In 'Rawls and Animal Moral Personality' by Guy Baldwin in (2023) 13(7) Animals Baldwin comments
“Moral personality” is required in order to be entitled to justice in John Rawls’s theory of justice, a famous and influential theory in political philosophy. The concept of moral personality involves the possession of two “moral powers”. One moral power is a capacity for a conception of the good, being a conception of what is regarded as worthwhile in life, while the other is a capacity for a sense of justice. Rawls claims that non-human animals (hereafter, “animals”) do not possess these moral powers, and accordingly he omits them altogether from his theory of justice. In this article, I raise doubts about this omission, outlining how at least some animals may indeed possess the moral powers, albeit to a lesser extent than most humans. In this regard, the distinction between humans and animals can be seen as one of degree rather than kind. A proper acknowledgement of animal abilities suggests that Rawls’s theory requires alteration to accommodate the position of animals.
The relationship between animal rights and contractarian theories of justice such as that of Rawls has long been vexed. In this article, I contribute to the debate over the possibility of inclusion of animals in Rawls’s theory of justice by critiquing the rationale he gives for their omission: that they do not possess moral personality. Contrary to Rawls’s assumptions, it appears that some animals may possess the moral powers that comprise moral personality, albeit to a lesser extent than most humans. Some animals can act in pursuit of preferences and desires (and communicate them non-verbally), which might be taken as implicitly selecting a conception of the good; further, scientific research demonstrating inequity aversion and social play behaviors suggests that some animals can have a sense of justice relating to their own social groups. I conclude that Rawls’s theory needs to acknowledge any animals that can be considered to meet the threshold of moral personality, while the concept of moral personality as a range property may also require reconsideration.
A limitation of John Rawls’s theory of justice is that the position of non-human animals (hereafter, “animals”) is treated as outside the scope of the theory. Although Rawls considered cruelty towards animals and the destruction of an entire species to be wrong, animals are said not to be entitled to justice [1] (pp. 441–442, 448–449). The reason offered for this exclusion is that animals are not “moral persons”. Moral personality involves two moral powers—the capacity for a conception of the good and the capacity for a sense of justice—that are claimed to be uniquely human attributes. Rawls’s position seems to mean that, as Martha Nussbaum puts it, “[e]ven … the twentieth century’s greatest philosopher of justice … held that it was virtuous to treat animals with compassion, but that they could not be treated justly or unjustly” [2] (pp. 8–9). The relationship between animal rights and contractarian theories of justice such as that of Rawls has long been vexed; a key difficulty is how to include animals in such theories if they are unable to participate effectively in the making of a social contract [3]. Mark Rowlands argues that “there is nothing in contractarianism per se that requires the contract be restricted to rational agents”; even if the framers of the contract have to be rational agents, its recipients do not (p. 236). Meanwhile, Robert Garner claims that Rawls’s approach cannot adequately explain the position of “those humans who are less endowed with rationality or autonomy”, invoking the well-known argument from so-called “marginal cases” [4] (p. 7), though he has also critiqued this argument [5]. The contribution of this article is to consider a different, under-explored issue: the merits of Rawls’s claim that animals do not have moral personality, which underpins their exclusion from his theory of justice.
In ascribing moral personality only to humans, Rawls treats humans and animals as qualitatively different. Rawls’s concept of moral personality is widely assumed to “clearly preclude animals” [6] (pp. 2–3). However, as Rowlands says, “the all or nothing manner in which discussions of non-human rationality tend to be discussed is eminently questionable, on both theoretical and methodological grounds” (p. 236). Indeed, I argue that some animals might be better viewed as possessing moral personality, though to a more limited extent than most humans. The difference between humans and animals in this regard may be thought of as one of degree rather than kind, to adopt Charles Darwin’s words [7] (p. 179). Nonetheless, acknowledgment of the lesser degree of moral personality possessed by some animals is likely to require significant alterations to Rawls’s theory. Although I seek to establish some problems with Rawls’s account, modifying the theory to accommodate the possibility of animal moral personality is not attempted here. Further, I do not suggest that possession of some measure of moral personality means that animals (or, for that matter, humans) cannot or do not perform acts that inflict suffering on others. xx The article proceeds in three parts. First, I address Rawls’s analysis of the position of animals in his theory. As will be shown, Rawls’s theory is already consistent with the view that animals are owed moral concern. Nothing prevents legislators from protecting animal welfare or rights. However, Rawls considers that due to their claimed absence of moral personality, animals are not owed justice, and this may mean that animal protection is of lower priority than the principles of justice. Second, I question Rawls’s approach by analyzing the position of animals in respect of each of the moral powers. I suggest that Rawls’s conclusion that animals do not have moral personality is too simple; there is reason to consider that at least some animals can potentially possess the moral powers, albeit to a lesser degree than humans. Third, I conclude with a short reflection on the possible implications of this analysis for Rawls’s theory.
