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{{Short description|Rights belonging to animals}}
{{redirect|Animal liberation}} {{For|the album by Moby|Animal Rights (album)}}
{{About|the philosophy of animal rights|current animal rights around the world|Animal rights by country or territory|a timeline of animal rights|Timeline of animal welfare and rights|other uses|Animal rights (disambiguation)}}
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] in ]]]
], or sea fox, photographed in the Zigong People's Zoo, ], 2001, by the Asian Animal Protection Network. The AAPN writes that the animal was kept hungry so that visitors could feed him live eels from a ladle. <ref>, Asian Animal Protection Network.</ref>]]
] in a ]]]
'''Animal rights''', also known as '''animal liberation''', is the idea that the basic interests of non-human animals—for example, the interest in avoiding suffering—should be afforded the same consideration as the basic interests of human beings.<ref name=EB3>"." ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. 2007.</ref> Animal rights advocates argue that animals should no longer be regarded as property, or treated as resources for human purposes, but should instead be regarded as ]<ref name=AAMC>, Association of American Medical Colleges, retrieved July 12, 2006.</ref> and members of the moral community.<ref>Taylor, Angus. ''Animals and Ethics: An Overview of the Philosophical Debate'', Broadview Press, May 2003.</ref>
{{Animal rights sidebar}}
{{Rights|By claimant}}
], the 23rd ], revived ] and ] in the 9th century BCE, which led to a radical animal-rights movement in South Asia.<ref>{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=YAFPAQAAIAAJ&q=Parshwanatha+animal+rights|title= You are, therefore I am: A declaration of dependence|last1= Kumar|first1= Satish|date= September 2002|publisher= Bloomsbury USA|isbn= 9781903998182}}</ref>]]
], in his '']'', taught ''ahimsa'' and ] as personal virtues. The plaque in this statue of Valluvar at an animal sanctuary in ] describes the Kural's teachings on ahimsa and ], summing them up with the definition of ].]]


'''Animal rights''' is the ] according to which many or all ] have ] independent of their ] to humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding ]—should be afforded the same consideration as similar interests of human beings.<ref>DeGrazia (2002), ch. 2; Taylor (2009), ch. 1.</ref> Broadly speaking, and particularly in popular discourse, the term "animal rights" is often used synonymously with "animal protection" or "animal liberation". More narrowly, "animal rights" refers to the idea that many animals have fundamental rights to be treated with respect as individuals—], ], and ] from torture that may not be overridden by considerations of aggregate welfare.<ref>Taylor (2009), ch. 3.</ref>
The idea of extending personhood to animals has the support of some senior legal scholars, including ]<ref name=DershowitzAA>Dershowitz, Alan. ''Rights from Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights'', 2004, pp. 198–99, and "Darwin, Meet Dershowitz," ''The Animals' Advocate'', Winter 2002, volume 21.</ref> and ] of ],<ref name=AAMC/> and ] courses are now taught in 89 out of 180 law schools in the United States.<ref>, ]; 47 U.S. law schools have student ], with more being set up in Australia, Canada, England, and New Zealand. State, regional, and local bar associations are forming animal law committees to advocate for new animal rights and protections.</ref>The Seattle-based ] is campaigning for the United Nations to adopt a ], which would see ]s, ]s, ]s and ]s included in a "community of equals" with human beings, extending to them the protection of three basic interests: the ], the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture.<ref name=ape>, ], retrieved 8 March 2007.</ref> This is seen by an increasing number of animal rights lawyers as a first step toward granting rights to other animals.<ref name=Michael>Michael, Steven. , ''The Physiologist'', Volume 47, No. 6, December 2004.</ref><ref>], who teaches animal rights law at Harvard Law School, has said of this approach, quoting economist Robert Samuelson: "Progress occurs funeral by funeral." (Wise, Steven M. "Address at the 5th Annual Conference on Animals and the Law," Committee on Legal Issues Pertaining to Animals, Association of the Bar of the City of New York, September 25, 1999)</ref>


