Abstract
There are multiple links between debates on multiculturalism, race, and animal rights. In this chapter, I focus on three such linkages: (1) does multiculturalism imply that minority cultural practices involving animals should be exempted from animal welfare/animal cruelty provisions?; (2) do Western societies apply different standards to minority practices involving animals than to majority practices, labelling minority practices as “cruel” and “inhumane” while treating comparable majority practices as normal and natural (the double-standard question)?; (3) does the struggle against racism require elevating the human over the animal, in order to prevent processes of dehumanization? I suggest that once we disentangle these issues, there are untapped resources for a robustly multicultural and anti-racist vision of animal rights.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
In the literature, this sometimes phrased as a debate about whether “cultural rights” should trump “animal rights.” But this is a misunderstanding of “cultural rights,” which are not understood in international law as exempting specific practices from moral accountability.
- 2.
These studies provide empirical confirmation of Kim’s argument that racial and species hierarchies “energize” each other (Kim 2015).
- 3.
For preliminary reflections, see Kymlicka and Donaldson (2014).
Bibliography
Bastian, B., J. Jetten, and N. Haslam. 2014. An Interpersonal Perspective on Dehumanization. In Humanness and Dehumanization, eds. Paul Bain, Jeroen Vaues, and Jacques-Philippe Leyens. Routledge.
Costello, K., and G. Hodson. 2009. Exploring the Roots of Dehumanization: The Role of Human-Animal Similarity in Promoting Immigrant Humanization. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations 13 (1): 3–22.
Costello, K., and G. Hodson. 2014. Explaining Dehumanization Among Children: The Interspecies Model of Prejudice. British Journal of Social Psychology 53: 175–197.
Dhont, K., G. Hodson, K. Costello, and C.C. MacInnis. 2014. Social Dominance Orientation Connects Prejudicial Human–Human and Human–Animal Relations. Personality and Individual Differences 61: 105–108.
Hodson, G., C. MacInnis, and K. Costello. 2014. (Over)Valuing Humanness as an Aggravator of Intergroup Prejudices and Discrimination. In Humanness and Dehumanization, eds. Paul Bain, Jeroen Vaues, and Jacques-Philippe Leyens. Routledge.
Kim, C.J. 2015. Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species, and Nature in a Multicultural Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kymlicka, W., and S. Donaldson. 2014. Animal Rights, Multiculturalism and the Left. Journal of Social Philosophy 45 (1): 116–135.
Phillips, A. 2015. The Politics of the Human, Cambridge University Press.
Roylance, C., A.A., Abeyta, and C. Routledge. 2016. I am not an Animal but I am a Sexist: Human Distinctiveness, Sexist Attitudes Towards Women, and Perceptions of Meaning in Life. Feminism & Psychology: 0959353516636906.
Taylor, K., and S. Singer. 2015. Diet, Authoritarianism, Social Dominance Orientation, and Predisposition to Prejudice. British Food Journal 117 (7): 1949–1960.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kymlicka, W. (2017). Afterword: Realigning Multiculturalism and Animal Rights. In: Cordeiro-Rodrigues, L., Mitchell, L. (eds) Animals, Race, and Multiculturalism . The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66568-9_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66568-9_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-66567-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-66568-9
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)