Every system of deontic logic, or what we might term political philosophy, must either
1) have a doctrine of 'dokimasiai' or criterion of eligibility to determine who or what falls or doesn't fall within its purview. An example would the criteria to determine which people belong to a particular polis. This means that every law has an unambiguous 'extension' with regard to who is covered by it. In such cases, there is highly restricted comprehension. Furthermore, assessing the legitimacy of any law involved 'dokimasiai'- i.e. investigations into the eligibility of those involved in framing the law- or euthynai- i.e. accountability where there is a hazard of corrupt or negligent practice and no quick and cheap verification mechanism.
2) in the case of conquered territory, the conqueror may choose to impose a 'homonoia' or universal law code. This is positive law or law as command and no test of eligibility arises for any inhabitant of conquered territory. The legitimacy of the law, too, is based on nothing but the power of the one who imposed it. It is a different matter that some may say the law is 'natural' or 'universal' or such as Reason itself would be bound to give itself. After all, folk say the darndest things. The plain fact is 'restricted comprehension' is more, not less stringent, with respect to 'positive law'. You can't say that if Alexander ordered you to apply the same law to the Persian and the Punjabi, that what he wanted you to apply that law to Alexander himself.
Sadly, no Professor who has studied Greek and who writes about political philosophy has bothered to point out that whether governance was based on eligibility/accountability or was founded on pure Command, 'restricted comprehension' was the rule, not the exception. It was Scripture based law which gave more scope for analogical reasoning. But this was based on a 'Divine axiom'. If you are not obedient to a particular religion, you have no locus standi to apply it.
At one time, Martha Nussbaum- on the basis that she'd slept with Amartya Sen- claimed to know all about the problems of poor people in India. Indians ignored her. Now she has turned her attention to animals- perhaps because of an intimate relationship with a giraffe. Since the Capabilities approach is useless to humans, the hope is that may be of interest to giraffes- some of whom may have faced discrimination in the job market or have been subject to sexual harassment in the workplace.
Nussbaum writes in the LA Times-
Animals suffer injustice at our hands.
Not if they scratch or bite us and thus make good their escape.
We need a powerful theoretical strategy to diagnose injustice
e.g. the historic under-representation of giraffes on the Supreme Court of the United States. The theoretical strategy here must focus on the evident capabilities of giraffes relative to those of most judges.
and suggest remedies.
Declare Clarence Thomas a giraffe. After all, giraffes originally come from Africa. Also the guy is only five foot seven. By calling him a giraffe he will become self-conscious about his virtually dwarfish stature. By stages he will grow more and more bitter and depressed till he finally resigns and goes to live amongst the pygmies.
As a philosopher, I recommend a version of the theory of political justice known as the “Capabilities Approach,” to shift the way we think about animal rights from other influential approaches to animal justice, such as anthropocentric approaches that rank animals in terms of likeness to humans,
which has the virtue of actually working. We are more inclined to punish those who harm animals which have traits we share or would like to share.
or the promising but flawed approach supplied by classical Utilitarianism.
which, too, has the virtue of actually working. It is a fact that a Society which lets kids torture animals with impunity is going to end up with lots of sadistic serial killers.
Originally developed to guide international development agencies working with human populations, the Capabilities Approach,
turned out to be totally useless. Still, it gave an excuse to put some White Woman on a panel so that proper attention was paid to issues of 'Gender and Development'. Similarly, we must have more giraffes on the board of Charities devoted to the protection and welfare of animals.
I believe, provides a good basis for animal entitlements as well. (The original architect of the approach is the Nobel Prize–winning economist and philosopher Amartya Sen, with whom I collaborated on this theory but soon developed my own very different version.)
Indians now despise Sen unless those Indians are Bengali in which case they have to admire Sen's ability to stay on the right side of whichever bunch of hooligans happens to be running their natal state.
The approach focuses on meaningful activities and on the conditions that make it possible for a creature to pursue those activities without damage or blockage.
But being a Capabilities theorist is a meaningless activity.
In other words, to lead a flourishing life.
for which an animal has to have the right habitat. Can focusing on 'meaningful activities' provide that habitat? No. It is a waste of time.