Many advocates of animal rights oppose the assignment of moral value and fundamental protections on the basis of species membership alone.<ref>Compare for example similar usage of the term in 1938: {{cite book
Critics of the concept of animal rights argue that animals do not have the capacity to enter into a ] or make moral choices, and therefore cannot be regarded as possessors of moral rights. The philosopher ] argues that only human beings have duties and that "he corollary is inescapable: we alone have rights."<ref name=Scruton2>Scruton, Roger. ''Animal Rights and Wrongs'', Metro, 2000.ISBN 1-900512-81-5.</ref> Critics holding this position argue that there is nothing inherently wrong with using animals for food, as entertainment, and in research, though human beings may nevertheless have an obligation to ensure they do not suffer unnecessarily.<ref name=Frey>Frey, R.G. ''Interests and Rights: The Case against Animals''. Clarendon Press, 1980 ISBN 0-19-824421-5</ref> This position is generally called the animal welfare position, and it is held by some of the oldest of the animal protection agencies.
| year = 1938
| title = The American Biology Teacher
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=gQbbAAAAMAAJ
| publisher = National Association of Biology Teachers
| volume = 53
| page = 211
| access-date = 16 April 2021
| quote = The foundation from which these behaviors spring is the ideology known as speciesism. Speciesism is deeply rooted in the widely-held belief that the human species is entitled to certain rights and privileges.}}</ref> They consider this idea, known as ], a prejudice as irrational as any other.<ref>Horta (2010).</ref> They maintain that animals should not be viewed as property or used as food, clothing, entertainment, or ] merely because they are not human.<ref>That a central goal of animal rights is to eliminate the property status of animals, see Sunstein (2004), p. 11ff.
* For speciesism and fundamental protections, see Waldau (2011).
* For food, clothing, research subjects or entertainment, see Francione (1995), p. 17.</ref> Multiple cultural traditions around the world such as ], ], ], ], ] and ] also espouse forms of animal rights.


In parallel to the debate about moral rights, law schools in North America now often teach ],<ref name="Animal law courses">{{Cite web|title= Animal Law Courses|url= https://aldf.org/article/animal-law-courses/|website= ]|access-date= 2020-12-13|archive-date= 2020-12-04|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20201204203520/https://aldf.org/article/animal-law-courses/|url-status= live}}</ref> and several legal scholars, such as ] and ], support the extension of basic legal rights and ]hood to non-human animals. The animals most often considered in arguments for personhood are ]. Some animal-rights academics support this because it would break the species barrier, but others oppose it because it predicates moral value on mental complexity rather than on ] alone.<ref>For animal-law courses in North America, see {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100613170018/http://aldf.org/article.php?id=445 |date=2010-06-13 }}, ]. Retrieved July 12, 2012.
== History ==
* For a discussion of animals and personhood, see Wise (2000), pp. 4, 59, 248ff; Wise (2004); Posner (2004); {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080614152221/http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-257091/animal-rights |date=2008-06-14 }}.
{{alib}}
* For the arguments and counter-arguments about awarding personhood only to great apes, see Garner (2005), p. 22.
=== History of the concept ===
* Also see ] (February 20, 2000). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170501195553/https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/02/20/reviews/000220.20sunstet.html |date=2017-05-01 }}, ''The New York Times''.</ref> {{As of |2019 | November}}, 29 countries had enacted ]; ] has granted captive ]s basic human rights since 2014.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/23/world/americas/feat-orangutan-rights-ruling/|title= Argentine orangutan granted unprecedented legal rights|last1= Giménez|first1= Emiliano|date= January 4, 2015|website= edition.cnn.com|publisher= ]|access-date= April 21, 2015|archive-date= April 3, 2021|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210403030759/https://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/23/world/americas/feat-orangutan-rights-ruling/|url-status= live}}</ref> Outside of ], animal-rights discussions most often address the status of ]s (compare ]). Other animals (considered less sentient) have gained less attention—] relatively little<ref>
The 20th-century debate about animal rights can be traced back to the earliest philosophers.<ref name=EB3/> In the 6th century BC, ], the Greek philosopher and mathematician—who has been called the first animal rights philosopher<ref name=TaylorViolin>Violin, Mary Ann. "Pythagoras—The First Animal Rights Philosopher," ''Between the Species'' 6:122–127, cited in ]. ''Animals and Ethics''. Broad view Press, p. 34.</ref>—urged respect for animals because he believed in the ] between human and non-human animals: in killing an animal, we might be killing an ancestor. He advocated vegetarianism, rejecting the use of animals as food or religious sacrifices.<ref name=Taylor34>]. ''Animals and Ethics''. Broadview Press, p. 34.</ref><ref>Pythagoras's thought has been the subject of much debate; none of his original work is extant. See Huffman, Carl. in Zalta, Edward N. ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', Winter 2006, retrieved January 10, 2007.</ref>
{{cite book
| last1 = Cohen
| first1 = Carl
| author-link1 = Carl Cohen (philosopher)
| last2 = Regan
| first2 = Tom
| author-link2 = Tom Regan
| title = The Animal Rights Debate
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=JPHtAAAAMAAJ
| series = Point/Counterpoint: Philosophers Debate Contemporary Issues Series
| year = 2001
| location = Lanham, Maryland
| publisher = Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
| publication-date = 2001
| page = 47
| isbn = 9780847696628
| access-date = 16 April 2021
| quote = Too often overlooked in the animal world, according to Sapontzis, are insects that have interests, and therefore rights.
}}
</ref> (outside ]) and animal-like ] hardly any.<ref>
The concept of "bacteria rights" can appear coupled with disdain or irony:
{{cite book
| last1 = Pluhar
| first1 = Evelyn B.
| author-link1 = Evelyn Pluhar
| chapter = Human "superiority" and the argument from marginal cases
| title = Beyond Prejudice: The Moral Significance of Human and Nonhuman Animals
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=S4VyLcBzek0C
| series = Book collections on Project MUSE
| year = 1995
| location = Durham, North Carolina
| publisher = Duke University Press
| publication-date = 1995
| page = 9
| isbn = 9780822316480
| access-date = 16 April 2021
| quote = For example, in an editorial entitled 'Animal Rights Nonsense,' ... in the prestigious science journal ''Nature'', defenders of animal rights are accused of being committed to the absurdity of 'bacteria rights.'
}}
</ref> The vast majority of animals have no legally recognised rights.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Jakopovich|first=Daniel|date=2021|title=The UK's Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill Excludes the Vast Majority of Animals: Why We Must Expand Our Moral Circle to Include Invertebrates|url=https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/asri/2021/10/17/the-uks-animal-welfare-sentience-bill-excludes-the-vast-majority-of-animals-why-we-should-expand-our-moral-circle-to-include-invertebrates|journal=Animals & Society Research Initiative, University of Victoria, Canada|access-date=2022-06-18|archive-date=2022-11-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221129010538/https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/asri/2021/10/17/the-uks-animal-welfare-sentience-bill-excludes-the-vast-majority-of-animals-why-we-should-expand-our-moral-circle-to-include-invertebrates/|url-status=live}}</ref>


