Forces joined for a higher cause to help animals

Towards treating animals as equals

Emancipation began with freeing people from slavery and has, via skin colour and gender, reached animals. It is a process in which we turn our illusory sense of superiority into an attitude of equal worth towards animals.

Dialectics helps to understand this process. In this view, the development of humans, nature and society is driven by two forces: a thesis (a statement) and an antithesis (a counter-statement). If they keep opposing each other, there is standstill. If they are brought together, a synthesis arises: a new level that keeps what is valuable in both. In this way a strong person can be vulnerable and modest.

The synthesis we are after: living responsibly as individuals and, as a society, giving animals a place that does justice to their nature. Read also: Freedom, not similarity, is the basis for animal rights.

Humans and animals: three examples

A few triads that apply to humans as well as animals:

The thesis and antithesis are not meant as good or bad, but as neutral forces. The ethics lie in the synthesis. You have responsibility, but only when you take it do you live responsibly.

Defining freedom by its opposite

Concepts such as freedom, love and quality lose their power when you try to pin them down exactly. It works better to prohibit the opposite. It is forbidden to lock people up against their will. Precisely because of that ban, our freedom of movement is guaranteed. The same can apply to animals: an animal may not be deprived of the freedom to go outside. Read also about freedom as a paradox.

Respect as a basic attitude

How humans and animals fill in their freedom should be left to themselves. For animals, freedom should be part of their rights. We describe respect as "appropriate distance". Too much distance leads to indifference, too little distance to cuddling to death. A child has to learn that a living rabbit is not a cuddly toy.

It is up to humans to leave the little space that remains for animals on earth so intact that animals can live there in their own way.

The freedom to live according to your own capabilities

The American philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues that truly global justice also includes animals. Animals are ends in themselves. They can experience pain, fear and pleasure and have a right to a life in which their integrity is respected. In her book Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility (2023) she develops the capabilities approach: welfare depends to a large extent on the freedom animals have to shape their lives according to their own nature.

Emancipation

We chain others with our power because we think we will benefit from it. In the past in the form of slavery, today in the form of factory farming. Whoever shares power and living space (with animals too) and adopts a modest attitude releases creative energy. By accepting our connection with all living beings, our civilisation rises to a higher level.