Animals, aren’t we? The Gradualist Approach for Animal Rights

Abstract

Among the most disputed issues in applied ethics, we are faced with the challenging relationship we entertain with nonhuman animals. There are obligations to which we must abide by, due to legislation, in our treatment of non-human animals; they mainly deal with a prohibition on cruelty and torture. When it is about moral obligations, so what an individual feels compelled to do, the discourse differs. Many leading philosophers in the field, such as Peter Singer, Tom Regan and Marta Nussbaum, have attempted to define a threshold, based on different criteria, for which animals are deserving of being objects of moral obligations. Whether based on a pre-existing condition, or built on a specific legal framework, such discourses often end up clashing with the difficulties of their pragmatic application. The treatment of nonhuman animals, considering scientific findings and a growing “animal-friendly” attitude, has become a top tier topic in the global political agenda. After a historical analysis, comprehensive of the role of science in the development of the Western-centric moral and legal positions, this paper suggests a blend of Marta Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach and Francesco Allegri’s gradualism, to reach a gradualist approach based on the individual animals’ abilities.