Keywords

1 ‘External’ Arguments Against Using Animals

So far in this book, I have proposed amendments to Kant’s moral philosophy that enable us to include animals in moral concern. Precisely those who are typically inclined to dismiss Kant’s philosophy due to its disagreeable consequences in animal ethics thus receive new theoretical resources. In this final part of the book, my aim is to illustrate what animal ethicists might do with these resources. The arguments in this chapter and the subsequent two are not, strictly speaking, ‘implications’ or ‘applications’ of the proposed theory. The coming chapters are going to take the perspective of Kantianism for Animals as a starting point, but will each make some additional philosophical move or add a further modification of the framework. In doing so, they rather present creative variations over themes from the book up to this point. My hope in presenting these variations is that they encourage other animal ethicists to come up with ideas of their own for how to use or amend the framework.

To start with, one striking feature that sets Kantianism for Animals apart from many other views in animal ethics is its characteristic emphasis on the motive of action. Not only does this framework put great weight on what Kant calls the incentive of an action (either respect for the moral law or inclination), but its material moral guidance comes primarily in the unit of duties of virtue, which name the ends for which we ought to strive and the practical-emotional stances which we ought to adopt. This can come in handy for animal ethicists when more traditional considerations—say, about the wrongness of incurring bad consequences for animals—fail to adequately express what is ethically problematic about a practice.

One of the most prominent examples is the practice of animal use. What is at issue here is the use of live animals as means to human ends, be it in food industries, in research, in entertainment, and so on.Footnote 1 In the animal rights movement and in academic animal ethics, there exists a camp of people who think that there is something inherently objectionable about using animals as means to our happiness. A view along these lines often underpins veganism. However, it is surprisingly difficult to find a direct argument for this view in the literature. I am going to argue that Kantianism for Animals offers a novel argument against most of what we ordinarily call ‘animal use’. In doing so, my approach adds to the traditional case against animal use, while also helping to specify what makes animal use problematic.

My argument will take the following steps. First, I will explain in more detail what gaps there are to fill in the traditional case against animal use. Secondly, I will explain what Kantianism for Animals can contribute. The argument, in a nutshell, will be that what critics mean by ‘animal use’ is the treatment of animals as a means to the end of our own happiness. The trouble with the associated stance towards others is that it treats our own self-interest as a limiting condition on our duty to promote the happiness of others. But our duties should restrict our pursuit of self-interest, not vice versa. This stance, I will suggest, is opposed to duty in a similar way as the vices discussed by Kant in the Doctrine of Virtue. Therefore, animal use is opposed to duty. I conclude by highlighting some features which set this Kantian argument apart from earlier arguments.

To situate the argument in the literature, consider the traditional dialectic when it comes to the ethics of animal use: In one camp, there are said to be the moderates, dubbed ‘welfarists’. On their view, the strategic focus of the animal rights movement should lie on gradually improving the conditions under which animals are used. In the other camp, there are the radicals, usually designated as ‘abolitionists’. Rather than merely demanding improved conditions for animals, abolitionists are understood to demand the total and sudden abolition of all animal use (Francione 1996; Dunayer 2004; Francione and Garner 2010; Wrenn 2012).

A note on the terminology: The notion of ‘abolitionism’ and the associated abolitionism-welfarism distinction are problematic for several reasons.Footnote 2 First, the term ‘abolitionism’ is purposely taken from the history of American slavery (e.g. Francione 1996, 47). The practice of drawing comparisons between animal exploitation and the enslavement of human beings has been subject to strong criticism (Kim 2018). Secondly, the abolitionism-welfarism distinction presents a false dichotomy. One might also set out to abolish all animal use gradually, by means of incremental improvements in welfare regulation (Francione and Garner 2010, 135). Hence, the distinction is not exhaustive, although it misleadingly appears so.Footnote 3 Third, the abolitionism-welfarism distinction equates incrementalism with incrementalism regarding animal welfare improvements. But one could just as well be an incrementalist in other respects. For instance, one might try to abolish animal use by incrementally changing animals’ legal status as property, granting them more and more features of legal subjecthood. This trend of ‘subjectivisation’ is already visible in certain legislations (Stucki 2016, 138, see Sect. 1.1). One might also pursue a strategy of small steps to reduce subsidies to animal industries and to increase people’s ability to leave these industries, but the abolitionism-welfarism distinction obscures these options. To avoid all these difficulties, I will refrain from using the label ‘abolitionism’ altogether. Instead of arguments ‘for abolitionism’, I will simply be talking about arguments ‘against animal use’.

