaps we can even shift towards a post-work society. But in either case, it remains open whether is it permissible to make animals work or labour for us. Are we permitted to employ their minds and bodies to human ends when they cannot understand those ends and all that they may entail? And are we permitted to engage animals in certain professions when doing so often requires training and habituation that might compromise animal agency (especially since animals cannot give consent to these processes)? These questions loom in the background throughout the collection and while there is some recognition that these are difficult questions, the optimism of the project presupposes that we can answer each of these questions in the affirmative

AB - In this commentary, I want to cast doubt on the idea that animals laboring for humans has the transformative potential to bring us closer to interspecies justice. Perhaps we can alter the conditions of animal labour to make good work possible. Perhaps we can even shift towards a post-work society. But in either case, it remains open whether is it permissible to make animals work or labour for us. Are we permitted to employ their minds and bodies to human ends when they cannot understand those ends and all that they may entail? And are we permitted to engage animals in certain professions when doing so often requires training and habituation that might compromise animal agency (especially since animals cannot give consent to these processes)? These questions loom in the background throughout the collection and while there is some recognition that these are difficult questions, the optimism of the project presupposes that we can answer each of these questions in the affirmative

KW - Animal Labour

KW - Animal Agency

KW - Interspecies Justice

KW - Consent

KW - Assent

KW - Dissent

KW - Choice

KW - Work

M3 - Comment/debate

SN - 2002-0295

VL - 8

SP - 12

EP - 17

JO - Politics and Animals

JF - Politics and Animals

ER -