Home / A. Sentience and moral status / Part DIR
"Animals are property."
saying an animal is property describes what the law says today; it doesn't justify what the law allows. Slavery was also a regime of legal property, and that didn't make it just. The law itself already recognizes that animals aren't ordinary things: punishing cruelty to your own dog only makes sense if someone is being harmed, not an object being damaged.
Short answer
Being property is what the law says today, not a moral reason. Slavery was also a regime of legal property, and that didn't make it just. And not even the law lets you do anything: cruelty to your own animal is a crime, precisely because the animal can be harmed, unlike a chair. The question is whether it's right to treat as a thing someone who feels.
For children
A long time ago, some people were treated as if they belonged to other people, as if they were objects. Today everyone knows that was very wrong, even though it was allowed back then. Calling someone "mine" doesn't turn them into a thing. A little pig feels fear and pain, even if someone says he's theirs.
"If the dog is yours, can you beat it? Why does the law say you can't?"
Como pode aparecer
"The cow is mine, I'll do what I want."
"I bought it, it's mine."
"It's a product like any other."
"Vegans want to control what belongs to other people."
"Are you going to tell me what to do with my property?"
"Animals are movable property, and the owner has the right to dispose of them."
"Without property in animals, there's no livestock farming."
"It's not a question of morality, it's a question of law." (which is D7)
The strongest version
"The cow is mine, I bought it. I'll do what I want with it."
Strongest version (steelman):
- P1The right of property lets the owner use, sell and dispose of what is theirs.
- P2Under the law, farmed animals are the property of those who raise or buy them.
- CSo the owner may use and kill their animals as they please.
P2 is true as a description of most legal systems, which treat animals as goods. The problem is using that description as a justification.
The argument is valid on the legal plane and invalid on the moral plane: from "the law allows it" it doesn't follow that "it's just" (D7). And not even on the legal plane does the conclusion hold in full, because the owner can't do just anything with their own animal.
Full answer
- a
Reconstruction and diagnosis
The argument confuses two kinds of question:
Question Type Answer Does the law treat animals as property? Descriptive Today, largely yes Is it just to treat animals as property? Normative That's what's under discussion Using the first answer to settle the second is moving from "is" to "ought" (Hume's law) and appealing to the law as if it were the measure of morality (D7).
- b
Where the argument breaks
1. Property has been applied to people.
Slavery was a legal property regime, with buying, selling and inheritance. It was legal, and it wasn't just. That something is property has never settled whether it should be.
2. Not even the law permits everything.
Cruelty to animals is an offence in the UK, the EU countries, the United States, Brazil and many other places, including when committed by the owner. No one is prosecuted for breaking their own chair. The law already recognizes that the animal is someone who can be harmed.
3. The law is changing.
France amended its Civil Code in 2015 to define animals as living beings endowed with sentience. In Brazil, the Senate approved a bill in 2019 that removes animals from the status of things, though with an amendment excluding animals used in agriculture, research and cultural events. The bill went back to the lower house.
4. The exception reveals the problem.
Excluding precisely farmed animals from recognition as subjects doesn't answer the moral question; it shows that property status is kept for economic convenience, not because these animals feel less.
5. Property isn't a criterion of value.
What gives a being moral weight is the capacity to be harmed, not the title of whoever owns it.
- c
Data and sources
Source What it says Note United Kingdom, Animal Welfare Act 2006, section 4 Offence of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal Applies to the owner as well; Brazil's equivalent is Law 9.605/1998, art. 32 Brazil, Bill PL 6054/2019 ("animals are not things") (in Portuguese) Approved by the Senate in 2019, with an amendment excluding animals in agriculture, research and cultural events; sent back to the lower house Checked against press coverage and Senate documents; its progress may have changed French Civil Code, art. 515-14 (2015), commentary in Le Petit Juriste (in French) Animals are living beings endowed with sentience, but remain subject to the property regime, except under the laws that protect them Created by Law no. 2015-177; checked against a legal commentary Francione, *Animals, Property, and the Law* (1995) As long as they are property, animals' interests will tend to yield to the owner's Temple University Press - d
The strongest counter-reply: property with duties
The most serious version admits that property in animals isn't unlimited and defends a model of "property with responsibility": the owner may use and kill, but must avoid cruelty. That way the law would protect animals without abolishing their use.
- e
Why the counter-reply doesn't reach the conclusion
Protection yields where there's profit.
Cruel practices such as extreme confinement and mutilations remain permitted when they're economically useful (B8). "Responsibility" adjusts itself to the owner's interest.
It still doesn't justify property.
Limiting the use of something doesn't explain why it's legitimate to own someone who feels.
The same model was tried with people.
Laws regulating the treatment of enslaved people didn't make slavery acceptable.
Reasoning errors
Logical
Is the form valid?
Hume's law (from is to ought)
Appeal to the law
Epistemological
Does the evidence support it?
Misdescribing the law
Moral
Is the criterion coherent?
Power as legitimacy
Biases
Functional categorization
"Production" animals are seen as things, and "pets" as someone
Extrapolations
The principle being tested is: "what is property may be used however the owner wishes".
If it applied to…Enslaved peopleTap to see
Slavery would be just as long as it was legal
No one accepts this
If it applied to…Dogs and catsTap to see
The owner could mistreat them
The law forbids it
If it applied to…Historic buildingsTap to see
The owner could demolish at will
The law protects listed buildings even when privately owned
Contradictions
If property decided, there would be no crime.
Recognizes that property isn't a criterion of justice.
Gives it a name, takes it to the vet and grieves its death.
No one may use their own house to pollute the neighbor's.
What the argument gets right
What is true
The argument correctly describes the current law: largely, animals are still treated as goods, and changing that status requires careful institutional design, with representation and clear rules. It's also true that property is an important institution and that no one should have their goods taken arbitrarily.
But
But the moral question comes before the law: can someone who feels be someone else's thing? The law has already answered no to that question for humans, and has begun to answer it for animals. The argument only describes where the answer hasn't arrived yet.
Connections
Usually comes before
Usually comes after
Go deeper in Questão de Ética
Chapters from the open-access collection A Journey Through Animal Ethics that discuss this argument in more detail:
- Aren't Animals Already Protected by the Law? Vol. IV, ch. 17
References
Law
- United Kingdom. Animal Welfare Act 2006, section 4.
- Brazil. Law no. 9.605/1998, art. 32 (in Portuguese).
- Senate decision: animals can no longer be considered objects (PL 6054/2019) (in Portuguese).
- Animals, Property, and the Law.