Privatizing the animals? An overview of libertarian thinking on animal politics

Although Robert Nozick was one of the first contemporary political philosophers to reflect on the moral status of nonhuman animals (1974: 35) 1 , libertarianism is not often considered to be a source of inspiration for theorizing on the politics of animals. In general, it seems that libertarian theory with regards to nature is relatively underdeveloped (Wissenburg, 2011). What libertarians have to say concerning animals is probably even more limited. Nevertheless, we argue that it is interesting, one, to analyze and systematize what libertarians have written concerning the position of animals, and, two, to extrapolate on the basis of the existing libertarian theory what a libertarian approach to the politics of animals would look like. This is, in brief, what we plan to do in our paper. In a first and second part, we introduce libertarianism and give an overview of what libertarian theorists have written concerning animals. Although they approach the subject from different angles, both deontological and consequentialist libertarians consider the topic of little relevance. The deontological position can be summarized by stating that only “moral agents -those capable of recognizing right from wrong – can be directly morally wronged” (Garner, 1993: 12). Therefore, animals cannot have rights and people have no obligations towards animals. The consequentialist position is that, if markets do not protect animals in general or specific species in particular, it simply means that society does not place that much value on their continued existence. Individuals are, as Miron argues, if they really care, of course always free to eventually pay “a premium for their preservation” (Miron, 2010). In a third part, we tackle more practical topics. We look at some of the concrete proposals libertarians have formulated to save and protect animals. Underlying most libertarian proposals is the conviction that, as Murray argues, “environmental complaints are readily resolved in a society that observes property rights and common law” (Murray, 1997: 114). In general, libertarians consider private property to be the best basis for stewardship. Does that mean that, from a libertarian perspective, there are no limits to what an owner can do to the animals that are his legal property? Would privatizing the animals really work as a conservation strategy? What would happen to those species that, for whatever reason, do not find a private sponsor? On the basis of these and other questions we evaluate what libertarianism adds –or can add- to our political approach to animals. In a fourth and final part, we have a look at recent left-libertarian thinking. We consider whether it can function as an alternative conception able to include the interests of animals in a libertarian theory of justice. At the core of this theory is the Lockean idea that just property appropriation ought to leave ‘enough and as good’ resources for others. Because this proviso can also limit the use persons can make of these resources, it possibly leads to a libertarian theory of animal protection. We conclude by arguing that, although topics such as animals and animal rights may, at first sight, seem largely peripheral to the libertarian tradition, they prove nevertheless to be quite useful to test the consistency and to explore the limits of libertarian thinking: do libertarians really accept no limits whatsoever to what you can do to your property and is establishing property rights in all cases possible and useful