Critics of animal rights argue that nonhuman animals are unable to enter into a ], and thus cannot have rights, a view summarised by the philosopher ], who writes that only humans have duties, and therefore only humans have rights.<ref name=Scruton/> Another argument, associated with the ] tradition, maintains that animals may be used as resources so long as there is no unnecessary suffering;<ref name="Ethical">{{cite journal| author1= Liguori, G.| display-authors= etal| year= 2017| title= Ethical Issues in the Use of Animal Models for Tissue Engineering: Reflections on Legal Aspects, Moral Theory, 3Rs Strategies, and Harm-Benefit Analysis| journal= Tissue Engineering Part C: Methods| volume= 23| issue= 12| pages= 850–862| doi= 10.1089/ten.TEC.2017.0189| pmid= 28756735| s2cid= 206268293| url= https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/51950145/ten.tec.2017.0189.pdf| access-date= 2019-07-12| archive-date= 2020-09-15| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200915060144/https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/51950145/ten.tec.2017.0189.pdf| url-status= live}}</ref> animals may have some moral standing, but any interests they have may be overridden in cases of comparatively greater gains to aggregate welfare made possible by their use, though what counts as "necessary" suffering or a legitimate sacrifice of interests can vary considerably.<ref>Garner (2005), pp. 11, 16.
], in the ''Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', writes that the first chapter of ] describes how God gave human beings ] over animals, tempered in the ] by injunctions to be kind; for example, by being required to rest one's oxen on the ]. The ] is, he writes, devoid of such injunctions, with ] interpreting the sabbath requirement as intended to benefit the human owners, not the animals themselves. ] argued that ] allowed the ] to drown in order to demonstrate that man has no duty of care toward animals, a position adopted by ], who argued that we should be charitable to animals only to make sure that cruel habits do not carry over into our treatment of human beings,<ref>]. "Animals" in ] (ed). ''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 1995.</ref> a position later supported also by ] and ].<ref name="AnthropologyTodayApr07" />
*Also see Frey (1980); and for a review of Frey, see {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160219072849/http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1154902/pdf/jmedeth00155-0044.pdf |date=2016-02-19 }}.</ref> Certain forms of animal-rights activism, such as the destruction of ] and of ] by the ], have attracted criticism, including from within the ] itself,<ref>Singer (2000), pp. 151–156.</ref> and prompted the ] to enact laws, including the ], allowing the prosecution of this sort of activity as ].<ref>
{{Cite book
|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=I_jh4VBi_HYC
|title= The SAGE Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Second Edition
|first= Gus|last= Martin|date= 15 June 2011
|publisher= SAGE|via= Google Books|isbn= 9781412980166
}}
</ref>


