The Intrinsic Value of Liberty for Non-Human Animals
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The Intrinsic Value of Liberty for Non‑Human Animals Marc G. Wilcox1
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Among animal advocates, it is a widely held belief that liberty has exclusively instrumental value for sentient non-human animals (henceforth merely ‘animals’). Accounts that include this premise suggest that liberty is good for animals when (and only when) it confers some other good upon them. Whilst this is not unanimously accepted among animal defenders, there is a lack of convincing and welldeveloped arguments in favour of the alternative view that liberty is valuable in itself. In this paper I will attempt to fill this void by defending a novel view of the intrinsic value of liberty for animals. I will argue that liberty is valuable for animals because possessing liberty just is the possession of opportunities to determine the course of one’s life. Further, I will argue that this self-determination is good in itself, even if it doesn’t result in positive subjective experiences and even in some cases where it results in negative subjective experiences. So, other things being equal, it is better that one possesses self-determination than not. Or, to put this another way, even if self-determination does not contribute to one’s subjective well-being, it still contributes to one’s well-being in a wider sense.1 So I will suggest that animals are pro tanto harmed by the restriction of liberty in itself, over and above any instrumental harm they may suffer as a result of liberty restrictions. In order to reach this conclusion I suggest that liberty is plausibly valuable for humans because it allows one to determine the course of one’s own life. Further, if animals are agents, they can also determine the course of their own lives. Thus, so long as there is no morally relevance difference between human and animal agency, liberty can be valuable for animals for the same reason in which it is valuable for humans: because possessing liberty means having the opportunity to determine the course of one’s life. Finally, I will suggest that this means that animals, like humans, 1 For the sake of clarity, I use the term ‘subjective well-being’ to refer to the subjective component of well-being, be it understood as preference satisfaction, happiness or in some other way. I reserve the term ‘well-being’ for the wider inclusive notion of what makes a life good, of which I suggest this subjective element and self-determination are constituents. I discuss this point in more detail below.
* Marc G. Wilcox [email protected] 1
Bradford, UK
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M. G. Wilcox
could plausibly be harmed by having their opportunities to engage in such determination restricted, even if their subjective well-being is not impacted.
1 Kinds of Liberty Before going any further I will clarify the understanding of liberty relevant to my discussion. Liberty is often recognized as coming in two main strains: negative liberty and positive liberty. One may understand these notions to demarcate distinct (and incompatible) kinds of libe
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