It can be useful to distinguish between two types of arguments against animal use: Internal arguments scrutinise the notion of ‘animal use’ and provide an explanation why all animal use is inherently objectionable. External arguments, by contrast, merely point out objectionable consequences or preconditions of animal use. For instance, an animal advocate might explain that suffering and death are routinely inflicted upon animals in all industries that use them. An external argument then implies that ending all animal use is the only surefire way to avoid bad consequences, or that the avoidance of bad prerequisites also entails the end of animal use.

External arguments can have certain practical advantages. Elaborating on the various respects in which animal use leads to suffering and death can be a powerful rhetorical device. It also gives animal advocates a welcome opportunity to educate their audience on the grim reality of animal use. A weakness of such arguments is however that they cannot determine whether there is anything inherently wrong with animal use. Hence, the most natural response to external arguments speaks out in favour of more ‘humane’ animal use. After all, if bad consequences are all that is problematic about animal use, then the parsimonious solution lies in adopting or developing practices of animal use that avoid these consequences. However, animal advocates who argue against animal use are typically not interested in this search for ‘humane’ animal use. Their gut feeling tells them rather that there is something morally awry with wanting to ‘use’ animals in the first place. External arguments fail to capture and convey this feeling. So external arguments can steer the discussion in a direction unwelcome to the radicals who have started the conversation in the first place, and they fail to capture the point that motivates them. For this reason, radical animal advocates should not content themselves with only external arguments against animal use.

Internal arguments against animal use are not completely absent from the debate. Torres hints at one when he writes: “The moment we use another being instrumentally, as means to our ends, we have denied that being its right to exist on its own terms, whether that being is human or non-human” (Torres 2007, 26).Footnote 4 However, such remarks can usually be found in the margins of animal advocates’ texts, while the main body relies on external arguments. This is certainly true for the work of the two scholars most commonly associated with the label ‘abolitionism’: Regan, and the label’s inventor, Francione. Let me briefly explain why their arguments against using animals should be considered external.

As Regan’s readers might expect, he takes issue with any treatment of animals which violates their rights. He makes this point explicit when it comes to animal agriculture:

It is true—and this point bears emphasis—that the ultimate objective of the rights view is the total dissolution of the animal industry as we know it, an objective that should hardly be surprising, given the rights view’s verdict that, as presently conducted, this industry violates the rights of farm animals. (Regan 2004, 348)

Regan also favours the dissolution of other branches of animal use, such as in biomedical research (Regan 2004, 388), education (Regan 2004, 364), and hunting and trapping (Regan 2004, 353). In general, the rights view “calls on each of us to strive to make the world better by withholding our direct support from the major animal exploiting industries” (Regan 2003, 118).

It is fairly obvious how the actual ways in which animals are used violate the central right postulated by Regan, namely the right not to be harmed (Regan 2004, 279ff.). This is so especially if we consider death to be a harm, as Regan does (Regan 2004, 99ff.). Most actual instances of animal use, including in the egg and dairy industry, require the killing of surplus or unprofitable animals, and great bodily and psychological harm is inflicted on the respective animals for human gain. Hence, the most straightforward general argument against animal use we can draw from Regan’s rights view runs as follows:

Regan’s argument against animal use

  1. (1)

    Using animals leads to violations of the right not to be harmed.

