Abstract
Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach emphasizes species-specific abilities in grounding our treatment of animals. Though this emphasis provides many action-guiding benefits, it also generates a number of complications. The criticism registered here is that Nussbaum unjustifiably restricts what is allowed into our concept of species norms, the most notable restrictions being placed on latent abilities and those that arise as a result of human intervention. These restrictions run the risk of producing inaccurate or misleading recommendations that fail to correspond to the true needs of animals. Here and throughout the essay the argument draws from the lives of captive apes, especially those with extensive experience with humans. A further criticism is that the normative guidance the capabilities approach does provide is merely at the level of heuristics. Preference testing, it is argued, also uses species norms profitably as a heuristic, but it does so within a much larger and fecund system of assessing an animal’s well-being.
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Notes
Briefly, this list includes (1) Life; (2) Bodily health; (3) Bodily integrity; (4) Senses, imagination and thought; (5) Emotions; (6) Practical reason; (7) Affiliation; (8) Time with other species; (9) Play; (10) Control over one’s environment.
Duncan (2006) cites the example of injured chickens choosing to eat feed containing painkiller instead of their normal feed. This is a classic approach to preference testing. More examples will be discussed later in this essay.
It’s possible that Nussbaum would accept the conclusion that the capabilities approach is only helpful as a heuristic. However, as I will argue in more detail throughout the rest of the essay, this heuristic level of knowledge is often inaccurate and can produce recommendations contrary to an animal’s well-being. This is certainly not a conclusion Nussbaum would accept.
As she says with respect to humans, “The capabilities approach begins from a political conception of the human being and of a life that is worthy of the dignity of the human being. A notion of the species and of the characteristic activities of a species does, then, inform it” (2006a: 180).
This should be distinguished from cases in which an ability is grasped only tenuously, or is clearly a result of rote conditioning. The parity between intrinsic and extrinsic sources only holds if the abilities are acquired to the same degree. This distinction is frequently made among ape language researchers concerning apes’ linguistic competency (Rumbaugh and Washburn 2003).
Someone might wonder whether I would endorse the possibility that any ability humans can elicit from an animal is thereby justified. In a sense yes, in that I think all capacities should be taken seriously, but broadly speaking the answer is no. I think capacities should be considered according to the reasons we have for creating them, and I suspect we have no good reason to create most of the things animals are capable of.
Just to be clear, though most of my examples are based on captive life, I think that the same point holds for the wild. Even simple geographical differences between groups will produce variation in interests that cannot be gleaned from species norms.
There are of course other well-known drawbacks, some of which animal scientists have made significant progress in overcoming. These include transitory preferences, difficulty in interpreting other attendant physiological responses (Barnett and Hemsworth 1990), the inherently forced and simplistic choices utilized in many experiments, and the general finding that preference testing frequently produces results that were different from what the experimenters were aiming for (see Botreau et al. 2007).
Consider Fraser’s (2003) report that even the most comprehensive and objective evaluations of animal well-being result in disputes requiring adjudication from ethicists. Appealing to affective states (like fear and stress), for example, will lead to different recommendations than those relying on biological functions (like health and growth rates). It’s not clear how the capabilities approach would add anything to this sort of debate.
Kumar argues that many question of well-being tacitly assume species knowledge in making recommendations, “Explaining the death of my rose bush as a result of too much water, for instance, presupposes an understanding of how much water a rose bush needs to remain healthy and grow” (2008: 73). But as I have argued, this type of species knowledge—which of course will be more extensive for animals than for a rose bush—requires detailed knowledge of a number of dispositions and potential responses to novel environments. The heuristic knowledge that Kumar mentions would fail to address the most critical questions pertaining to animals.
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The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of an earlier version of this paper for their helpful comments.
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Kasperbauer, T.J. Nussbaum and the Capacities of Animals. J Agric Environ Ethics 26, 977–997 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-012-9436-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-012-9436-5