Animal rights

Animal rights is a philosophical concept in bioethics that considers animals other than the human species as bearers of rights. This means that animals should have their basic interests considered in an equal manner as human beings, which would require humans to avoid animal exploitation in activities such as medical experimentation as well as food and clothing production. The fundamental bioethical question regarding animal rights is whether animals do have rights, and if so, what are those rights.

Animal rights is also considered to be a socio-political and even a legal movement. For example, some countries have passed legislation awarding recognition of animal rights. In 2002, Germany recognized animals as right-bearers in their constitution (Gross 2002). Also, the Seattle-based Great Ape Project, founded by philosophers Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer, currently campaigns for the United Nations to adopt a Declaration on Great Apes, which would see gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees and bonobos included in a "community of equals" with human beings, extending to them the protection of three basic interests: the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture (Singer 1994).

While the socio-political and legal animal rights movements are fascinating, animal rights is fundamentally a philosophical debate because the concept of a right is a moral concept and so belongs to ethics. Thus there will be a brief history of the debate over animal rights among philosophers and then a synopsis of the three major positions on animal rights in contemporary bioethics.

Perhaps animal rights should be looked at from a much wider, ecological and environmental viewpoint which pays attention also to plants and minerals, and from that viewpoint, the heated debate that divides animal rights advovates and those who deny animal rights can be better handled.

The logic of animal rights though raises problematic questions. Is there any moral difference between killing a human being and killing a cow or a rat? If not should rat killers be prosecuted for murder? Should cannibalism be allowed? Should crocodiles be prosecuted for violating the right to life of impalas? If one was driving a car and had a child and a dog ran into the road is there any reason for swerving to avoid the child if that resulted in running over the dog?

The animals rights movement has spawned terrorist groups such as the Animal Liberation Front that have used intimidation, violence and even murder to try to stop animal experimentation and farming.

There is a Biblical perspective which distinguishes the relative rights of human beings and animals in terms of the purposes of God. It asserts that God created human beings in his image and as his children and he created the natural world as a garden for his children to enjoy. As such people are more valuable to God than animals. Furthermore God gave human beings the responsibility, as his representatives, to look after the creation. Thus human beings have the right to eat animals and to use them as beasts of burden and, if necessary and within an ethical framework, for experimentation. Since human beings are closer to God than other creatures, animals can in some sense fulfill a higher purpose by serving human beings. For example a creature which is eaten becomes part of a human being and in that sense closer to God. This assumes that the person is living a good life and appreciates and gives thanks for the creature that has given up its life to nourish the person.

History of the concept

Some ancient Greek philosophers, such as Empedocles (495-435 B.C.E.)—the creator of the doctrine that everything is composed of earth, air, fire, or water (Parry 2005)—and Eudoxus of Cnidus (395-337 B.C.E.)—a student of Plato (429-347 B.C.E.) and the first Greek to mathematize planetary orbits—argued for vegetarianism as a dietary restriction due to strong beliefs in the reincarnation of human souls into animals after mortal death. In fact, Porphyry (243-305 C.E.)—a neo-Plationistic philosopher from Phoenicia—has a record of Dicaearchus (350-285 B.C.E.)—a student of Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.)— saying the following about Eudoxus, “he not only abstained from animal food but would also not come near butchers and hunters” (Huffman 2006).

One might suspect Pythagoras (570-490 B.C.E.)—an Ancient Greek philosopher and discoverer of the Pythagorean theorem—urged respect for animals because he also believed in a human reincarnation similar to Empedocles and Eudoxus. However, according to Aristotle, “the Pythagoreans refrain from eating the womb and the heart, the sea anemone and some other such things but use all other animal food” (Huffman 2006). The latter suggests that Pythagoras forbade eating certain parts of animals and certain species of animals, which was consistent with contemporaneous Greek religious rituals instead of a vegetarian philosophy (Huffman 2006).

In the 17th century, the French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) argued that animals had no minds due to “the failure of animals to use language conversationally or reason generally” (Allen 2006). Furthermore, given Descartes’s ethics in his seminal moral work The Passions of the Soul, only conscious beings are moral agents since moral actions arise from passions that dispose one’s mind to will specific actions (Rutherford 2003). Since passions are “perceptions, sensations or emotions of the [mind]” according to Descartes (1984), not only are animals not moral agents, but they are not even equipped with the precursor motivational states for moral action. Thus animals would not have equal moral status with human beings under Descartes’s ethics, although all human beings would have equal moral status, which was quite progressive for the time period.

