Justice

Description

Justice implies fairness, i.e. that equal cases will be treated equally and unequal cases unequally. A narrow usage of the term justice related to what is legally required, i.e. staying within the limits of the law. A problem with the latter specification of justice, however, when applied to animal welfare is that legal systems are by and large inadequate to do moral justice to animals, i.e. present-day legislation concerning animal welfare is inadequate when regarded from an ethical point of view. This is because the Golden Rule is often violated: Don’t do to animals what you would not others have do to you (if you were that animal).
Exploiting animals is a violation of justice, as well as a violation of non-maleficence (not doing harm). It is also unfair to treat some animals as mere instruments (e.g. farmed rabbits) and other animals as children or child substitutes (pet rabbits). Another violation of justice is the fact that in Europe farmers are have to meet certain animal welfare standards, whereas retailers and consumers are not similarly required to refrain from consuming imported animal products where no similar welfare standards have applied. Speciesism, the view that differential treatment merely based on species, is a violation of the principle of justice. The term ‘speciesism’ is an analogue to other -isms like racism and sexism, referring to discrimination based on species, race and sex respectively.