  2. (2)

    It is objectionable to violate the right not to be harmed.

  3. (3)

    Therefore, using animals is objectionable.

But notice that this is an external argument. It moves from a claim about an objectionable consequence of animal use (1) to the wrongness of animal use (3). But first, one could question if (1) is true without exception, or whether a harmless mode of animal use is possible. Secondly, even harmful animal use does not consist only of harmful actions. What the argument primarily shows, then, is that certain actions in the context of use are objectionable, namely those that inflict suffering and death on animals. In animal agriculture, for instance, animal use also involves feeding animals, cleaning their enclosures, providing some medical care, and so on. Is the only problem with using animals that it (usually) ends up involving certain objectionable actions, or does Regan also have something more direct to say against animal use as such?

The general difficulty in constructing an internal argument from Regan’s approach is that the ‘rights view’ is, fundamentally, a theory of moral boundaries that we must not transgress. Rights are “a kind of protective moral shield, something we might picture as an invisible No Trespassing sign” (Regan 2003, 25). Hence, the rights theorist criticises actions in terms of their consequences on rights-bearers, not in terms of the practices or motives of the trespasser. But this makes it very hard to make a case without loopholes against any particular practice, unless rights-violating consequences form a part of its definition.

When it comes to the practice of animal use, the straightforward workaround for the rights theorist would be to posit a blanket right not to be used. No such right appears in Regan’s work. The closest, it seems, is the right to respectful treatment (Regan 2004, 276). To make the case against animal use, we would have to appeal to an account of what constitutes respectful treatment and to the premiss that there is something disrespectful about using animals per se. This does not sound too far off Regan’s views. But what is it to treat someone with respect, Regan-style? As he puts it himself, the ‘respect principle’ demands that we do not treat individuals “as if their value depended upon their utility relative to the interests of others” (Regan 2004, 248f.). To be sure, this description fits most actual instances of animal use. When animals are routinely killed, packed, and sold, this treatment indeed looks as if it is guided by purely instrumental considerations. But again, is it so clear that using animals entails that we treat them as merely instrumentally valuable? Might we not also, in using animals, treat them as both inherently and instrumentally valuable, or switch between the two modes of treatment during the process of animal use?

Here, the undesirable effect of external arguments begins to set in. The debate from this point onwards revolves around examples of supposedly ‘humane’ animal use. It would frankly seem ad hoc for Regan to argue that an instance of animal use which does not violate any other rights, including the right not to be harmed, still violates the right to respectful treatment. In other words, the only uncontroversial examples of violations of the right to respectful treatment also involve, at the same time, violations of other rights. Factory farming is clearly in violation of the right to respectful treatment, but only because it also violates the right not to be harmed. But then, Regan’s approach leaves it open whether there is anything morally objectionable about animal use as such. There is no internal argument against animal use to be found here, only an argument against typical rights-violating consequences of animal use.

We encounter the inverse problem when reading Francione: Where Regan’s argument mainly revolves around the consequences of animal use, Francione’s revolves around a prerequisite of animal use, namely the legal status of animals as property:

The abolition of animal exploitation necessarily requires a paradigm shift away from the status of animals as property […]. Personhood is inconsistent with the property status of animals and with any animal use, however ‘humane’. (Francione and Garner 2010, 4)

Francione’s main line of reasoning is that animals’ legal status as property puts them on unequal legal footing with persons (Francione 1995, 18f.). After all, the interests of legal persons can enjoy the special protection granted by legal rights, the interests of property cannot (Francione 1995, 32). Therefore, even trivial interests of human beings and corporations can legally trump the most vital interests of animals. To pick an example, this inequality is what accounts for the legality of killing animals merely for monetary gain (ibid.). The interest in killing animals may be covered by a legal right protecting economic liberty, say, while the animal lacks any legal rights whatsoever which could protect its interest in not being killed. It is clear which side the law must favour. In order to solve the problem once and for all, Francione calls for the abolishment of animals’ property status. That animal use must be abolished is then merely a corollary. To roughly summarise:

Francione’s argument against animal use

  1. (4)

    Using animals requires treating them as property.

