THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ANIMAL RIGHTS

Steven James Bartlett

As the human population continues to grow, an enormous number of species of non-human animals are being pushed into extinction by unchecked human interests. As this happens, the majority of people continue to hold fast to an unquestioned belief that the human species is special, is privileged above all other species, and therefore human interests take first place and usually the only really important place.

Animal law—the formulation and establishment of laws concerning the status of non-human animals—reflects and expresses many of the values pertaining to other species to which human societies subscribe. Human laws concerning non-human animals provide us with an especially clear frame of reference in terms of which we can identify, reflect upon, and think about the relationship of humanity to other species with whatever critical powers we are able and willing to apply to this area of concern.

In the past, animal law has focused attention primarily on such interconnected issues as the property status of non-human animals, their so-called juristic personhood, and their legal standing. These subjects are undeniably central concerns that dominate discussions of animal rights, but they do not relate to the most fundamental factors that are responsible both for human resistance to animal rights and for our species’ well-entrenched, often cruel and self-righteous exploitation and destruction of non-human animals.

Several years ago, Animal Law, the law journal of the Lewis and Clark Law School, published a long paper by me entitled “The Roots of Human Resistance to Animal Rights: Psychological and Conceptual Blocks.” In that paper, I reviewed the recent advocacy of animal rights, and offered the first study of human psychological and conceptual blocks that stand in the way of efforts on behalf of animal law and legislation. It was my view then, as it continues to be, that paying long overdue attention to these very human obstacles provides a realistic framework in terms of which the effectiveness of attempts to initiate meaningful change needs to be evaluated.

Given that this paper was admittedly theoretical in focus, I was surprised by the response that it has engendered. Since its publication in Animal Law, it has been placed online in English, as well as in translation in German and Portuguese. The Portuguese translation was presented in conjunction with the International Congress on Animal Rights held in Salvador, Brazil, Oct. 8-11, 2008, and then published in the Brazilian Animal Rights Review (Revista Brasileira de Direito Animal).

Evidently, there are grounds for tempered optimism about the willingness and the desire of some members of our human species both to look critically at what our species is in the process of doing to the planet and the forms of life that inhabit it, and to take intelligent steps to resolve some of the very difficult and challenging problems we are causing other forms of life, our own included.

If we are to be level-headed we must temper such optimism very considerably, for embedded in human psychology is a monolithic dead weight of self-interested inertia. Human beings do not take readily to concerns that go beyond their immediate interests. Advocates of animal rights and of animal legal standing have paid virtually no attention to the pervasive, underlying, rigid, and uncompromising mind-set that stands in their way. Once we recognize the obstacles for what they are, we gain an clearer understanding of the challenge that animal advocates face. It does not serve their cause to ignore the obstacles, while paying attention to them can provide a realistic framework in terms of which efforts to initiate meaningful change need to be evaluated.

Readers wishing for a more detailed discussion of this topic may want to read the paper mentioned above. For English, click here; for German, click here; for Portuguese, click here.