Podcast brief

Animal Personhood and the Zoopolis Model of Rights

Historian Gabriel Rosenberg, attorney Monica Miller, and philosopher Kristin Andrews trace animal rights from medieval trials to modern habeas corpus cases and a proposed zoopolis framework.

A Stoa brief of an episode from Hi-Phi Nation

Living in a Zoopolis

With Gabriel Rosenberg, Monica Miller, and Kristin Andrews Published April 18, 2023 44 min

Listen to the original episode

The episode belongs to its makers. This page summarizes its arguments in Stoa's words and points to the moments where they are made. Brief updated September 21, 2026.

The brief

This conversation asks what it would mean to treat animals as persons under law and politics, and whether that status can be granted without unraveling practices like animal agriculture and pet ownership. It moves from medieval animal trials to a contemporary legal push for animal habeas corpus, and finally to a philosophical framework for assigning rights differently depending on how an animal relates to human society.

Historian Gabriel Rosenberg opens with cases like the rat trial of Autun and the Pig of Falaise, arguing that medieval Europeans may have genuinely believed animals capable of guilt and moral agency, since courts sometimes acquitted them. But he also offers a more skeptical reading: trials may have functioned to reassure anxious peasants that authorities were doing something about crop or livestock damage, whether or not anyone believed the animal was truly responsible. Rosenberg links this to the same jurist's later ambivalence about extending due process to human heretics, raising the question of how consistently any society applies its standards of moral standing.

Attorney Monica Miller then describes present-day efforts to win habeas corpus for chimpanzees and the elephant Happy, arguing that because habeas corpus is judge-made law, it can be extended by analogy the way it once was to enslaved people, without waiting on legislatures.

The strongest tension comes when host Barry Lam presses philosopher Kristin Andrews on her zoopolis model, adapted from Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, which gives wild animals sovereignty, domesticated animals citizenship, and denizen animals like urban rats a middle status. Lam argues that if personhood rules out buying and selling elephants, the same logic should unravel animal agriculture, since livestock are bought and sold too. Andrews concedes the conflict is real and admits it falls outside what she can resolve, saying only that she expects attitudes to shift substantially within a century.

The conversation leaves the reader with a genuine gap: recognizing an animal as a person may rule out treating it as mere property, but it does not by itself answer what we owe that animal in practice. That gap is worth sitting with the next time a legal or ethical claim about animals is framed as settled by a single word like "personhood."

Strongest arguments

Medieval trials may reflect real belief in animal agency

1:24

Rosenberg argues that medieval and early modern Europeans held a genuinely different view of animals, seeing them as capable of moral responsibility and even wonder, not simply as objects. He points to cases where courts acquitted animals, such as a pig that mauled someone while defending her piglets, as evidence the trials were not purely theatrical.

Animal trials may have functioned as scapegoating or social control

7:34

Rosenberg also offers a more cynical reading: church authorities may not have believed animals were literally demonic agents but used trials to reassure anxious peasants facing crop or livestock destruction that something was being done.

Loss of animal agency correlates with loss of animal moral status

9:36

Rosenberg and Lam suggest that as humans gained ecological control over animals and animals stopped posing real threats, humans stopped attributing agency and moral responsibility to them, reserving that status for humans alone.

Habeas corpus can be extended to animals through common law reasoning

18:14

Miller argues that habeas corpus, as judge-made common law, does not require new legislation and has historically been extended to previously rightless groups such as enslaved people and abused wives. She argues courts can similarly extend it to animals like chimpanzees and elephants by analogy, based on scientific evidence of their cognitive and emotional capacities.

The zoopolis model assigns differentiated rights by an animal's relation to human society

26:08

Andrews presents the zoopolis framework, under which wild animals deserve sovereignty and territorial rights akin to nations, domesticated animals deserve citizenship rights and care obligations, and denizen animals occupy a middle status with rights to shared space but no entitlement to having their needs met by humans.

Personhood does not automatically settle difficult ethical questions about animal treatment

32:51

Andrews argues that granting animals political personhood rules out treating them as objects that can be bought and sold, but does not automatically resolve harder questions like reproductive control or labor, which she says require careful, contextualized ethical analysis rather than blanket rules.

Consistent application of personhood would upend animal agriculture and pet ownership

35:47

Lam presses Andrews that if personhood rules out buying and selling, this logically applies to livestock as much as to pets like Happy the elephant, and suggests courts may reject animal personhood claims not on narrow legal merits but because of the sweeping consequences such a ruling would imply.

Disagreements

Whether personhood status logically rules out animal agriculture

35:19

Lam repeatedly presses Andrews that if elephant personhood rules out buying and selling, the same logic should apply to cattle and other livestock central to animal agriculture. Andrews concedes this creates real conflicts of interest and eventually admits animal agriculture is beyond her area of expertise, saying only that she expects views on it to change dramatically within a century.

Concepts discussed

personhood The status of being a subject with moral standing, memory, feeling and the capacity for growth, rather than a mere object or tool.

Philosophers and works discussed

Kristin Andrews
Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights By Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka.

Questions this episode answers

Why were animals put on trial in medieval and early modern Europe?
1:24

Historian Gabriel Rosenberg explains that medieval Europeans may have genuinely believed animals had moral agency, capable of guilt or innocence, while also suggesting trials could function as a way to appease peasants anxious about crop or livestock destruction, making authorities appear to be addressing the problem.
What is the zoopolis model of animal rights?
26:08

Philosopher Kristin Andrews describes the zoopolis model, based on Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka's book, as assigning wild animals sovereignty rights over their territory, domesticated animals citizenship rights within human communities, and denizen animals like urban rats or raccoons an intermediate status with rights to use shared space without an obligation on humans to meet their needs.
Can habeas corpus be extended to animals like chimpanzees and elephants?
18:14

Attorney Monica Miller argues that because habeas corpus is judge-made common law rather than statute, courts can extend it by analogy to animals with sufficient cognitive and emotional complexity, just as it was historically extended to enslaved people and abused wives, without needing new legislation.
Does recognizing animal personhood rule out eating meat or owning pets?
34:37

Kristin Andrews argues personhood rules out treating animals as property that can be bought and sold, which would affect pet ownership, but she says questions about labor, reproduction, and animal agriculture require careful case-by-case ethical analysis rather than a blanket answer, and admits she cannot resolve the conflict for agriculture.
What rights would wild animals have if they were granted political personhood?
26:46

Kristin Andrews argues wild animals would have collective sovereignty rights over their territory, similar to nations, meaning conflicts with humans over land are treated like territorial disputes, and human intervention in wild animal conflicts, even to stop suffering, is generally treated as unwarranted foreign intervention.
Can animals be held morally or legally responsible for their actions?
38:07

Kristin Andrews argues that animal personhood does not automatically imply animal responsibility, which would additionally require evidence that animals hold themselves to social norms, citing research on chimpanzee community norms and possible infanticide prohibitions as suggestive but unresolved evidence.

Sources

Hi-Phi Nation, Living in a Zoopolis Podcast episode, original episode