Nevertheless, by the 18th century, philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) were developing philosophical arguments that made animals right-bearers even if animals could not be moral agents. The following excerpt from the preface of Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality expresses his deep commitment to animal rights:

By this method also we put an end to the time-honoured disputes concerning the participation of animals in natural law: for it is clear that, being destitute of intelligence and liberty, they cannot recognise that law; as they partake, however, in some measure of our nature, in consequence of the sensibility with which they are endowed, they ought to partake of natural right; so that mankind is subjected to a kind of obligation even toward the brutes. It appears, in fact, that if I am bound to do no injury to my fellow-creatures, this is less because they are rational than because they are sentient beings: and this quality, being common both to men and beasts, ought to entitle the latter at least to the privilege of not being wantonly ill-treated by the former (Rousseau 1754).

However, by the late 18th century, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) developed a very influential deontological ethics, now known as Kantian ethics, that categorized animals as mere things and instruments for rational agents. Even though humans have an indirect duty under Kantian ethics to not partake in animal cruelty—since it can harden our dealings with humans—animals do not have a right to equal moral respect with rational agents such as human beings due to a lack of free will and dignity (Kant 2002).

But also in the late 18th century, a new ethical system known as utilitarianism was being developed under the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). In his seminal moral work, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation in 1789, Bentham challenged Kant’s contemporaneous ethics insofar as it expanded the moral community to include sentient agents in addition to rational agents (Bentham 1789). Thus under Bentham’s utilitarian ethics, humans come to have duties toward animals insofar as they are also sentient beings and deserve equal consideration in moral deliberations.

The animal rights debate among philosophers diminished during the early 20th century due to the philosophical difficulties in defending utilitarianism. For example, when early 20th century academic philosophy took a linguistic turn and focused on analyzing language, the subfield of metaethics was born. However, one preeminent metaethicist, George Edward Moore (1873-1958), argued that utilitarianism harbored a fatal flaw since it commited a fallacy of reasoning that Moore referred to as the naturalistic fallacy. It was not until a new semantic theory of reference was developed in the early 1970s along with a more robust form of utilitarianism known as preference utilitarianism—developed under the British philosopher Richard Hare (1919-2002)—that the animal rights debate had a chance to resurface under a utilitarian defense.

During the mid-1970s when bioethics arose as a distinct subfield in academic philosophy, philosophers began to appreciate the importance of considering specific and practical moral dilemmas concerning biology. The pioneer of this applied ethics approach with respect to animal rights was undoubtedly the Australian philosopher Peter Singer (1946-present), who—being a former student of Richard Hare—was quick to use preference utilitarianism to construct original ethical arguments for animal rights.

Singer’s fundamental arguments are found in his seminal animal rights book in 1975, Animal Liberation. There he uses a concept from Oxford psychologist Richard Ryder, known as “speciesism” to articulate a discrimination argument against not acknowledging animal rights, utilizing analogies to the American Suffrage and Civil Rights movements to emphasize his point. Singer (1975) also articulates what animal rights should amount to under a preference utilitarian ethics in order to remove various stereotypes about what animal rights are. From there, some philosophers—such as Tom Regan (1983) and James Rachels (1990)—have developed supporting arguments for Singer’s original plea for animal rights, while other philosophers—such as Carl Cohen (1997)—have developed counterarguments against animal rights.

Philosophical Arguments: Pro and Con

For animal rights

The utilitarian approach

Perhaps the most famous contemporary philosophical argument for animal rights is the one Peter Singer presents in Animal Liberation. In a chapter entitled “All Animals Are Equal,” Singer argues that the principle of equality demands equal consideration of morally relevant interests to each and every being that possesses such interests. Since from the viewpoint of preference utilitarianism, sentience counts as a morally relevant interest and because animals other than humans possess sentience, it follows that the principle of equality should apply to animals as well as humans.

Furthermore, not giving animals equal consideration with respect to sentient interests qualifies as a unique form of discrimination known as “speciesism,” and is no different from racism or sexism (Singer 1975). Finally, Singer presents a controversial “rule of thumb” for how humans ought to treat animals. We ought to treat an animal the same way we would normally treat an infant with irreversible brain damage since both have the same moral status under preference utilitarianism. In this way, Singer arrives at a moral basis for vegetarianism as well as a prohibition against certain sorts of animal experimentation.

The rights-based approach

Despite Singer’s clever utilitarian argument, Tom Regan (1997) claims that Singer does not go far enough. Regan (1997, 107) distinguishes between “animal welfare” and “animal rights.” He claims that utilitarianism does not guarantee animal rights—and rather requires animal welfare—because all that is morally imperative under any version of utilitarianism is a maximization of one or other intrinsic goods—such as pleasure or preferences. But then this minimal constraint makes it permissible to violate someone’s so-called rights if the negative consequences of such an act do not outweigh the positive consequences.

