Julian H. Franklin

Surprisingly, Franklin founds his animal rights argument in Kant. He does this by arguing, first, that humans are only a subset of the sentient creatures that deserve not to be treated as means. He then (re)bases the categorical imperative on this point. His other primary argument is for the rights owed moral patients, which saves babies, animals, and other marginal cases from being used for food or medical experiments. This point relies to an extent on Regan's argument, contra Singer, that life is something more than a receptacle for good or ill, that it is in itself valuable. Franklin's special opponents are, of course, Carruthers, Frey, and other anthropocentrists. These thinkers cannot stand up even to an analytic argument: for example, Frey argues, among other things, that the butcher suffers all the responsibility for slaughter, and the consumer none; he also argues against the morality of vegetarianism because of job loss. Simple enough to take down. Franklin also takes on Singer (the objections to Singer are well-known).

It strikes me, however, that Franklin could have gone after Regan a bit more strongly. Reagan's typical "subjects-of-a-life" are "normal mammalians, aged one or more." Here we see Regan's persistent anthropocentrism: he presumes, first, that mammals, in toto, are the most deserving animals: although I'm against capabilities-based-arguments (except the passive capacity to be able to be wounded), how does one measure the intelligence of a rat against a parrot or raven or octopus? How does one measure an animal that matures in 6 months or so versus one that matures in 12 years? Nor does Franlin hound Regan sufficiently for his analysis of the Lifeboat case: if the rights of the many outweigh the rights of the few, then does a horde of rats outweigh the rights of 4 or 5 people? It strikes me that the focus on the individual, given how many animals operate as hordes, schools, reefs--or, indeed, cities--belongs to unanalyzed humanism.

Overall, while Franklin's argument might convince some, I see it as a representative of the limitations of rights-based, traditional philosophic argument, which assume both the primacy of reason and the possibility of inexcessive conclusions. Typical objections in Franklin include "A truly fundamental ground for Regan's case is therefore lacking" (22) or, in his argument against compassion, "all attempts to take [compassion] as fundamental fail theoretically because, by their very nature, such theories lack a principle for determining the innocence of the objects to which compassion should apply" (79). The book, in other words, desperately needs Cora Diamond's piece in Philosophy and Animal Life and, of course, Derrida (e.g., "Responsibility is excessive or it is not responsibility"). There's a seed of these objections even in Franklin himself, when he comes to his analysis of the Lifeboat case. Franklin finally decides the case in favor of humans: "I suggest that the priority in favor of humans is clearly acceptable. Once the basic rights of animals are recognized, the development and improvement of human society seem to be a higher priority than the maintenance of the animal population. This points to a tragic element in the relationship of humans and animals that seems to be unavoidable on any reasonable account" (105). What form would the book have taken, I wonder, if Franklin had started here, if he had started with the realization that there is no fundamental order, no fundamental peace?… (meer)