==History==
], writing in the 4th century BCE, argued that non-human animals ranked far below humans in the ], or ''scala naturae'', because of their alleged irrationality, and that they had no interests of their own.<ref name=EB3/> One of his pupils, ], disagreed, arguing against eating meat on the grounds that it robbed animals of life and was therefore unjust. Non-human animals, he said, can reason, sense, and feel just as human beings do.<ref name=Taylor35>]. ''Animals and Ethics''. Broadview Press, p. 35.</ref> This view did not prevail, and it was Aristotle's position—that human and non-human animals exist in different moral realms because one is rational and the other not—that largely persisted until challenged by philosophers in the 1970s.
{{Main|History of animal rights}}The concept of ] dates to ],<ref>{{cite book | last = Tähtinen | first = Unto | title = Ahimsa. Non-Violence in Indian Tradition | date = 1976 | location = London | pages = 2–3 (English translation: Schmidt p. 631) | isbn = 0-09-123340-2 }}</ref> with roots in early ] and ] history,<ref name="Grant">{{cite book |last1=Grant |first1=Catharine |title=The No-nonsense Guide to Animal Rights |url=https://archive.org/details/nononsenseguidet0000gran |url-access=registration |date=2006 |location=New Internationalist |isbn=9781904456407 |page= |language=en|quote=These religions emphasize ''ahimsa'', which is the principle of non-violence towards all living things. The first precept is a prohibition against the killing of any creature. The Jain, Hindu and Buddhist injunctions against killing serve to teach that all creatures are spiritually equal.}}</ref><ref name="BBC2019">{{cite web |title=Animal rights |url=https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/z3ygjxs/revision/5 |publisher=] |access-date=17 March 2019 |language=en |quote=The main reason for Hindu respect for animal rights is the principle of ahimsa. According to the principle of ahimsa, no living thing should be harmed. This applies to humans and animals. The Jains' belief system takes the principle of ahimsa regarding animals so seriously that as well as being strict vegetarians, some followers wear masks to prevent them breathing in insects. They may also sweep paths with a small broom to make sure they do not tread on any living creatures. |archive-date=8 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308062719/https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/z3ygjxs/revision/5 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="Mohitdagoat">{{cite book |last1=Owen |first1=Marna A. |title=Animal Rights: Noble Cause Or Needless Effort? |date=2009 |publisher=Twenty-First Century Books |isbn=9780761340829 |page= |language=en |url=https://archive.org/details/animalrightsnobl0000owen/page/12 }}</ref> while Eastern, African, and Indigenous peoples also have rich traditions of animal protection.{{cn|date=July 2024}} In the Western world, ] viewed animals as lacking reason<ref name=EB3>"." ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. 2007.</ref> and existing for human use, though other ancient philosophers believed animals deserved gentle treatment.{{cn|date=July 2024}} Major religious traditions, chiefly ], opposed animal cruelty. While scholars like ] saw animals as unconscious automata<ref>Waddicor, M. H., ''Montesquieu and the Philosophy of Natural Law'' (]: ], 1970), {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210816214230/https://books.google.com/books?id=sLooBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA63|date=16 August 2021}}.</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=23 December 1995 |title=''Animal Consciousness'', No. 2. Historical background |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-animal/#hist |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080906181245/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-animal/#hist |archive-date=6 September 2008 |access-date=16 December 2014 |publisher=Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy}}</ref><ref>Parker, J. V., ''Animal Minds, Animal Souls, Animal Rights'' (]: ], 2010), p. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210816214246/https://books.google.com/books?id=Sh2AQTDV5DQC&pg=PA16|date=16 August 2021}}, {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210816214245/https://books.google.com/books?id=Sh2AQTDV5DQC&pg=PA88|date=16 August 2021}}, {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210816214239/https://books.google.com/books?id=Sh2AQTDV5DQC&pg=PA99|date=16 August 2021}}.</ref> and ] denied direct duties to animals,<ref>] (1785). '']''</ref> ] emphasized their capacity to suffer.<ref name=":2">Bentham, Jeremy. 1780. "". pp. 307–335 in '']''. London: T. Payne and Sons.</ref>{{Rp|309n}} The publications of ] eventually eroded the Cartesian view of animals.<ref>Spencer, J., {{"'}}Love and Hatred are Common to the Whole Sensitive Creation': Animal Feeling in the Century before Darwin," in A. Richardson, ed., ''After Darwin: Animals, Emotions, and the Mind'' (Amsterdam and New York: ], 2013),
{{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210816214237/https://books.google.com/books?id=3imLAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA37|date=16 August 2021}}.</ref>{{rp|37}} Darwin noted the mental and emotional continuity between humans and animals, suggesting the possibility of animal suffering.<ref>{{Cite book |author=Workman, L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rz8dBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT177 |title=Charles Darwin: The Shaping of Evolutionary Thinking |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-137-31323-2 |page=177 |author-link=Lance Workman |access-date=19 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210816214235/https://books.google.com/books?id=rz8dBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT177 |archive-date=16 August 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref>{{rp|177}} The ] movement emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Franco|first=Nuno Henrique|date=2013-03-19|title=Animal Experiments in Biomedical Research: A Historical Perspective|journal=Animals|volume=3|issue=1|pages=238–273| doi=10.3390/ani3010238| issn=2076-2615| pmc=4495509| pmid=26487317| doi-access=free}}</ref> driven significantly by women.<ref name="Ross 2014">{{cite journal|author=Ross, Karen|year=2014|title=Winning Women's Votes: Defending Animal Experimentation and Women's Clubs in New York, 1920–1930|journal=New York History|volume=95|issue=1|pages=26–40|doi=10.1353/nyh.2014.0050 }}</ref> From the 1970s onward, growing scholarly and activist interest in animal treatment has aimed to raise awareness and reform laws to improve animal rights and human–animal relationships.{{cn|date=July 2024}}