In fact, Regan (1997, 106) constructs a thought experiment to show how it would be permissible under utilitarianism for four teenage boys to sexually abuse a “seriously retarded teenage girl.” This prompts Regan (1997, 106) to conclude that “utilitarianism is…a fundamentally mistaken way to think about morality.”

Instead, Regan begins with the moral truism that humans have rights. Then he searches for some characteristic about humans that makes it the case that humans have rights. Regan (1997, 109) denies that Kant’s (2002) criterion of being a “rational autonomous” agent is what gives all humans rights because it does not account for the right the four boys infringed upon when sexually abusing the mentally handicapped girl in the thought experiment. Rather, Regan claims that sentience is what accounts for the mentally handicapped girl’s right not to be sexually abused. Furthermore, since sentience is a basis for human rights, it is a basis for rights for all sentient beings. Hence all sentient beings (which includes sentient animals) have a right not to be used as instruments if it causes them pain or suffering. Thus according to Regan, not just vegetarianism but veganism is a moral requirement, and not just some, but all animal research is morally impermissible.

Against animal rights

The most well known philosophical critic of animal rights is Carl Cohen. Cohen claims to have developed a conception of rights that restricts rights to moral agents such as human beings. According to Cohen (1997, 91), rights are “potential claims” that can be made against a target. Furthermore, since rights are claims, giving something a right that cannot possibly make a claim is what Cohen (1997, 98) calls a “category mistake.” Category mistakes are errors of attribution due to confusion about the type of thing that can have the attribute. So asking whether animals have rights is analogous to asking whether cells eat. Since eating is a complex activity that only multicellular organisms can perform, it does not make sense to ask whether cells can eat anymore than it makes sense to ask whether humans can phagocytize.

Cohen (1997, 94) attributes the confusion about animal rights to another confusion involving the relationship between rights and obligations. Cohen claims that animal rights enthusiasts have confused themselves into such a position due to a conflation between rights and obligations. As stated before, rights are potential claims one can make against someone else, whereas obligations are duties one has toward others (or even oneself). Thus rights entail obligations, but obligations do not entail rights.

For example, a person born within the U.S. has a right to U.S. citizenship due to the 14th amendment, and so the U.S. government has an obligation to ensure that no person’s right to U.S. citizenship is violated. In contrast, suppose a parent imposes on herself an obligation to pay her child’s college tuition. The latter does not mean that her child has a right to have her parent pay her college tuition. Hence rights entail obligations, but obligations do not entail rights. Cohen (1997, 94) argues that the obligations humans have toward animals (e.g. to ensure animal welfare) have confused animal rights enthusiasts into thinking that animals somehow have a right to human obligations.

The challenge that remains is to explain how all humans and no animals have rights. For instance, how do human infants and mentally handicapped people deserve rights, since neither group possesses an ability to make claims. Cohen’s (2001, 283) first answer to this challenge is to cite human infants’s potential for making claims. In other words, human infants can have rights because they have a realizable capability for making claims. Cohen’s second and more infamous answer to this challenge concerns how to explain rights for mentally handicapped people. Cohen’s (2001, 283) reply is that mentally handicapped people are members of a kind of being that have a capability for making claims, namely, human beings. Thus mentally handicapped people should be part of the same moral community as other humans and should receive similar rights. In this way, Cohen (2001) separates speciesism as justified differential treatment and different in kind from racism and sexism. Hence Cohen’s (2001, 284) infamous declaration: “I am a speciesist. Speciesism is not merely plausible; it is essential for right conduct.”

The middle position

Not all philosophers adopt extreme views such as Regan’s or Cohen’s. In fact, one philosopher, Edwin Hettinger (2001) argues for a moderate position similar to Singer’s but without a basis in utilitarian ethics. First, Hettinger (2001, 290) rejects Cohen’s defense of speciesism. Hettinger calls differential treatment based on membership in a kind instead of individual characteristics as the defining feature of discrimination. Thus speciesism is one and the same kind of treatment as racism and sexism and should not be practiced.

Second, Hettinger adopts Singer’s principle of equality under a rights-based interpretation instead of a utilitarian one. So only after equal moral consideration has been achieved should we use a cost/benefit analysis of animal use.

Hettinger (2001, 289-291) claims that equal consideration of morally relevant factors includes a consideration of capabilities to value or plan for one’s future life, exercise free choice or moral agency, and to experience pain or suffering. Thus extending equal moral consideration to animals should significantly reduce animal use in all aspects of human life—such as scientific experimentation as well as food and clothing production—although it would not prohibit animal use.

