Book contents
- Injury and Injustice
- Cambridge Studies in Law and Society
- Injury and Injustice
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Injury and the Construction of Legal Subjects
- Chapter One The Meaning of Injury
- Chapter Two Injury in the Unresponsive State
- Chapter Three “One Small Characteristic”
- Chapter Four Righteous Injuries
- Part II Constructing Injury and Imagining Remedies
- Part III Inequality and/as Injury
- Conclusion
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Law and Society
- References
Chapter Three - “One Small Characteristic”
Conceptualizing Harm to Animals and Legal Personhood
from Part I - Injury and the Construction of Legal Subjects
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2018
Book contents
- Injury and Injustice
- Cambridge Studies in Law and Society
- Injury and Injustice
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Injury and the Construction of Legal Subjects
- Chapter One The Meaning of Injury
- Chapter Two Injury in the Unresponsive State
- Chapter Three “One Small Characteristic”
- Chapter Four Righteous Injuries
- Part II Constructing Injury and Imagining Remedies
- Part III Inequality and/as Injury
- Conclusion
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Law and Society
- References
Summary
The liberal model of the rights-bearing subject, an autonomous, rational being able to make claims on its own behalf, has been a barrier to legal mobilization for some marginalized subjects. Among these liminal subjects, non-human animals have been recognized as property under the law, a status that has limited the capacity of legal activism on their behalf. This chapter explores the novel deployment of the law on behalf of two subjects, Tommy the chimpanzee and Johnny Justice, a pitbull once used in fighting. The arguments used by legal activists focus on the injustice of the suffering endured by the animals rather than focusing on their capacities—or lack thereof—as autonomous subjects. Doing so enables a set of claims about a moral and legal obligation to minimize and compensate for their injuries. However, while the focus on vulnerability does not require the animals to first establish that they are rights-bearing subjects deserving of legal representation, the universalizing gesture of “shared corporeality” obfuscates the ways that new hierarchies are generated in representing some subjects as in need of legal protection. In short, the question becomes: who gets help and who is admitted to privilege?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Injury and InjusticeThe Cultural Politics of Harm and Redress, pp. 76 - 95Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2018
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