Feline Liberty and the Right to be a Cat

Join the Philosophy Department's Center for Values and Social Policy for a Think! Talk by Philosophy doctoral candidate Cheryl Abbate, titled "Feline Liberty and the Right to be a Cat."

Abstract:  There is a widespread belief that for their own safety and for the protection of wildlife, cats should be permanently confined to the indoors. Against this view, it will be argued that cat guardians have a duty to provide their feline companions with outdoor access. The argument is based on an account of animal well-being that takes seriously both the interests of animals and the capacities that are characteristic of their species. Maintaining a territory, which requires outdoor access, is an innate feline-capacity, so when a cat is permanently confined to the indoors, her ability to flourish is impaired. Since cat guardians have a duty not to impair the well-being of their cats, the impairment of cat flourishing via confinement signifies moral failure. Although some cats face significant risks and sometimes kill wild animals when roaming outdoors, these important considerations do not imply that all cats should be deprived of the opportunity to access the outdoors. Indeed, they do not, by themselves, imply that any cat should be permanently confined to the indoors.

Cheryl Abbate is a doctoral candidate in the University of Colorado Boulder’s Philosophy Department. She specializes in nonhuman animal ethics and has published on topics such as: the intersection of animal ethics and abortion, the ethics of defensive killing and animals, the duty to assist animals who are treated unjustly, and the role of compassion in animal rights theory.