Unfortunately, this moral stance also extends to comotose, mentally handicapped, and infant humans and leads us into the utilitarian dilemma. Thus as long as there are borderline cases among humans and animals, the animal rights debate will continue to fluorish. Nevertheless, philosophers have reached a consensus about at least ensuring animal welfare during our institutional uses of animals.

Assessment

One critical issue that divides people regarding animal rights is whether the criterion for animal rights is sentience or moral agency. Those who support animal rights say that animals deserve their rights because they are sentient just like humans are. Those who don't support animal rights maintain that animals don't deserve their rights as they lack moral agency which only humans have.

A challenging question to animal rights supporters would be: Why do they give rights only to animals and not to plants as well, because it is possible for plants also to be sentient? People such as Cleve Backster and Christopher O. Bird have strongly argued for plants' sentience based on experimentation, although this argument has also been questioned by skeptics. Albert Schweitzer's philosophy of "reverence for life" would not deny plants some kind of sentience. If plants could have rights because of their sentience, it could be said that vegetarians violate plant rights.

Some even say that minerals also have their way of being sentient, and animism, panpsychism, and religions such as Buddhism would support this. If so, animal rights supporters could also be asked why they don't give rights to minerals also. According to Alfred North Whitehead, all actual occasions at all levels in the world are each composite of mental and physical poles, thus being able to "feel" mentally and physically. The well-accepted philosophy of Aristotle, which maintains that every substantial being, whether, it is a human, an animal, a plant, or a mineral, is composite of "form" and "matter" (hylomorphism), is similar to Whitehead's doctrine of the dipolarity of reality, although Aristotle may not explicitly attribute sentience to minerals. According to Whitehead, the problem is the "bifurcation of nature," which dissociates "matter" from "form," as in the dualism of Descartes and modern scientism, thus defeating the hylomorphism of Aristotle.

The above points would be a challenge also to those who deny animal rights because they believe that only humans, who are moral agents, deserve rights which are called human rights.

Perhaps, humans are obliged to love and care for all things, not abusing them, whether they are animals, plants, or minerals. This ecological and environmental issue, related to our attitude of love towards all things, seems to be a much bigger and broader issue than just giving them "rights" or just refraining from eating animals or plants.

See Also

• Bioethics
• Ethics
• Utilitarianism

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Bentham, Jeremy. ([1789] 2003). An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Palo Alto: ebrary. Dover Publications, 2007. ISBN 978-0486454528
• Cohen, Carl. (1997). “Do Animals Have Rights?,” Ethics and Behavior 7(2): 91-102.
• Cohen, Carl. (2001). “The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research,” in Biomedical Ethics (Thomas Mappes and David DeGrazia, eds.). New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. 281-286.
• Descartes, René. (1984). The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. ISBN 978-0521288071
• Gross, M. (2002). “Animals set for protection by German constitution,” Current Biology 12(10): R338-R339.
• Hettinger, Edwin. (2001). “The Responsible Use of Animals in Biomedical Research,” in Biomedical Ethics (Thomas Mappes and David DeGrazia, eds.). New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. 287-293.
• Kant, Immanuel. (2002). Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (Allen Wood, trans.). New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. ISBN 978-0300094879
• Rachels, James. (1990). Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinianism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0192861290
• Regan, Tom. (1997). “The Rights of Humans and Other Animals,” Ethics and Behavior 7(2): 103-111.
• Regan, Tom. (1983). The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: Tne University of California Press, 2004. ISBN 978-0520243866
• Rousseau, Jean Jacques. (1754). Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Among Men. (G.D.H. Cole, trans.). Austin: The Constitution Society.
• Singer, Peter. (1994). The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994. ISBN 978-0312118181
• Singer, Peter. (1975). Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals. New York: Random House, 1975. ISBN 978-0394400969

External Links

• People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Retrieved April 3, 2007.
• Gruen, Lori. The Moral Status of Animals. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved April 3, 2007.
• Allen, Colin. (2006). Animal Consciousness, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Retrieved April 3, 2007.
• Rutherford, Donald. (2003). Descartes Ethics, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Retrieved April 3, 2007.
• Huffman, Carl. (2006). Pythagoras, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Retrieved April 3, 2007.
• The Great Ape Project. Retrieved April 3, 2007.

General Philosophy Sources

• Philosophy Talk. Retrieved April 2, 2007.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved April 2, 2007.
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved April 2, 2007.
• Philosophy Sources on Internet EpistemeLinks Retrieved April 2, 2007.
• Guide to Philosophy on the Internet Retrieved April 2, 2007.
• Paideia Project Online Retrieved April 2, 2007.
• Project Gutenberg Retrieved April 2, 2007.

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