Animal rights and self-defense theory

Through his recent discussion of rights-based approaches to the morality of abortion, Jeff McMahan sheds light on the implications for extending self-defense theory to nonpersons that are afforded full moral status. McMahan's principal target is Judith Thompson who argues that a woman has a right to procure an abortion on the grounds of self-defense, even if the fetus is afforded maximum moral status. Central to Thompson's argument is her claim that people should not be obliged to help others at great cost to themselves. While broadly sympathetic to her pro-abortion position, McMahan believes that Thompson fails to notice a decisive implication of her thoroughly rights-based theory. His focus is not her key claim that the duty to assist others only goes so far but her treating a fetus as a person with full moral rights. For the purposes of constructing a reductio ad absurdum argument, McMahan lays bare that if fetuses are accorded utility-trumping rights or personhood-type moral status, they will qualify for a right of third-party defense. Extending self-defense theory across the species barrier entails that cases in which people pose a threat to animals will also be resolved in accordance with the principle for adjudicating forced choice situations. In comparison to abortion cases, however, from the perspective of species-egalitarians, the moral difference between the two parties in cases when persons harm animals is clear. In abortion cases, women are liable for the threat they pose to fetuses in virtue of their responsibility for having sex and getting pregnant, actions which are not in themselves impermissible. The moral difference between attacker and victim is discernible but not obvious. But, in most cases of harming animals, the attackers are moral agents who, from the species-egalitarian perspective, will be culpable for an unjustified harm to victims that pose no threat to them whatsoever.