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Abstract
In my project I argue that my version of the capabilities approach provides a better framework for including animals as subjects of justice in Western liberal societies than Martha Nussbaums version of the approach, Tom Regans animal rights, Peter Singers animal welfare, or any social contract theory. I first lay out Nussbaums capabilities approach. Then I examine several versions of the social contract, highlighting a number of reasons that animals cannot be included as subjects of justice on a social contract theory. After this I consider Regans animal rights and Singers animal welfare accounts, as well as Val Plumwoods egalitarian account of the intentional other, Mary Midgleys affective account, and Clare Palmers causal history account of our responsibilities toward animals. Drawing on Plumwoods and Palmers work, in the last section, I craft a version of the capabilities approach that departs radically from Nussbaums version in two ways. First, on my approach, individuals are valuable by virtue of their form of life, rather than by virtue of the capacities they actually have. Second, following Palmer, I hold that our responsibilities toward them are partly determined by the ways in which we have made them vulnerable to harm, rather than only by the overriding moral directive to provide every individual the opportunity to flourish. I argue that these components of my account enable it to avoid critical problems that Nussbaums account, Regans animal rights, Singers animal welfare, and social contract theories cannot.