Other frameworks for animal welfare focus narrowly on pain as the primary bad thing a creature experiences. But this approach focuses on many different types of meaningful activity (including movement, communication, social bonding and play),
which is what ethologists study. Nussbaum isn't an ethologist any more than she is a Development Economist.
any of which can be blocked by the interference of others, whether by malice or by negligence.
or being eaten.
My approach argues that a society is minimally just only if it secures to each individual citizen a basic threshold amount of a list of “Central Capabilities,” which are defined as substantial freedoms, or opportunities for choice and action in areas of life that people in general have reason to value.
Thus, no society is minimally just. It is pointless to discuss the matter further. The fact is people in general have reason to value not fucking dying. No society assures its citizens of the central capability of living forever.
Capabilities are core entitlements, closely comparable to a list of fundamental rights.
But fundamental rights are justiciable and there is a corresponding obligation holder under an actual bond of law. Capabilities aren't entitlements- because entitlements are a justiciable type of Hohfeldian incident. This is not to say there can't be entitlement collapse because the obligation holder doesn't have the means to provide the remedy or else has absconded from the jurisdiction. Still, the thing is justiciable.
But the Capabilities Approach emphasizes that the goal is not simply high-sounding words on paper.
It is high-sounding gibberish on paper.
It is to make people really able to select that activity if they want to.
Most people really don't want to die. But living is an activity they don't get to select on their death beds.
So, it emphasizes material empowerment more than many rights-based approaches do.
What is the point of emphasizing something you have no power to provide? I emphasize the multiple orgasms I would willingly provide attractive women. Sadly, I've never had the chance to actually do any such thing.
Essentially, then, my approach is about giving striving creatures a chance to flourish.
Nussbaum is actually Tarzan the Ape-man. She roams around the jungles beating up big game hunters.
This emphasis on flourishing and on a wide plurality of key opportunities is what makes it so suitable as a basis for a theory of animal justice, as well as human justice.
This is not a theory. It merely says 'wouldn't it be nice if everybody could do things they find nice?'
The approach does not single out human moral powers as more crucial for political choice than other aspects of animal living,
Thus our moral intuition that it is wrong to kill elephants for their tusks is not more crucial for the political decision to ban the ivory trade than the fact that giraffes may well find a job as a Supreme Court justice very rewarding indeed.
and it sees all human powers as parts of the equipment of a mortal and vulnerable animal
so a mouse has all the human powers of a Mike Tyson and thus can beat the fuck out of a pussycat
who deserves a fair shake in life — as do all sentient animals.
Nussbaum is a bigot. Non-sentient animals are just as deserving. Look at Amartya Sen.
Just like humans, animals live amid a staggering number of dangers and obstacles.
Furthermore, just like Nussbaum, they can make utterly meaningless and pointless noises.
They too have an inherent dignity that inspires respect and wonder.
Unlike Nussbaum.
We see that dignity intuitively when we watch dolphins swimming freely through the water in social groupings,
We see no such thing unless we pay money to visit some place where they are held captive or have enough money to holiday in some exotic location.
echo-locating their way around obstacles and leaping for joy; when we see a group of elephants caring communally for their young
Nussbaum often runs into such elephants when she pops down to the Mall
and attempting to rear them in safety, despite the ubiquity of man-made threats.
Which is one reason why many elephants are moving out of Malls and seeking out remote Jungles in Africa or South Asia.
Our sense of wonder is an epistemic faculty oriented to dignity:
No. It is merely something some people may experience or claim to experience from time to time.
It says to us, “This is not just some rubbish, something I can use any way I like. This is a being who must be treated as an end.”
It said nothing of the sort to Nussbaum's ancestors who hunted many species to extinction.
Why, then, should we think we are more important than they are, more deserving of basic legal protection?
We pay for legal protection. Some animals do get legal protection in some places because people are willing to pay for it.
Humans will have to take the lead in making the laws
because leaving it to giraffes to take the lead in making the laws is like putting Amartya Sen in charge of Nalanda University- i.e. a stupid thing to do.
and establishing the institutions of government,
Nussbaum doesn't seem to know that governments all over the world and at every time period where created by human beings, not some particular type of insect.
but there is no reason why humans should do this only for and about other humans.
Yes there is. Making laws which make it obligatory on warthogs to offer bereavement counselling to giraffes tends to be a waste of time.
