Barriers to Achieving Invertebrate Justice

In this chapter, I consider some of the principal barriers to achieving invertebrate justice. First, I consider whether efforts to achieve invertebrate justice are, ultimately, too demanding, and thus futile. Although I believe that there are significant challenges to bringing about better outcomes for invertebrates, I argue that this is not a futile task. I then consider, in turn, some of the important psychological, social, and institutional factors that might make the realisation of invertebrate justice especially challenging. The human tendency towards speciesism, a lack of knowledge concerning invertebrates, and negative emotional reactions towards many invertebrate species make transforming our relations to invertebrates difficult. However, given important individual and cultural differences in the way that we treat animals in general, and invertebrates in particular, invertebrate justice is potentially achievable. In order to make substantial progress, however, we will need to address strong corporate vested interests in maintaining the status quo, especially in the context of the global food system. We will also need to systematically address government policies and laws relating to non-human animals.