==In religion==
In the 17th century, the French philosopher ] argued that animals have no souls or minds, and are nothing but complex ]. They therefore cannot think or even feel pain. They do have sensory equipment so they can see, hear and touch, and may even feel anger and fear, but they are not, in any sense, conscious. Against this, ], in the preface of his ] (1754), argued that man starts as an animal, though not one "devoid of intellect and freedom."<ref name=Rousseau>]. '']'', 1754, preface.</ref> However, as animals are sensitive beings, "they too ought to participate in natural right, and … man is subject to some sort of duties toward them," specifically "one the right not to be uselessly mistreated by the other."<ref name=Rousseau/>
{{See also|Animals in Islam|Christianity and animal rights|Animal rights in Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism}}


For some the basis of animal rights is in religion or ] (or in general ]), with some religions banning killing any animal. In other religions animals are considered ]. ] and ] societies abandoned animal sacrifice and embraced ] from the 3rd century BCE.<ref name="Garner 2005, pp. 21–22">Garner (2005), pp. 21–22.</ref> One of the most important sanctions of the ], Hindu, and Buddhist faiths is the concept of ], or refraining from the destruction of life<!-- (], p.&nbsp;234)-->. According to Buddhism, humans do not deserve preferential treatment over other living beings.<ref name="Grant">{{cite book |last1=Grant |first1=Catharine |title=The No-nonsense Guide to Animal Rights |url=https://archive.org/details/nononsenseguidet0000gran |url-access=registration |date=2006 |location=New Internationalist |isbn=9781904456407 |page= |language=en|quote=These religions emphasize ''ahimsa'', which is the principle of non-violence towards all living things. The first precept is a prohibition against the killing of any creature. The Jain, Hindu and Buddhist injunctions against killing serve to teach that all creatures are spiritually equal.}}</ref> The ] interpretation of this doctrine prohibits the killing of any living being.<ref name="Grant" /> These Indian religions' dharmic beliefs are reflected in the ancient Indian works of the ] and ], which contain passages that extend the idea of nonviolence to all living beings.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://ivu.org/congress/wvc57/souvenir/tamil.html | title = Vegetarianism in Tamil Literature | last = Meenakshi Sundaram | first = T. P. | date = 1957 | website = 15th World Vegetarian Congress 1957 | publisher = International Vegetarian Union (IVU) | access-date = 17 April 2022 | quote = Ahimsa is the ruling principle of Indian life from the very earliest times. ... This positive spiritual attitude is easily explained to the common man in a negative way as "ahimsa" and hence this way of denoting it. Tiruvalluvar speaks of this as "kollaamai" or "non-killing." | archive-date = 22 January 2022 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220122033037/https://ivu.org/congress/wvc57/souvenir/tamil.html | url-status = live }}</ref>
Contemporaneous with Rousseau was the Scottish writer ], who died in 1793. In ''The Cry of Nature or an Appeal to Mercy and Justice on Behalf of the Persecuted Animals'', Oswald argued that man is naturally equipped with feelings of mercy and compassion.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} If each man had to witness the death of the animals he ate, he argued, a vegetarian diet would be far more common. The division of labor, however, allows modern man to eat flesh without experiencing what Oswald called the prompting of man's natural sensitivities, while the brutalization of modern man made him inured to these sensitivities.


