Il commento - Uno scontro bestiale. Il trattamento degli animali e le procedure di gestione dei conflitti

Anno LII, n. 219, maggio-agosto 2017

Emanuela Ceva’s volume (Interactive Justice: A Proceduralist Approach to Value Conflicts in Politics, Routledge, 2016) aims to deal with and propose a
realistic solution to value conflicts in politics. In this article I test the applicability of her proceduralist account to the case of the disagreement about
the treatment of animals. Despite Ceva’s wide ranging concern for a variety of conflicts, in her book she does not analyze the case of the treatment of
animals. But this case may be a real challenge because it is likely to become a source of new and persisting conflicts. The disagreement about the treatment of animals constitutes a value conflict because animal rights supporters reject many values entrenched in majority’s practices and culture (the superiority of human beings, the permissibility to use animals for any human interests). Moreover, this conflict sometimes emerges in violent manners (for instance, in animal rescue and sabotages). In this paper, I distinguish different forms of animal rights advocacy and analyse under which conditions Ceva’s approach may be fruitfully be employed. Some parts of the multifaceted animal rights advocacy groups may enter in a conflict management procedure, while other more violent and non-cooperative parts are unlikely to do so. However, a conflict management procedure may still be beneficial even towards the relation with the non-cooperative parties.