The Democratic Inclusion of Nature: Exploring the Categorical Extension of the All-Affected Principle

This article contributes to the Rights of Nature debate by exploring the preconditions for extending politicalrights to non-human natural entities. This is done by exploring the scope of inclusion of the all-affected prin-ciple. It is argued that the categorical scope of inclusion of the principle could be stretched to include naturalentities, including nonsentient organisms. Stretching the scope of inclusion in this way assumes that the class ofinterests worthy of political concern is interpreted in a maximally inclusive way. Doing this would imply thatartifacts have a claim to democratic inclusion too.