Furthermore, there is no good reason to say that only some sentient creatures matter.
Yet, only some people and animals matter to us. I don't give a fuck if Putin has a big, painful, boil on his bum.
Sentience — the ability to feel, to have a subjective perspective on the world — is a necessary and sufficient basis for being a subject of justice.
No it isn't though it is true that there were 'Animal Trials' till about the Eighteenth Century in some parts of Europe. Apparently a rooster was put on trial for the crime of laying an egg. This had to do with some superstition about the Devil.
Animals do not speak human language,
Nussbaum talks nonsense
but they have a wide range of language-like ways of communicating about their situation, and if we humans happen to be in the driver’s seat politically,
Biden is in the that seat at the moment. Nussbaum should direct her remarks to him.
it should be our responsibility to attend to those voices,
more particularly if they are your Graduate Students. Why are more warthogs not attending Ivy League Institutions? They could easily get PhDs in Nussbaum's subject. 'Nothing about us without us' is a slogan not just for disabled humans. Lame ducks of all descriptions should get to quack at Nussbaum.
to figure out how animals are doing and what obstacles they face. They actively express themselves in many ways, and it is our responsibility to translate that into political action.
It is a responsibility that Nussbaum shirked for many many decades. Still, it is never too late. She will campaign for a warthog to be appointed as the next Head of her Department.
The stories animals tell us
which animals have been telling Nussbaum bedtime stories?
give us ideas about how law needs to promote the flourishing of both companion animals and wild animals — preventing cruelty, promoting nutrition and, more generally, conveying ideas of reciprocity, respect and friendship. This task is so exhilarating and so urgent.
This is what Zelensky fails to understand. Why fight the Russians when it is so much more urgent to befriend bats and have a nice chinwag with any squirrels you chance to meet?
The ideal outcome would be for all the nations of the world (listening astutely to the demands of animals and those experts who most knowledgeably represent them) to agree to a legally enforceable constitution for the various animal species, each with its own list of capabilities to be protected, and each supplied with a threshold level beneath which non-protection becomes injustice. Animals would then be protected no matter where they are, just as whales would be protected all over the world by the International Whaling Commission — if that flawed body did a decent job.
Seriously, dude, why all this fuss about Ukraine when giraffes are seriously under-represented in the higher ranks of the Judiciary. In the old days, the Capabilities approach was about wasting the time of those interested in Development. Then it became obvious that Development Economics prevents Development. That's why Nussbaum has turned her attention to Animals.
I am reminded of Churchill's words on Trotsky
He had raised the poor against the rich. He had raised the penniless against the poor. He had raised the criminal against the penniless. All had fallen out as he had willed. But nevertheless the vices of human society required, it seemed, new scourgings. In the deepest depth he sought with desperate energy for a deeper. But—poor wretch—he had reached rock-bottom. Nothing lower than the Communist criminal class could be found. In vain he turned his gaze upon the wild beasts. The apes could not appreciate his eloquence. He could not mobilize the wolves, whose numbers had so notably increased during his administration. So the criminals he had installed stood together, and put him outside.This constitution could then be supplemented by more specific nation-based laws for animals living within a given national jurisdiction, in a way tailored to those specific contexts. However, we know that humanity’s halting steps toward international accountability for human injustice have so far not been terribly successful.
So, why mention animals when the Ukraine war still rages and Taiwan too is menaced?
Even in the human case, our best hope currently is with the laws of individual nations. If that is so for humans, it is far more so for animals. Right now, therefore, the Capabilities Approach aims to supply a virtual constitution to which nations, states and regions may look in trying to improve (or newly frame) their animal-protective laws. This will take time and work; so too does the task of framing and protecting human rights.
No amount of time and work could redeem the Capabilities Approach to Development or anything else. Gassing on about giraffes can't change the fact that Nussbaum is a nitwit.
There is no nation in which animals are citizens, though they should be seen as citizens with rights whose nonfulfillment is injustice.
Citizens get to vote and stand for office. Nussbaum thinks an animal would make a swell POTUS.
We are only at the beginning of a political journey toward justice for animals.
Nussbaum is at the end of her career. The fact is, she was always as stupid as shit. Her latest book will be her last. She has hit rock bottom. There is literally no lower depth of stupidity and uselessness than she can plumb.
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