Planet Debate 2011 September/October l-d release Animal Rights
Animal Rights Bad – Feminist Kritik of Rights Discourse
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- Animal Rights Bad – Feminist Kritik of Rights Discourse
Animal Rights Bad – Feminist Kritik of Rights DiscourseANIMAL RIGHTS PERPETUATES PARTRIARCHY THROUGH RIGHTS TALK Tom Regan, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, North Carolina State University, 2004, The Case for Animal Rights, p. xli Some feminist theorists (liberal feminists, as they are called) believe in human rights. Other feminist theorists, influenced by the work of Carol Gilligan, are of a different mind. They believe that “rights talk” is symptomatic of patriarchal modes of thinking. As paradoxical as this might sound, these feminists (I call them ethic-of-care feminists) argue that belief in animal rights perpetuates patriarchy, understood as the unfounded belief in male superiority. Let me say something about patriarchal modes of thought, as they are described in this context; then we can perhaps better understand how this type of criticism of the rights view works. Owing to a variety of cultural forces, ethic-of-care feminists maintain, men tend to think in certain ways, women in others. To begin with, men (but not women) tend to think in dualistic, hierarchical terms. For example, men tend to view reason as standing over emotion (a dualism), and also tend to think that reason is the superior of the two (a hierarchy). This same pattern emerges in the case of objectivity and subjectivity, impartiality and partiality, justice and care, culture and nature, and individualism and communitarianism. In each of these and other cases, the world tends to be carved up by men into dualistic terms, and, in each such case, one of the two terms is ranked higher, as being of greater importance of value than its opposite. What these theorists would term “male mind,” then, is characterized by dualistic, hierarchical rankings, a summary of which would read as follows: men tend to believe that reason, objectivity, impartiality, justice, culture and individualism are of greater importance or value than emotion, subjectivity, partiality, care, nature, and community. More than this, men tend to think that men are characterized by the higher ranked pair in each of the dualisms and women by the lower. Thus, women are supposed (by men) to be less rational and more emotional, less objective and more subjective, and so on. With the preceding serving as logical backdrop, the denunciation of individual rights voiced by ethic-of-care feminists is intelligible. The idea of “the rights of the individual” they believe, is a product of male mind. Why? Because it grows out of a conception of the world that places greater value on the separateness of the individual (rights, after all, belong to individuals) over against familial and communitarian relationships. Moreover, views that affirm individual rights place greater importance on evaluation moral choices in terms of impartial considerations—such as the right to respectful treatment—than on making evaluations based on our responsibility to nurture and sustain close interpersonal relationships—such as the relationships that obtain between parents and their children. The moral significance of these latter relationships is denigrated by male mind; nurturing is “women’s work” and thus of less importance than the acts or policies that honor the universal equal, inalienable “rights of the individual.” Against this judgment, ethic-of-care feminists celebrate the qualities (emotion, subjectivity, and an ethic of care, for example) traditionally associated with feminists. The objections these feminists raise against the rights view all follow the same logical pattern. Patriarchal modes of thought are first characterized in terms of certain traits a,b,c,; the rights view is said to have traits a, b, c; therefore the rights view is denounced as patriarchal. Animal Rights Bad – Feminist Kritik of Rights DiscourseINDIVIDUAL RIGHTS ENTRENCH PATRIARCHAL SYSTEM OF DUALISM AND HIERARCHY Tom Regan, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, North Carolina State University, 2001, Defending Animal Rights, p. 55 A third, more subtle defense of the feminist indictment (the last I will consider) takes the following form. Owing to a variety of cultural forces, it is alleged, men in general tend to think in certain ways; women in others. This defense avers that men tend to think in dualistic, hierarchical terms. For example, they tend to view reason as standing against emotion (a dualism) and to think that reason is the superior of the two (a hierarchy). This same pattern emerges in the case of objectivity and subjectivity; impartiality and partiality; justice and care, culture and nature, and individualism and communitarianism; in each of these cases, men tend to carve the world in dualistic terms, and in each such case, one of the two terms is ranked higher, as being of greater importance or value, than its complement.
With the preceding sketch serving as logical backdrop, the male mind defense of the feminist indictment comes to this: the idea of the rights of the individual is a product of the male mind and thus of male bias. It is a product of male mind because, for example, it grows out of a conception of the world that places greater value on the separateness of the individual (the rights, after all, are the rights of the individual) than on familial and communitarian relationships, and it places greater importance on evaluating moral choices in terms of impartial considerations, such as justice, than on evaluating them in terms of our responsibility to care for (to nurture and sustain) close relationships, such as the relationships that obtain between parents and their children. The moral significance of these latter relationships is denigrated by male mind; they are, as it were, “women’s work” and thus of les importance than the acts or policies that honor the universal, equal, inalienable rights of the individual. Against this judgment, partisans of the male mind defense celebrate the qualities (for example, emotion, subjectivity, and an ethic of care) traditionally associated with the feminine. ANIMAL RIGHTS PERPETUATE AND ENTRENCH PATRIARCHY Helena Silverstein, Professor, Lafayette College of Government and law, 1996, Unleashing Rights: law, meaning and the animal rights movement, p. 95 In addition to the above criticisms, three activists suggested a feminist critique of rights. Rights, according to these activists, are inherently paternalistic due to the fact that they are assigned by those in power to those without power. As one advocate put it, “Using the language of rights you have the dominators giving something to the dominated, giving this language of rights to the dominated. And that is disgusting in that way.” According to Kheel: “I see obligations and rights as coming out of the patriarchal framework…[They] feed into that kind of worldview that says there are subjects and objects. Subjects are the rights givers and they’re given to objects…Who are we to be giving rights to animals? Is it just a matter of power?...Humans may have assigned that role to themselves, the powerful rights givers. But I think that’s where a lot of these problems stem from, seeing our species as somehow unique in the universe that has been given these powers of stewardship.” As these comments imply, the act of granting right to animals replicates the hierarchy of power. It perpetuates the prevailing attitude of human superiority over inferior animals. As such, animal rights language or even the attainment of animal rights does not necessarily foster significant social transformation. Instead, it reinforces the paternalistic and hierarchical system characteristic of the status quo.
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