On the Duty of Animal Liberation

Steve Cooke, University of Sheffield

Traditional theories of animal rights have focussed on arguing for negative rights for non-human animals. In contrast, this paper argues that the moral standing of non-human animals also imposes positive duties to aid. The claim is made that these duties include duties of easy rescue and other-defence, each owed to non-human animals in dire need. Furthermore, it is argued that these duties can impose a duty to break the law, and even to harm humans in limited circumstances. Duties to aid provide animal rights activists with a justification for a range of illegal activities connected with the rescue of non-human animals from captivity. Competing considerations, such as the legal status of non-human animals, and of practices done to them, together with the benefits to humanity from animal use, are considered and rejected as offering compelling reasons to render law-breaking and violence impermissible.