  2. (5)

    Treating animals as property is objectionable.

  3. (6)

    Therefore, using animals is objectionable.

This is an external argument in that it moves from a premiss about an objectionable prerequisite of animal use (4) to the wrongness of animal use (6). Against the backdrop of his argument, Francione’s primary interlocutor is ‘welfarism’. If we merely aim to improve the conditions under which animals are used, argues Francione, we fail to address the real problem. In this context, the claim that all animal use is objectionable does not take centre stage. And indeed, it is rather unclear why Francione’s argument against the property status of animals would be an argument against all animal use as such. It only clearly condemns animal use that relies on animals’ property status. The argument is not designed to cover, say, instances of animal use that occur outside of any organised polity, or in a polity that does not recognise the institution of property. And even if we take the institution of property for granted, the question remains why we could not both furnish animals with legal rights and simultaneously continue to use them, assuming this use does not violate their rights (as Cochrane suggests, Cochrane 2012).

The situation is similar in the work of other writers who oppose animal use, such as Dunayer (2004), Torres (2007), and Wrenn (2015). Because the typical consequences (and arguably, the prerequisites) of animal use are so obviously morally objectionable, opponents of animal use have not focused on showing that animal use is inherently objectionable. But for this reason, animal ethics has yet to see an internal argument against animal use. So the case against animal use is still missing the crucial piece that really makes it tick. In the following, let me explain how Kantianism for Animals can help to fill this gap.

2 A Kantian-for-Animals ‘Internal’ Argument Against Animal Use

As we have seen in Chaps. 2 and 7, Kant devotes much of his attention in ethics to duties in terms of practical-emotional stances which we ought either to adopt or avoid. Those we ought to adopt are simply called duties of virtue, and they name practical-emotional stances which befit our moral task: to promote the happiness of others and our own moral perfection. The stances we ought to avoid Kant calls vices (MM 6:458.21; MM 6:465.04). They are attitudes or mindsets we adopt voluntarily which are “directly (contrarie) opposed” (MM 6:458.20) to duty. That is not to say that vices make it strictly impossible for us to act as we ought. But they are unhelpful for our moral task, so that even if we do manage to act as we ought, it was only despite our vices. Insofar as Kant morally discourages vices, he views adopting them and acting from them as ethically objectionable.

To name an example, consider Kant’s prohibition of malicious glee. By this term, Kant means a practical-emotional stance we adopt whenever we take pleasure in the misfortune of others (MM 6:459.36). Evidently, this is a morally dubious stance, given the basic predicament of the Kantian moral agent: to strive for the pleasant by nature while striving for the good by reason. If our duty is to promote the happiness of others, of course we should not set out to take pleasure in their misfortune. The stance of malicious glee is a stance directly opposed to duty. Therefore, it is a vice, and it is objectionable to adopt it, let alone act from it.

Kantianism for Animals offers a novel objection against animal use: What we usually mean by ‘animal use’ is a practice inherently based on a stance that is a Kantian vice. To back up this claim with an argument, let me give an account of what stance I presume to be inherent in animal use and an explanation why it is contrary to duty.

First, what stance should we presume an animal user to take towards animals? The easiest option would be to adapt Regan’s account of disrespect and claim that animal users take a purely instrumental stance towards animals, viewing them not as patients whose happiness is to be promoted, but purely as ordinary things to be used to our benefit. It would be straightforward that such a stance would be opposed to duty, hence a vice. However, as we have already seen, it is uncharitable to suppose that all animal users are quite so cold-hearted. Someone might use animals while viewing them as simultaneously inherently valuable and instrumentally valuable, or switch between the two perspectives from one moment to the next.

