Share This Article
Historical. On October 4, 2022, ten years after the Cambridge Declaration, nearly 500 moral and political philosophers from around the world signed a text that took a firm stand against animal exploitation. Martin Gibert, Valéry Giroux and François Jaquet, editors at L’Amorce, had a hand in this.
We are researchers in the field of moral and political philosophy. Our work is rooted in different philosophical traditions, and we rarely find ourselves in agreement with one another. We do agree, however, on the need for a profound transformation of our relationships with other animals. We condemn the practices that involve treating animals as objects or commodities.
Insofar as it involves unnecessary violence and harm, we declare that animal exploitation is unjust and morally indefensible.
In ethology and neurobiology, it is well established that mammals, birds, fish, and many invertebrates are sentient – i.e., capable of feeling pleasure, pain and emotions. These animals are conscious subjects; they have their own perspective on the world around them. It follows that they have interests: our behaviours affect their well-being and can benefit or harm them. When we injure a dog or a pig, when we keep a chicken or a salmon in captivity, when we kill a calf for his meat or a mink for her skin, we seriously contravene their most fundamental interests.
Yet, all of these harms could be avoided. It is obviously possible to refrain from wearing leather, attending bullfights and rodeos, or showing children captive lions in zoos. Most of us can already do without animal foods and still be healthy, and the future development of a vegan economy will make things even easier. From a political and institutional standpoint, it is possible to stop viewing animals merely as resources at our disposal.
That these individuals do not belong to the species Homo sapiens is morally irrelevant: while it may seem natural to think that animals’ interests count less than the comparable interests of humans, this speciesist intuition does not stand up to close scrutiny. Everything else being equal, mere membership of a biological group (be it delineated by species, skin colour, or sex) cannot justify unequal consideration or treatment.
There are differences between humans and other animals, just as there are differences among individuals within species. Admittedly, some sophisticated cognitive abilities give rise to particular interests, which in turn may justify particular treatments. But a subject’s ability to compose symphonies, to make advanced mathematical calculations, or to project oneself into a distant future, however admirable, does not affect the consideration due to his or her interest to feel pleasure and not to suffer. The interests of the more intelligent among us matter no more than the equivalent interests of the less intelligent. To say otherwise would amount to ranking individuals according to faculties that have no moral relevance. Such an ableist attitude would be morally indefensible.
It is therefore difficult to escape this conclusion: because it unnecessarily harms animals, animal exploitation is fundamentally unjust. It is therefore essential to work towards its disappearance, especially by aiming at the closure of slaughterhouses, a ban on fishing, and the development of plant-based food systems. We have no illusion; such a project will not be achieved in the short term. In particular, it requires renouncing entrenched speciesist habits and transforming numerous institutions fundamentally. We believe, however, that the end of animal exploitation is the only shared horizon that is both realistic and just for nonhumans.
This declaration was signed by over 470 political and moral philosophers including: Carol J. Adams, Françoise Armengaud, Florence Burgat, Normand Baillargeon, Paula Casal, Stephen R.L. Clark, Alasdair Cochrane, Alice Crary, Emilie Dardenne, David DeGrazia, Martin Gibert, Valéry Giroux, Lori Gruen, Oscar Horta, Michael Huemer, François Jaquet, Hugh LaFollette, Renan Larue, Neil Levy, Andrew Linzey, Jeff McMahan, Alastair Norcross, Corine Pelluchon, Joëlle Proust, Pierre-Yves Quiviger, Philippe Reigné, Mark Rowlands, Richard Ryder, Peter Singer, Gary Steiner, Christine Tappolet, Peter Unger, Peter Vallentyne, Markus Wild.
The Declaration on the website of GREEA (Research Group on Environmental and Animal Ethics) with versions in French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Arabic, Turkish and Greek.
