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Paper short abstract

This study examines how Latvian animal-help volunteers perceive the moral status of stray animals and frame their activism as social justice. Based on 10 semi-structured interviews, it reveals how grassroots actors challenge institutional power hierarchies that systematically devalue stray animals.

Paper long abstract

Moral status is a concept that provides the framework for animal rights, integrating moral rights, legal rights, ethical treatment, welfare, and the inherent value of animals. This study analyzes perspectives on the moral status of stray animals, particularly cats and dogs, among animal-help volunteers in Latvia, and explores how this perspective can be integrated into the broader social justice movement. The author conducted 10 semi-structured interviews with volunteers to examine how their beliefs about the moral status of stray animals affect their relationships with institutional power and align with contemporary social justice theories. The author examines how volunteer activists formulate a moral stance through their subjective interpretations of social justice, and how they become catalysts for social change by aligning their actions with ethical principles. Volunteering in animal protection in Latvia is intrinsically connected to the practical application of concepts of justice. Informants believe that justice extends beyond humans to encompass animals as morally meaningful entities. The moral status of animals underpins the volunteers’ ethical and civic engagement: they regard stray animals as equal members of the community, entities with inherent value deserving of protection, dignity, and quality of life. Volunteers confront the perspectives of institutional authorities (veterinary inspectors, veterinarians, politicians) who prioritize companion animals with owners, thereby neglecting the welfare of stray animals. They perceive this disparate treatment as an injustice rooted not in an objective evaluation of needs but in a moral hierarchy that systematically devalues stray animals.