The traditional view of Contractarianism is that it leaves no room for the interpretation of animal rights or a moral duty towards animals. Rowlands seeks to contest this and argues that the Kantian development of contractarianism in the work of Rawls allows for a moral duty towards animals. This essay seeks to investigate the question of whether Rawlsian contracualism is a satisfactory approach to our moral duty towards animals? Encompassed within this will also be an inquiry into whether any other moral theories studied provide a better examination of this issue.

Traditional Contractarianism has generally been discredited to having any moral claim towards animals. Hobbesian Contractarianism is based on the presumption that the state of nature is “solitary, poor, nasty, short, and brutish.” It can be seen as a “war of all against all.” This therefore entails that one will seek peace from this sate of nature through a desire to escape death and war through the antidote: peace. Rationality therefore will show us that in order to live in …show more content…
One of Rawls main arguments that he states governs a just society rests upon the claim that a group of rational, self-interested people cloaked behind a hypothetical “veil of ignorance” would choose to include the moral well being of non-human animals. This is known as the “veil of ignorance argument” to which Rowlands imagines there are rational agents who are unknown to the lives they will live and lead in the world. The representatives behind the veil of ignorance would be blind to species membership in a similar way they are blind to social, economic status, and natural talent and therefore Rowlands thinks that this would make animals become the recipients of Rawlsian justice. Each person would attempt to make their conclusion for the best life possible no matter what position they are put into the