More plausible and charitable is it to suppose that animal users act from a mindset that contains at least an element of practical benevolence: The animal user sets out to promote the happiness of the animal insofar as it is compatible with a certain human end. An animal user who acts from this stance is not bound to promote the happiness of animals only insofar as it contributes to a further end (say, feeding animals to fatten them up). They may also take deliberate steps to promote the happiness of animals in ways that do not recognisably affect the further end (say, petting the animals to comfort them). As for the further end involved, we need not be overly specific. One might use animals in order to create some product, render some service, or simply to make a living. Inherent in the notion of ‘animal use’—the thing opponents of animal use are against—is however that it is a practice we pursue for our own sake at the end of the day. It is a practice devised to promote an end the animal user pursues for the sake of their own happiness. So we can characterise the stance inherent in practices of animal use as putting a self-interested limit on practical benevolence.

Secondly, why is such a stance a Kantian vice? To be sure, putting a self-interested limit on practical benevolence is not as simple a vice as malicious glee. It does not straightforwardly associate another’s misfortune with pleasure, and the moral challenge it poses is not that it makes us squarely antagonistic towards others. Rather, putting such a limit on practical benevolence is opposed to duty because it presents our own, non-moral ends as superior to the obligatory ends of pure reason. It puts a structural obstacle in the way of our pursuit of the obligatory end of another’s happiness. Our pursuit of this obligatory end should not be restricted by any non-moral ends, but only by our other duties.

As we saw in Sect. 2.4 above, the vocabulary of practical-emotional stances represents a middle level of generality at which we can describe our duties. At a higher level of generality, our duties can be put in terms of the two obligatory ends, which are the happiness of others and our own moral perfection. Conversely, zooming in on our ethical duties towards others, we can also describe them in a more fine-grained way, in terms of the ends of others we ought to adopt. An important point, recall, is that Kant does not ask us to simply adopt another’s next best end. Our duty is rather to assist others in their own endeavours, insofar as those endeavours in turn promote their happiness. If we help along another’s own endeavours in a way that ultimately undermines their happiness instead of promoting it, we have not been beneficent. But this is what we do in the seemingly more beneficent actions involved in animal use—say, when we feed an animal, but only in order to fatten it up for slaughter. By providing food, we may help along the animal’s next best end, namely food intake, but we do not promote the point of this end which would connect it to the animal’s happiness, namely nutrition and ultimately survival.Footnote 5 So according to a Kantian conception of practical benevolence, the actions an animal user takes to promote the animal’s happiness ‘locally’, but without regard for its happiness ‘globally’, do not qualify as truly benevolent.

Returning to the vocabulary of practical-emotional stances, Kantianism for Animals’ basic argument against animal use runs as follows:

The Kantian internal argument against animal use

  1. (7)

    To ‘use’ animals is to put a self-interested limit on practical benevolence towards them.

  2. (8)

    Putting a self-interested limit on practical benevolence towards others is a vice.

  3. (9)

    Therefore, the animal user’s stance is a vice.

It may be somewhat surprising to see a Kantian argument against animal use which does not appeal to the principle that others must not be treated as mere means. As we have seen in Chap. 4, Kantianism for Animals relies on a reading of Kantian ethics on which the Formula of Humanity—which asks us never to treat humanity in our own person or in the person of any other as a mere means (GMS 4:429.10–13)—does not play a central role in the derivation of specific duties. It is a purely formal principle of autonomous willing which tells us something about how a good will wills, without giving us a very clear picture of what it wills. If a Kantian argument instead started with the premiss that animals must never be treated as mere means, the obvious question would be what ‘treatment as mere means’ denotes. Although one could of course have myriad different interpretations, and each might make for an interesting argument against animal use, I want to suggest that premiss (8) offers a prima facie plausible analysis: We ‘treat animals as mere means’ whenever we treat any of our own non-moral ends as a limiting condition on the promotion of the happiness of animals. Understood thus, the internal Kantian argument does ask us not to treat animals as mere means, without however putting any weight on this obscure formulation.

