Valéry Giroux
Valéry Giroux is a Canadian philosopher, lawyer and animal rights activist from Quebec. She is an adjunct professor at the Université de Montréal Faculty of Law, associate director for the Centre de recherche en éthique, a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, and an author and speaker on animal ethics issues and veganism, with a notable focus on the topic of antispeciesism through her co-editorship of the antispeciesist journal L'Amorce. Her philosophy defends equal moral consideration for all sentient beings, rejects the view that human use of non-human animals is morally permissible, and advocates an individual right to freedom for all sentient beings, regardless of species, with a focus on negative or republican freedom rather than positive freedom.
Education and career
After obtaining a bachelor's degree in law from the Université de Montréal in 1997, Giroux became a member of the Bar of Quebec in 2001. From an interest in issues surrounding animal rights, she studied for a master's degree in law at UdeM, with a thesis on a project to reform the cruelty to animals offences of the Canadian Criminal Code. She then undertook doctoral studies in philosophy at the UdeM and devoted her doctoral thesis, which was supervised by Christine Tappolet, to the extension of the most fundamental human rights to all sentient beings; the thesis, the first in Quebec in animal ethics, was published in book form by Éditions L'Âge d'Homme in 2017.Giroux is an adjunct professor at the Université de Montréal Faculty of Law. She is also associate director for the Centre de recherche en éthique and a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. She is the author of the book Contre l'exploitation animale and the co-author, with Renan Larue, of the book Le Véganisme in the PUF editorial collection "Que sais-je?" and a book in the same collection, L'antispécisme. Giroux is regularly invited to speak to the media on issues relating to animal ethics. She is co-editor of the French-language journal L'Amorce which focuses on antispeciesism.
Philosophy
Giroux's philosophy is antispeciesist, in that she argues against discriminating against sentient beings because they lack human species membership. She furthermore asserts that cognitive capacity, or lack thereof, has no moral relevance, stating "ou can't use these characteristics to place more or less value on individuals; the proof is that we do not grant more fundamental rights to the most intelligent human beings."Giroux is opposed to welfarism, the idea that it is ethically permissible for humans to use non-human animals, considering herself to be an abolitionist when it comes to animal rights. She opposes Alasdair Cochrane's position on the right to freedom of non-human animals, for whom animals have only an interest in being free when the absence of freedom is the cause of suffering for them. Conversely, Giroux maintains that the interest in being free from all sentient agents is of the same nature. This is at least the case, according to her, as soon as one abandons the concept of positive freedom in favor of that of negative freedom or of republican freedom. And this interest to be free, she argues, must be protected by the individual right to freedom for all sentient beings, whether they belong to humanity or not.
Awards
In 2018, Giroux received the 1st Prize for the Research Professionals Excellence award from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture.Selected bibliography
Contre l'exploitation animale- with Émilie Dardenne and Enrique Utria. Peter Singer et la libération animale. Quarante ans plus tard
- with Renan Larue. Le Véganisme L'antispécisme
- edited with Angie Pepper and Kristin Voigt. ''The Ethics of Animal Shelters''