Can non-human animals be “victims” of a crime? The Oregon Supreme Court recently decided they could be. We talk with Matthew Liebman, senior attorney with the Animal Legal Defense Fund, about the law of animals. Why and how do we prohibit animal cruelty? Is it to protect our own feelings, the inherent rights of animals themselves, a little of both? Does prohibiting cruelty protect us from hurting one another? Does a housefly have a right to an education? We discuss the difficulties of being perfect, the omnipresence of trade-offs, whaling by native peoples, whether a chimpanzee can sue in habeas corpus. And, come to think of it, why does Joe pronounce chimpanzee incorrectly, and how did he get Christian to start doing the same? This is the one about the role of animals in a system of human cooperation, and it features an all to brief return of the monkey selfie. (And we finally get to some of the excellent listener feedback we’ve gotten. Keep it coming: [email protected].)

This show’s links:


About Matthew Liebman, senior attorney for the Animal Legal Defense Fund
Bruce Wagman and Matthew Liebman, A Worldview of Animal Law
Oregon v. Nix, the case about animals as “victims”
David Favre and Vivien Tsang, The Development of Anti-Cruelty Laws During the 1800s (PDF and HTML)
About Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
The Moral Status of Animals, an overview that includes a description of Immanuel Kant’s views on the moral status of animals
Andrew Ireland Moore, Defining Animals as Crime Victims (note, Joe referred to this article, but the one by my classmate, Adam Kolber, is here)
Current cases in which ALDF is involved
Leanne Louie, Toothed Whales: Are They People Too
Thomas Martin, Whaling Rights of the Makah (see also, via HeinOnline, Lawrence Watters and Connie Dugger, Hunt for Gray Whales: The Dilemma of Native American Treaty Rights and the International Moratorium on Whaling
Maneesha Deckha, Animal Justice, Cultural Justice: A Posthumanist Response to Cultural Rights in Animals (Hein only) and Initiating a Non-Anthropocentric Jurisprudence
Steven Wise’s Nonhuman Rights Project
Michael Mountain, Appeals Court Sets Date for First Chimpanzee Lawsuit
Sierra Club v. Morton, in which Justice Douglas would find legal standing in the natural world itself (and citing Christopher Stone, Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects)
Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (also see an overview by the authors)
About the other mind problem
About cognitive ethology and animal cognition
Ben Beaumont-Thomas, SeaWorld shares tumble 33% following Blackfish documentary
Tilikum v. Sea World Parks and Entertainment, the 13th Amendment case brought on behalf of Sea World’s orcas
American Meat Institute v. USDA
Special Guest: Matthew Liebman.

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