Josh Milburn

The demandingness of Nozick’s ‘Lockean’ proviso

Interpreters of Robert Nozick’s political philosophy fall into two broad groups concerning his application of the ‘Lockean proviso’. Some read his argument in an undemanding way: individual instances of ownership which make people worse off than they would have been in a world without any ownership are unjust. Others read the argument in a demanding way: individual instances of ownership which make people worse off than they would have been in a world without that particular ownership are unjust. While I argue that the former reading is correct as an interpretive matter, I suggest that this reading is nonetheless highly demanding. In particular, I argue that it is demanding when it is expanded to include the protection of nonhuman animals; if such beings are right bearers, as more and more academics are beginning to suggest, then there is no nonarbitrary reason to exclude them from the protection of the proviso.

Robert Nozick on Nonhuman Animals: Rights, Value and the Meaning of Life

In his chapter, Josh Milburn argues that Robert Nozick considers nonhuman animals in his philosophical writings, but that these discussions are downplayed in animal ethics and Nozick scholarship. This is regrettable, Milburn proposes, as Nozick is far more sympathetic to animal rights than many other libertarians. Milburn thus offers an analysis of Nozick’s animal ethics. Nozick’s arguments concerning vegetarianism and speciesism are considered, and Milburn argues that tensions in Nozick’s political philosophy potentially open the door to animal rights. Whatever their place in his political philosophy, Milburn contends, nonhuman animals find a comfortable home in Nozick’s axiology and ethics, with their value and the significance of our duties towards them affirmed. Milburn concludes that animal ethicists could learn from Nozick’s distinctive arguments and approaches and find an unexpected ally.

Nonhuman Animals as Property Holders: An Exploration of the Lockean Labour-Mixing Account

Recent proposals in political philosophy concerning nonhuman animals as property-holders - by John Hadley and Steve Cooke - have focused on the interests that nonhuman animals have in access to and use of their territories. The possibility that such rights might be grounded on the basis of a Lockean (that is, labour-mixing) account of property has been rejected. In this paper, I explore four criticisms of Lockean property rights for nonhuman animals - concerning self-ownership, initiative, exertion and the sufficiency of protection offered - concluding that Lockean property rights could be extended to nonhuman animals. I then suggest that Lockean property rights actually offer advantages over interest-based accounts: they more clearly ground property, they are potentially broader, and they are considerably stronger.

Book Review: Marcel Wissenburg and David Schlosberg (eds), Political Animals and Animal Politics

political implications, by way of essays focused upon four major thinkers: Plato, Niccolò Machiavelli, Immanuel Kant and Max Weber. Webel provides both historical context and a lucid summary exposition of the ideas of these four. Plato is the first perfector of the idea and (quasi-mystical) ideal of theoretical reason, whose reason doubles as a fantasia on how to justify and enforce Plato’s preferred aristocratic regime. Machiavelli is the relativiser, who detached the mental faculty of reason from the conception of reason as an ideal inseparable from the ends of abstract virtue, and reattached it, within the historical world, to the good of the (republican) state. Kant is the great restorer, whose riposte to the challenges of (sceptical, materialising) early modern thought was to secure reason upon a base of transcendental metaphysics; history itself was now incorporated into a rationalising process intended to harmonise humanity’s world with the exercise of Kantian reason. Weber is the second detacher, who reconceived Kant’s rationalisation process in history as one of formal rationality rather than of substantive rationality, and who exiled the ends of reason into the realm of the irrational. Webel has written an essayistic overview of the subject rather than a detailed monograph, and a rather good one – his narrative is brisk, lucid, often quietly funny and generally stylish. He emphasises how reason for all four figures incorporated in sublimated and unexamined fashion various a priori ideals – mysticism, the good of the republic, scientific objectivity and so on – and thus has been all too often a hodge-podge of procedural reason and substantive reason, the latter conflated with the idols of the age and given no meaning more definite than doubleplusgood. With an eye to both the strengths and follies of reason highlighted in this narrative, Webel concludes with an attractive appeal for a reason that aspires within history from the procedural towards the substantive, but with a chastened and common-sense awareness of its limitations. The bibliography, however, especially of the historical contextualisation, largely dates from before 1975: the vintage gives pause and supports some dated interpretations. Nevertheless, this is an insightful work, of particular use for assignment to intelligent undergraduates and graduate students, useful as a survey by non-specialists, and worth the time of specialists as a thoughtful reading.