Animals and Libertarian Property Theory

Reading this post linked at LRC reminded me of the dire need to address this shortcoming of contemporary libertarianism. Libertarians, and especially "right-libertarians", typically defend the subjugation of animals. Animals are our property, they say, and since we have the right to do whatever we want with our property, we have the right to do whatever we want to our animals. If we follow the implications of this "animals are property" view, we would find some things that should abhore us (assuming we have half a conscience).

I should say, right off the bat, that I don't advocate any mandatory licensing program for animals. We shouldn't be required to get a license to keep animals just as we shouldn't be required to get a license to raise children. I don't even believe in government drivers' licenses. (Now, road owners have the right to demand that the driver prove his or her competence before allowing him or her to drive on their roads, and that may lead to some system that's functionally the same as licensing. But it would differ from conventional licensing in that individual road owners would have the freedom to experiment with different standards of proof, and would have the freedom to not demand proof in the first place.) Animal licensing implies that all animals are owned ultimately by government. Libertarians are right to oppose this. My problem with "animals are property"-ists isn't that they oppose government ownership of all animals; my problem with them is that they insist that animals can be property.

When an object is your property, it is yours to withhold, to give for free, to give on whatever condition you demand (so long as the condition doesn't violate individual sovereignty), and to destroy. If animals are property, then the owner of an animal has the right to do whatever he wants with it, including killing it for meat, rubbing shampoo into its eyes, sacrificing it to St. Michael, infecting it with a lethal virus, and other things that are commonly done. But these common abuses aren't all that are excused by "animals are property". If an animal is your property, it is yours to beat with a 2x4, yours to rape with a kitchen knife, yours to blind with a screw driver, yours to strangle with a bungee cord, etc. It's yours to inflict all sorts of elaborate violence onto, because it's just an object, and deserves no more consideration than a pencil sharpener.

Granted, there would be some limits to this property ownership. If the person you bought the animal from sold it to you on the condition that you not abuse it, then your animal is yours, but not yours to abuse. If the person who sold it to you finds out that you're beating your animal, then they have the right to make you buy them another animal like it, or to steal the animal back from you. But if there was no such condition, then you could treat your animal however cruelly you want to. Another limit could be in the condition on a lease. A landlord could demand that all tenants who keep animals on the property treat their animals well. If a landlady who has that condition in her lease finds that a tenant is abusing his animal, she can rightfully demand that he either give up the animal or move out. But if there is no such condition, the tenant can do whatever he likes to his animal without fear of eviction.

Neither of these limits are strong or broad enough to condemn gratuitous animal abuse in an "animals are property" framework. In this framework, so long as a man doesn't use his animal to hurt other humans or damage their property without their consent, he could do to it whatever he wants. But it doesn't stop there. If a man owns his animal as property, he can rightfully use force against people who forcefully try to stop him from abusing his animal. If you stand in front of and try to restrain a man who's beating his dog, then he has the right to beat you too, since you're forcefully violating his rights to person and property. That's what's implied by the whole idea of rights. If it's a man's right, then it's his right not just to do, but also to defend.

Consider this scenario: a married man is the sole owner of his dog, and there are no limits to his ownership of it like those mentioned above. His wife finds him beating his dog with a baseball bat, and she intervenes with an identical bat. The fight escalates, and ends when the wife dies of her wounds. Within the "animals are property" framework, the man is not guilty of murder or any domestic violence. He was just defending himself against a forceful invasion of his property rights.

If you think there's something wrong with this picture (and I hope you do), then you should start re-examining the whole idea of animal ownership. If you're disturbed by a man killing someone who violently tries to stop him from beating his dog, then either you doubt proportional and discriminate defense, or you doubt that animals can be property to be disposed of however the owner desires. If you sense that a man can rightfully defend a dog, then you view animals as beings more precious than objects, and you reject the idea that animals can be owned as property.

The logical consequences of "animals as property"-ism are frankly absurd. If an animal is property, then no one has the right to intervene for the animal's own sake. There is another absurd consequence -- a rend between individual sovereignty and individual will. If animals are property and nothing more, then having an individual will isn't good enough to be sovereign over oneself. What's one to do? Prove that one's will for oneself is worth respecting? Should the animals, the disabled, and the fetuses walk to Rothbard's desk and sign a contract just to win that dear right to not be meddled with? What's individual sovereignty, if it has to be earned? And if not by Rothbard, then by whom shall the conditions for the right to live be set? The standards to define the life worth living are to be set by oneself, and only by oneself. This is a central tenet of libertarianism. I cringe every time I read a self-proclaimed libertarian demand that the animals prove they have rights. I'm sorry the animals can't rise to your standard of rights-worthiness. I just hope that my friends enslaved to their baser instincts can.