Abstract
Recent social science research indicates that animal rights philosophy plays the functional role of a religion in the lives of the most committed animal rights advocates. In this paper, I apply the functional religion thesis to the recent debate over the place of direct action animal rights advocacy in democratic theory. I outline the usefulness of the functional religion thesis and explain its implications for theorists that call for deliberative theories to be more inclusive of coercive forms of activism.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 299-312 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Res Publica |
Volume | 23 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2017 |
Keywords
- animal rights
- deliberative democracy
- direct action
- extremists
- fundamentalism
- religiousness