Das Gewicht tierlicher Rechtsgüter

In the philosophy of law, there is an intense debate on whether animals are bearers of (fundamental-)rights. For solving practical problems, however, it is often more decisive what weight their legal interests have in relation to human legal interests. The author argues that this weight can only be determined on the basis of the philosophical justification of the law. To this end, he outlines a contractarian theory of legitimacy inspired by Hobbes’ justification of the state and sheds light on the status such a theory accords animals and other creatures incapable of reason. He shows that even this anthropocentric approach assigns far greater weight to animal legal interests than current legal practice.