Animal Ethics and Sustainability: Developing a connecting theory and exploring its consequences
‘Sustainability’ has become a term used very often when it comes to eco-political issues. It has gained meaning in scientific discourses, political strategies as well as popular media – so it is discussed inter- and trans-disciplinary. In modern animal ethics differentiated theories have been established, which go beyond the scope of the important, but sometimes to less differentiated theories of e.g. Peter Singer and Tom Regan. Moreover many scientists started to explore the so called “Human Animal Studies” and “Critical Animal Studies”. Despite the growing importance of the discourse about sustainable development and the field of animal ethics what is widely missing is a connection of theories of sustainability and animal ethics. This is necessary to show that the development to become a (more) sustainable society and the ethically adequate treatment of non-human animals are interrelated. Such a connection shall be made within this PhD thesis and a normative theory of sustainability shall be established, which involves concepts of animal ethics in a satisfying manner.
Therefore three central questions will be investigated:
1. Should non-human animals be included into a scope of justice and if so, how to argue for that? This question arises because inter- and intra-generational justice is seen as a central issue of normative sustainability theories. The thesis will outline the arguments for an inclusion as well as an exclusion of non-human animals into the scope of justice and evaluates these arguments on their persuasiveness.
2. Regarding humans sustainability scientists mostly argue for duties regarding future generations. If humans have duties regarding non-human animals and future generations1, doesn’t this mean that humans also have duties regarding future generations of non-human animals? If one is able to give persuasive arguments that humans have such duties, it follows that one should also include non-human animals into the discourse about sustainability.
3. The last question is about concepts of a ‘Good Life’. One can ask if a (supposed) ‘good life’ can really be a ‘good life’ if it is based on the exploitation of other sentient beings. Since some normative theories of sustainability (e.g. Ott and Dörings ‘Theory of Strong Sustainability’) are among others based on the Capability Approach of Nussbaum as an ethical foundation of their theory, the question if and how the ‘good life’ of humans should take the exploitation of non-human animals into account are closely connected to questions concerning sustainability.
The numerous conflict cases, which will follow from an inclusion of non-human animals in
sustainability theories will be investigated in a second part of the thesis, exploring how to
(morally adequate) deal with cases in which prioritization will be unavoidable. 1 Arguments for both will be brought in.