Animal Torture

Most, nay, virtually all articles deserving of publication in a refereed journal such as this have a clear thesis, a conclusion, something that at least the authors think reaches a clearly defendable position on a given issue. The present article is an exception. We maintain that according to the non aggression principle (NAP) of libertarianism, it would be unjustified to criminalize animal torture. And yet, we feel highly uncomfortable with that state of affairs. We have not “nailed” this challenge in the sense of being able to demonstrate that the libertarian philosophy either must, or is precluded from, criminalizing mistreatment of inferior species. Rather, in what follows can best be described as our “musings” on this situation. As an excuse for our failings we offer only the following: that this is one of the most challenging issues confronting libertarianism; and that one of the benefits of publication in scholarly journals is not only to answer issues, but to raise them as well. We publish this paper in the fervent hope that it may focus attention on this challenge, and that others, maybe ourselves in future, may be able to better wrestle this one to the ground than we are able to do so at present.