Response to Patrick on Social Contract and Animals

[I would like to have put this in the comments section, but the software will not let me put a comment on my own posts either here or at RLL. Anyone else with this problem?]

Patrick, I appreciate your very thoughtful comments. I agree with much of what you say. But I would continue to note regarding social contract theory (1) a central theme of social contract theory is that the result must be to the mutual advantage of the parties. As Nussbaum shows and as Rawls recognizes, this is part of the reason that people with disabilities are not parties to the Rawlsian contract; (2) One must possess sufficient rationality to form a contract and because the theory equates the parties to the contract with those owed justice, those with certain mental disabilities are not owed justice under social contract theory (any moral duties must come from outside justice theory). The same is true under Habermasian analysis. Such persons can not participate in an undominated conversation. I think bargaining or mutual advantage assumptions  infect social contract theory and the infection goes far beyond Gauthier as Nussbaum’s detailed discussion of Rawls shows.

My understanding of Regan is that he has a deontological theory and is Kantian in that respect, but his rights based conception as applied to animals is distinctly not Kantian. I would be interested in learning about the kind of indirect moral duties toward animals you refer to in Kant. My recollection is that Kant opposed cruelty to animals – not because of any duty to animals but because it would brutalize human beings. And Nussbaum maintains that “Kant denies that we have any moral duties to animals . . . .” Frontiers, p. 131.

cross posted at religiousleftlaw.typepad.com soon to be religiousleftlaw.com