On the tension between liberalism and animal rights
My friend and comrade Jonathan Birch has gifted me with another guest post. The first of his, which I also enjoyed, can be found here . I really appreciate his honest and frank look into the emotional and social stakes of his own work on animal rights. Without further ado over to Birch! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Liberalism and animal rights sit uneasily together. Liberalism calls for mutual toleration between different ways of life. Among the deepest, most entrenched parts of many ways of life are practices involving the farming, killing and eating of animals. In calling for robust animal rights to be written into law, animal advocates are calling for many of these practices to be banned. If a ban is to mean anything, it must be enforced. If robust animal rights were to be enforced, many would face criminal convictions for continuing to live as they do now. The tension is obvious and arises constantly, because many animal advo...