THEORY
However, at root, this argument appears to be qualitatively similar to other
instrumental anthropocentric arguments that support environmental pro-
tection (see below, pp. 34 –5).
Nevertheless, animal liberation arguments are often dismissed too easily
byecocentrics. Utilitarian and rights-based arguments for animal liberation
have undoubtedly made an important contribution to environmental ethics.
Amajor strength of both approaches is the way they build a case for animal
protection by extending a familiar moral discourse beyond humans. The
language and the form of argument employed in this liberal discourse are
less likely to alienate the reader, although their radical conclusions might.
Singer’s claim that the moral community should be based on the capacity
for sentience rather than the capacity to reason or talk is powerfully made
and conforms with the intuitions of many people – especially the pet-owner
or lover ofwildlife(seeBox2.6). Regan’s strategy of employing rights as a
means of protecting and furthering the interests of animals also sits comfort-
ably within the traditions of liberal thought. Both approaches have tapped
thewidespread contemporary unease about the treatment of animals, as
in factory farming or vivisection, and the way it offends our ‘humanitarian’
sensibilities. They also suggest many practical policies – bans on hunting for
sport, the regulation of factory farming, the abolition of veal crates – that
have widespread appeal. Admittedly, these same strengths, couched as they
are in a conventional anthropocentric individualist moral discourse, limit
thepotential of animal liberationism to underpin a broader environmental
ethic. Nevertheless, one knock-on effect might be that once people accept
that some animals are worthy of moral consideration, the more radical claim
that further parts of the natural world also have value may become more
acceptable.Critical question 3
Are animal liberationists environmentalists?◗ Moral extensionism as an environmental ethic
The flourishing of environmental ethics in recent years has produced a wide
range ofmoral extensionist theories (Brennan 1988 ;Norton 1991 ;Goodin
1992 ;Benton 1993 ;O’Neill 1993 ;Hayward 1995 ; Dobson 1998 ;Wissenburg
1998 ;Barry1999a,inter alia). These are generally intermediate perspectives,
which accept the Greater Value Assumption that humans are the only crea-
tures able to value, but that humans are not the only bearers of value (see
Box2.3).
One interesting approach involves the use of intuitive arguments about
‘naturalness’ and the special significance of nature to humans, as grounds
forascribing inherent value to nature. Goodin ( 1992 ) outlines a green theory