Animals among Public Reason, Justice, and Rights. A Review of Recent Philosophical Debate

This paper examines the recent research in political philosophy about animals and state policies. Moreover, it assesses the recent literature about the potentialities of public reason liberalism for justifying coercive policies before animals. After highlighting the main features of public justification, it collects two emerging trends for animal politics: the political turn in animal ethics and the inquiries into the interweave of science and public reason liberalism. Three attitudes about the usefulness of public justification before animals’ predicaments are assessed: scholars who enthusiastically embrace public justification, scholars who reject this procedure for the issue of animals, and scholars who adjust public justification to the specificities of our duties to animals. Last, future pathways will be explored.