The most straightforward objection to the Kantian internal argument is that it condemns too much. It may appear to condemn all treatment of animals as means. But this is not true. What the argument condemns, per premiss (8), is treating our own non-moral ends as limiting conditions on the obligatory ends—treating them as mere means, on a certain understanding of the term. As long as we regard the obligatory ends as superior to our non-moral ends, however, there is nothing inherently vicious about our treatment of others as means. In this case, we are treating others as means without treating them as mere means.

This however leads to another objection to the argument: We can also use animals for moral ends rather than non-moral ones. For instance, one might argue that animal users have a duty to promote the happiness of their own family members, and making a living using animals can promote this end. Or, alternatively, one could say that animal users might use animals minimally, merely for their own sustenance which they have an indirect ethical duty to self to secure. In either case, the animal user is not guilty of putting a self-interested limit on their practical benevolence. Their benevolence would be restricted by other duties only. Hence, the argument does not condemn them. So the argument fails to condemn all animal use for human gain.

This objection merits a three-part response: First, we should not be too quick to grant that actual animal users are guided by moral ends. If all they wanted was to promote the happiness of others, but the happiness of their family members happened to be at odds with the happiness of animals, this would represent an apparent conflict of duties. But then, we should expect agents to respond to the situation as an apparent moral conflict: They should feel pro tanto regret, they should search for a third option that violates neither duty, and they should make a serious effort to avoid encountering the same apparent conflict of duties again in the future. Animal users who fit this description, and only they, are let off the hook by the Kantian argument. People who use animals in a self-righteous and routine way are not.

Secondly, if the agent does sincerely take herself to be caught in a moral conflict, there remains the question why she takes the animals to draw the short straw. Why does the promotion of the happiness of certain human beings trump the promotion of the happiness of these animals? If the response relies on any claim to the effect that human beings are more valuable, more deserving of their happiness than animals, endorsing it runs counter to the duty of non-exaltation. Animals are neither more nor less deserving of their happiness than human beings, since they do not stand under the moral law in the first place.

Thirdly, if the agent does have a good reason to prioritise the happiness of specific human beings (or other animals) over the happiness of specific animals—that is, a reason which we can adopt without violating the duty of non-exaltation above others—then the Kantian argument may indeed let the agent off the hook. However, I would suggest that using animals as means to moral ends, under such circumstances, is simply not the practice of ‘animal use’ to which radical animal advocates are opposed. What they mean by ‘animal use’ is using animals somewhat deliberately, as contingent means to the end of our own happiness, treating our own non-moral ends as a limiting condition on the obligatory end of another’s happiness. The critique of animal use as a Kantian vice captures this.

Before I conclude, let me highlight some noteworthy aspects of the Kantian argument against animal use. First, the argument implies that even seemingly beneficent actions towards animals—feeding them, cleaning their enclosure, providing them with medical care, and so on—fail to have moral worth if they occur within the context of animal use, and are even objectionable, since acting on a vice is objectionable even if the consequences happen to be morally desirable. External arguments would suggest that such actions make animal use at least marginally better. Hence, they tend to provoke a response in terms of gradual improvements to animal welfare. Kantianism for Animals rejects this response from the start, since what it primarily condemns is the stance inherent in animal use, no matter how ‘humane’ that use ends up being. Of course, we should think twice before taking the Kantian argument as a basis for policy decisions or political strategy. As we saw in Chap. 1, a Kantian ethic fundamentally addresses the question how we should want to act, not what is politically or legally legitimate, let alone what is strategically advisable. So what the argument shows is not that all animal use can or should be immediately prohibited, but only that there are reasons for individuals to find the practice morally repugnant.

