I am familiar with Kymlicka’s work, and honestly I think this has little to do with effective altruism because the evidence component is lacking. The idea that animals live in “communities” has been strongly critiqued (see: Humanitarian intervention in nature: crucial questions and probable answersby Adriano Mannino) - a better analogy is that they live in a state of civil war. We cannot expect that they will be able to reason about their conflicts and collective action problems. Furthermore, Kymlicka’s claims might work for highly intelligent animals, but most wild animals are very small and the hope of doing politics ‘with them’ is a pipe dream. Unfortunately, Kymlicka has not responded to these criticisms.
I am familiar with Kymlicka’s work, and honestly I think this has little to do with effective altruism because the evidence component is lacking. The idea that animals live in “communities” has been strongly critiqued (see: Humanitarian intervention in nature: crucial questions and probable answers by Adriano Mannino) - a better analogy is that they live in a state of civil war. We cannot expect that they will be able to reason about their conflicts and collective action problems. Furthermore, Kymlicka’s claims might work for highly intelligent animals, but most wild animals are very small and the hope of doing politics ‘with them’ is a pipe dream. Unfortunately, Kymlicka has not responded to these criticisms.