page_title: Animal Rights Without Liberation
section_title: Application
hierarchical_section_title: Animal Rights Without Liberation / Synopsis / Application
caption_attribution_description: Animal, Rat, Lobund-Wistar
context_page_description: Animal Rights Without Liberation: Applied Ethics and Human Obligations is a 2012 book by the British political theorist Alasdair Cochrane, in which it is argued that animal rights philosophy can be decoupled from animal liberation philosophy by the adoption of the interest-based rights approach. Cochrane, arguing that there is no reason that animals should be excluded from justice, adopts Joseph Raz's account of interest rights and extends it to include animals. He argues that sentient animals possess a right not to be made to suffer and a right not to be killed, but not a right to freedom. The book's chapters apply Cochrane's account to a number of interactions between humans and animals; first animal experimentation, then animal agriculture, the genetic engineering of animals, the use of animals in entertainment and sport, the relationship of animals to environmental practices and the use of animals in cultural practices.
  The book is based upon Cochrane's doctoral thesis, which was completed at the London School of Economics, and builds upon subjects he had discussed in previous publications, including his first book. An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory.
context_section_description: Having outlined his methodological approach, Cochrane goes on to apply his theory to a number of ways that animals are used by society. First, Cochrane considers animal experimentation, arguing that "animal experiments that result in pain or death are morally illegitimate, while painless experiments in which the animal does not die are permissible, all else being equal." Cochrane discusses how to judge the strength of an interest, and then considers the strength of animals' interests in not being subjected to painful experimentation. He considers three reasons the interest may not be sufficient to ground a right, and rejects them all; that the benefits of animal testing outweigh the suffering, that humans owe more to members of their own species than to members of others (see speciesism) and that human lives are objectively more valuable than the lives of other animals. Cochrane concludes that animals have a concrete right to not be subjected to painful experiments. He next considers animals' interests in not being killed, concluding that they "have an interest in continued life so that they may have more pleasant experiences and greater overall well-being in their lives", but that this interest is weaker than the corresponding interest possessed by human persons. If deadly experimentation on nonhuman non-persons is permitted, then consistency demands that it also be permitted on human non-persons, such as babies or individuals with certain cognitive disabilities. Like most others, Cochrane is unwilling to allow this possibility, and so claims that animals have a right not to be used in deadly experiments. However, he argues that animals have neither an interest in negative or positive freedom, and, like animals, human non-persons also lack this interest; therefore, neither have a prima facie right not to be used, provided said use respects the rights they do possess.
  The second considered application is animal agriculture. Cochrane argues that animals possess concrete rights not to be made to suffer or be killed while being raised for food. The book argues that factory farming inflicts suffering upon the animals used, and this suffering outweighs the cost to humans of not using the method. Killing animals for their flesh is also challenged, and objections that this infringes on human liberty, that many humans would lose their jobs and that flesh-consumption is necessary for human health are all considered and rejected. Milk and egg production may be permissible under certain circumstances, provided animals are not killed or made to suffer, and, equally, animal corpses could be used provided that the animals have died naturally. Three counter arguments are considered. First, Cochrane contends that the fact farmed animals would not exist were it not for the human desire for their flesh is irrelevant: it is not clear that creating animals is good for them, and, even if it is, doing a good thing for an animal will not justify subsequently harming them, just as it would not in a human case. Second, Cochrane considers the fact that some animals are killed by nonhuman predators. He rejects Regan's claim that intervention is not required when killers are not moral agents and the consequentialist claim that interference will do more harm than good, instead suggesting that nonhuman predators need to kill to survive, but humans do not. Third, he considers the fact that animals are killed in the harvesting process. These animals, he suggests, are killed for human survival, but as fewer are killed than would be killed were humans eating meat, they do not possess a concrete right to life. Despite this, political communities must take steps to ensure that fewer animals are killed in harvest.
  After looking at agriculture, Cochrane considers the relationship between animals and genetic engineering. The question of whether an animal has a right not to be genetically engineered, he suggests, makes no sense, as live animals are not engineered, and embryos have no interests, so cannot have rights. Instead, Cochrane considers whether animals
caption: Cochrane argues that while animals have no right against being used in painless experiments, they do have a right not to be killed or made to suffer in experiments.
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