Beyond Species: The Quest for an Adequate Legal Concept for Animals in Brazilian Legal System

This paper examines the issue of the proper legal treatment of animals. To this end, we debunked the importance of the criterion of species for justifying the distinction between humans and animals. Then, we also sought to analyse the main ethical theories that overcome speciesism and its legal repe...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Cury, Carolina Maria Nasser, Lopes, Laís Godoi
Tipo de documento: artigo
Estado:Versão publicada
Data de publicação:2015
País:Brasil
Recursos:Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Pós-graduação em Direito (CONPEDI)
Repositório:Revista de Biodireito e Direito dos Animais
Idioma:português
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.indexlaw.org:article/26
Acesso em linha:http://www.indexlaw.org/index.php/revistarbda/article/view/26
Access Level:Acceso aberto
Palavra-chave:Animal rights
Speciesism
Abolitionism
Kantian account
Utilitarianism
Direitos dos animais
Especismo
Abolicionismo
Viés kantiano
Utilitarismo
Descrição
Resumo:This paper examines the issue of the proper legal treatment of animals. To this end, we debunked the importance of the criterion of species for justifying the distinction between humans and animals. Then, we also sought to analyse the main ethical theories that overcome speciesism and its legal repercussions. We then discussed three theories, which are animal abolitionism, Kantian approach to animal rights and the utilitarian view. We addressed the differences between abolitionists, Kantian, and utilitarian bias regarding legal consideration of animals. Finally, we presented an alternative criterion to the current proposals regarding animal rights, which aims to overcome the dichotomy between things and persons on Law.