Towards Universal Principles for Global Animal Advocacy

Abstract

AbstractGlobalization now exerts an enormous impact on the human/animal relationship, which has momentous implications for both animal advocacy and the future of animal law. Animal abuse is being outsourced as animal experimentation heads east and agricultural animal production moves south. As a result of, among other things, outsourcing and other impacts of globalization on the industries of animal experimentation and animal agricultural production, parochialism and ‘one state’ strategies will not ultimately be effective in ending animal abuse. Animal advocates and lawyers must therefore construct theories, strategies, principles and campaigns that have resonance around the globe and traverse seemingly impenetrable cultural divides. To accomplish this crossing of cultural boundaries, it is paramount to fashion a common language – one which expresses cross-culturally accepted universal principles. This article proposes a methodology for generating these universal principles for animal advocacy and legal policy proposals, loosely based on Feminist Care Theory, positing that moral principles are based on feelings of compassion, sympathy and empathy. The specific basal notion proposed for grounding these universal principles for animal advocacy and legal policy proposals is the concept of ‘caring’, defined as ‘the suite of feelings and cognitions that an emotionally sound human experiences in response to focusing attention on the suffering of others’. Based on this foundational notion, several examples of uses of animals are analyzed and exemplar universal principles and legal policy proposals are derived.