Hunting & Animal Rights
"We ought to ban hunting"
- Cass Sunstein, in a 2007 speech at Harvard University
?[Humans?] willingness to subject animals to unjustified suffering will be seen ? as a
form of unconscionable barbarity? morally akin to slavery and the mass extermination
of human beings.?
- Cass Sunstein, in a 2007 speech at Harvard University
But I think that we should go further. We should focus attention not only on the
?enforcement gap,? but on the areas where current law offers little or no protection. In
short, the law should impose further regulation on hunting, scientific experiments,
entertainment, and (above all) farming to ensure against unnecessary animal suffering. It
is easy to imagine a set of initiatives that would do a great deal here, and indeed
European nations have moved in just this direction. There are many possibilities.
--Cass R. Sunstein, ?The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,? John M. Olin
Law & Economics Working Paper No. 157, The Law School, The University of
Chicago
If we understand "rights" to be legal protection against harm, then many animals already
do have rights, and the idea of animal rights is not terribly controversial... Almost
everyone agrees that people should not be able to torture animals or to engage in acts of
cruelty against them. And indeed, state law includes a wide range of protections against
cruelty and neglect. We can build on state law to define a simple, minimalist position in
favor of animal rights: The law should prevent acts of cruelty to animals.
--Cass R. Sunstein, Martha C. Nussbaum. Animal Rights: Current Debates and
New Directions. (Oxford University Press, USA, 2004). Introduction
?We could even grant animals a right to bring suit without insisting that animals are
persons, or that they are not property. A state could certainly confer rights on a pristine
area, or a painting, and allow people to bring suit on its behalf, without therefore saying
that that area and that painting may not be owned. It might, in these circumstances, seem
puzzling that so many people are focusing on the question of whether animals are
property. We could retain the idea of property but also give animals far more protection
against injury or neglect of their interests.?
--Cass R. Sunstein, Martha C. Nussbaum. Animal Rights: Current Debates and
New Directions. (Oxford University Press, USA, 2004). P. 11
Do animals have standing? To many people, the very idea seems odd. But several cases
suggest that the answer might be yes.
In a remarkably large number of cases in the federal courts, animals appear as named
plaintiffs.
?Indeed, I have not been able to find any federal statute that allows animals to sue in
their own names. As a rule, the answer is therefore quite clear: Animals lack standing as
such, simply because no relevant statute confers a cause of action on animals.
It seems possible, however, that before long, Congress will grant standing to animals to
protect their own rights and interests. Congress might do this in the belief that in some
contexts, it will be hard to find any person with an injury in fact to bring suit in his own
name. And even if statutes protecting animal welfare are enforceable by human beings,
Congress might grant standing to animals in their own right, particularly to make a public
statement about whose interests are most directly at stake, partly to increase the number
of private monitors of illegality, and partly to bypass complex inquiries into whether
prospective human plaintiffs have injuries in fact. Indeed, I believe that in some
circumstances, Congress should do just that, to provide a supplement to limited public
enforcement efforts.
--Cass R. Sunstein, Martha C. Nussbaum. Animal Rights: Current Debates and
New Directions. (Oxford University Press, USA, 2004). P. 259-260
In the future, legislative decisions on such questions will have considerable symbolic
importance. But they will not only be symbolic, for they will help define the real-world
meaning of legal texts that attempt to protect animal welfare ? statutes that now promise
a great deal but deliver far too little.
--Cass R. Sunstein, Martha C. Nussbaum. Animal Rights: Current Debates and
New Directions. (Oxford University Press, USA, 2004). P. 261
Do animals have rights? Almost everyone believes in animal rights, at least in some
minimal sense; the real question is what that phrase actually means. By exploring that
question, it is possible to give a clear sense of the lay of the land?to show the range of
possible positions, and to explore what issues, of theory or fact, separate reasonable
people. On reflection, the spotlight should be placed squarely on the issue of suffering
and well-being. This position requires rejection of some of the most radical claims by
animal rights advocates, especially those that stress the ?autonomy? of animals, or that
object to any human control and use of animals. But this position has radical implications
of its own. It strongly suggests, for example, that there should be extensive regulation of
the use of animals in entertainment, in scientific experiments, and in agriculture. It also
suggests that there is a strong argument, in principle, for bans on many current uses of
animals.
