Slavery + Zoos + a Pinch of Kant

Kant was a philosopher who considered the moral scope, what is a moral scope, what rights do those in this scope have and who is in the scope? In Kant's view, only humans were in the scope, however, harming a nonhuman could be considered wrong if it would lead to the harming of those inside the moral sphere. I think, like most Neo-Kanitians today, that Kant really wanted to include animals in his moral sphere, but thought the idea too radical for the period because in most instances non humans are included in Kant's moral sphere.

Now that the further establishment of Kant's moral sphere is out of the way, I propose that zoos are wrong because of their resemblance to slavery and, in a more traditional Kantian view, are wrong because they could lead to the slavery of humans. Zoos resemble slavery because of the sheer fact that the animals that are taken out of the wild and who are bred by scientists have little to no autonomy. These animals are simply watered down phantoms of their natural state; they are not allowed the predator-prey relationship, they are not allowed to live in their full range for their habitat and are forced to act in such a manner as to entertain the human population. These points alone can justify that the animals' situations are greatly resembling slavery, which, seeing non humans as worthy of moral considerations, is a total disregard for one of the most important rights, autonomy. Additionally, the slavery of these animals, from a more traditional Kantian perspective, could lead to the slavery of humans because of the purest example from our discussion in class about kicking the dog leading to kicking one's wife.