Secondly, however, the Kantian internal argument’s premisses imply more than just a duty of abstinence. The argument presupposes a demanding, even ambitious account of our duties towards animals, which asks us to promote the happiness of animals (and human beings). As long as the actual systems of animal use are as harmful to animals (and human beings) as they are today, we should actively oppose these systems for the sake of our duties to others.

Third, I should point out that there might be cases of apparent ‘animal use’ which are not condemned even by the internal argument, due to the fuzziness of the notion. For instance, we might derive utility from animals without putting human aims first. One variant of this is somewhat coincidental or non-institutionalised utility derived from animals. A horse may pass by your garden and leave some droppings. If you collect these droppings to fertilise your roses, the internal argument does not condemn you, if you did not treat your own ends as a limiting condition on the promotion of the happiness of animals. But presumably, the philosophers and animal activists who oppose animal use in general would not condemn you either. Another variant is animal use that is in the service of the animals themselves. If a not-for-profit farm animal sanctuary offers guided tours to visitors to help raise funds, one might claim this constitutes a borderline case of ‘using’ the animals for fundraising and educational purposes. But here, the human end of raising funds for the sanctuary might just be the best means to the end of the animals’ happiness, and not a limiting condition. The internal argument either does not condemn this, or even encourages it (assuming, of course, that there is no better way of raising funds). This is effectively an animal-friendly variant of the ‘moral ends’ argument discussed earlier. Again, using animals as means to strictly moral ends, especially if that moral end is the best possible promotion of their own happiness, is not the practice of ‘animal use’ that is at issue in the debate.

Let me also emphasise some conclusions that do not follow from this chapter’s argument. First, it is sometimes suggested that an end to animal use would necessarily require the cessation of any and all interactions with animals. Thus, Korsgaard claims that ‘abolitionism’ is based on the view that all our interactions with others must be based on consent, but animals cannot consent, therefore we must not interact with animals at all (Korsgaard 2018, 177f.). In a similar vein, Donaldson and Kymlicka say of the ‘abolitionist’ camp: “The bottom line is that we must end all human use of, and interaction with, domesticated animals” (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011, 78, emphasis added). But no such thing follows from the argument in this chapter. What the argument condemns is not interacting with animals, but interacting with them in a way that treats our own non-moral ends as a limiting condition on our promotion of their happiness. In fact, refusing to interact with animals altogether would be inherently detrimental to the promotion of their happiness just as much as ‘using’ animals is.

Secondly, the argument also does not imply that animals ought to be ‘liberated’ from human interaction in a way that is insensitive to their interests—a supposed demand of the ‘abolitionist’ camp against which Cochrane takes great care to argue (Cochrane 2012, 7). What the Kantian argument in this chapter does imply, however, is that more is to be said against animal use than just that it violates the interests of animals (whether these interests be protected by rights or not). The argument at issue is distinctively ethical in that it concerns the configuration of motives that determine the moral agent’s actions. Hence, Kantianism for Animals can be a helpful complement to an interest-based theory of rights. While a theory of rights sets up certain moral boundaries for our self-interested treatment of animals, Kantianism for Animals criticises the very way in which our treatment of animals is self-interested.

Let me summarise. I have argued that animal ethics has not yet seen an internal argument against animal use. An internal argument, as opposed to an external one, is not so much concerned with consequences or prerequisites of animal use. Rather it aims to scrutinise the notion of ‘animal use’ itself and point out an objectionable element. To use animals, I have proposed, is to use them as means to the end of our own happiness. When we use animals, we do not necessarily treat them in a purely instrumental way, denying altogether that we have duties towards them. Rather, we should understand animal users to take a stance which puts a self-interested limit on their practical benevolence towards others. The trouble with this stance is that it treats our non-moral ends (our own happiness) as a limiting condition on the obligatory end of another’s happiness. This restriction is opposed to duty, and the resulting practical benevolence is not the kind of practical benevolence duty demands. Hence, the animal user’s stance is a Kantian vice.