--Cass R. Sunstein, ?The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,? John M. Olin
Law & Economics Working Paper No. 157, The Law School, The University of
Chicago
?[R]epresentatives of animals should be able to bring private suits to ensure that
anticruelty and related laws are actually enforced. If, for example, a farm is treating
horses cruelly and in violation of legal requirements, a suit could be brought, on behalf of
those animals, to bring about compliance with the law.
--Cass R. Sunstein, ?The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,? John M. Olin
Law & Economics Working Paper No. 157, The Law School, The University of
Chicago
Now turn to some quite radical suggestions. Suppose that we continue to believe that
animal suffering is the problem that should concern us, and that we want to use the law to
promote animal welfare. We might conclude that certain practices cannot be defended
and should not be allowed to continue, if, in practice, mere regulation will inevitably be
insufficient?and if, in practice, mere regulation will ensure that the level of animal
suffering will remain very high. To make such an argument convincing, it would be
helpful, whether or not necessary, to argue not only that the harms to animals are serious,
but also that the benefits, to human beings, of the relevant practices are simply too small
to justify the continuation of those practices. Many people who urge radical steps?who
think, for example, that people should not eat meat?do so because they believe that
without such steps, the level of animal suffering will be unacceptably severe.
--Cass R. Sunstein, ?The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,? John M. Olin
Law & Economics Working Paper No. 157, The Law School, The University of
Chicago
Of course the largest issue involves eating meat. I believe that that meat-eating would be
acceptable if decent treatment is given to the animals used for food. Killing animals,
whether or not troublesome, is far less troublesome than suffering. But if, as a practical
matter, animals used for food are almost inevitably going to endure terrible suffering,
then there is a good argument that people should not eat meat to the extent that a refusal
to eat meat will reduce that suffering. Of course a legal ban on meat-eating would be
extremely radical, and like prohibition, it would undoubtedly create black markets and
have a set of bad, and huge, side-effects. But the principle seems clear: People should be
much less inclined to eat meat if their refusal to do so would prevent significant suffering.
--Cass R. Sunstein, ?The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,? John M. Olin
Law & Economics Working Paper No. 157, The Law School, The University of
Chicago
We should increase the likelihood that animals will have good lives?we should not try
to ensure that there are as many animals as possible.
--Cass R. Sunstein, ?The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,? John M. Olin
Law & Economics Working Paper No. 157, The Law School, The University of
Chicago
Every reasonable person believes in animal rights. Even the sharpest critics of animal
rights support the anticruelty laws. I have suggested that the simple moral judgment
behind these laws is that animal suffering matters, and that this judgment supports a
significant amount of reform. Most modestly, private suits should be permitted to prevent
illegal cruelty and neglect.
--Cass R. Sunstein, ?The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,? John M. Olin
Law & Economics Working Paper No. 157, The Law School, The University of
Chicago
Less modestly, anticruelty laws should be extended to areas that are now exempt from
them, including scientific experiments and farming. There is no good reason to permit the
level of suffering that is now being experienced by millions, even billions of living
creatures.
--Cass R. Sunstein, ?The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,? John M. Olin
Law & Economics Working Paper No. 157, The Law School, The University of
Chicago
Those who emphasize suffering have a simple answer to this objection: Everything
depends on whether and to what extent the animal in question is capable of suffering. If
rats are able to suffer, then their interests are relevant to the question of how, and perhaps
even whether, they can be expelled from houses.
--Cass R. Sunstein, Martha C. Nussbaum. Animal Rights: Current Debates and
New Directions. (Oxford University Press, USA, 2004). P. 12
The idea here is that animals, species as such, and perhaps even natural objects warrant
respect for their own sake, and quite apart from their interactions with human beings.
Sometimes such arguments posit general rights held by living creatures (and natural
objects) against human depredations. In especially powerful forms, these arguments are
utilitarian in character, stressing the often extreme and unnecessary suffering of animals
who are hurt or killed. The Animal Welfare Act reflects these concerns.
--Cass R. Sunstein, After the Rights Revolution: Reconceiving the Regulatory
State, Harvard University Press, 1993, p. 69