In Islam, animal rights were recognized early by the ]. This recognition is based on both the ] and the ]. The Qur'an contains many references to animals, detailing that they have souls, form communities, communicate with God, and worship Him in their own way. ] forbade his followers to harm any animal and asked them to respect animals' rights.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/islamethics/animals_1.shtml|title=BBC - Religions - Islam: Animals|publisher=bbc.co.uk|access-date=2019-12-20|archive-date=2020-02-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200204062925/http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/islamethics/animals_1.shtml|url-status=live}}</ref> Nevertheless, Islam does allow eating of certain species of animals.
Later in the 18th century, one of the founders of modern ], the English philosopher ], argued that animal pain is as real and as morally relevant as human pain, and that "he day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been witholden from them but by the hand of tyranny."<ref name=Bentham>Bentham, Jeremy. ''An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation'', 1789. Latest edition: Adamant Media Corporation, 2005.</ref> Bentham argued that the ability to suffer, not the ability to ], must be the benchmark of how we treat other beings.<ref name="AnthropologyTodayApr07" /> If the ability to reason were the criterion, many human beings, including babies and disabled people, would also have to be treated as though they were things, famously writing:


According to ], all animals, from the smallest to the largest, are cared for and loved. According to the Bible, "All these animals waited for the Lord, that the Lord might give them food at the hour. The Lord gives them, they receive; The Lord opens his hand, and they are filled with good things."<ref>Proverbs 30:24 and NW; Psalm 104:24, 25, 27, 28</ref> It further says ] "gave food to the animals, and made the crows cry."<ref>Ps 147:9</ref>
{{quotation|It may one day come to be recognized that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the '']'' are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason or perhaps the faculty of ]? But a full-grown ] or ] is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, ''Can they suffer?'' Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being? The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes…<ref name=Bentham/>}}


==Philosophical and legal approaches==
In the 19th century, ] argued that non-human animals have the same essence as humans, despite lacking the faculty of reason. Although he considered vegetarianism to be only ], he argued for consideration to be given to animals in morality, and he opposed ]. His critique of ]ian ethics contains a lengthy and often furious polemic against the exclusion of animals in his moral system.


===Overview===
The world's first ] organization, the ], was founded in Britain in 1824, and similar groups soon sprang up elsewhere in Europe and then in North America. The first such group in the United States, the ], was chartered in the state of ] in 1866. The first anti-vivisection movement was created in the second half of the 19th century.<ref name="AnthropologyTodayApr07" /> The concept of animal rights became the subject of an influential book in 1892, ''Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress'', by English social reformer ], who had formed the Humanitarian League a year earlier, with the objective of banning hunting as a sport.
{{Further|Consequentialism|Deontological ethics}}
], Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, is a proponent of the ] to animal rights.]]
The two main philosophical approaches to animal ethics are utilitarian and rights-based. The former is exemplified by ], and the latter by ] and ]. Their differences reflect a distinction philosophers draw between ethical theories that judge the rightness of an act by its consequences (consequentialism/teleological ethics, or utilitarianism), and those that focus on the principle behind the act, almost regardless of consequences (deontological ethics). Deontologists argue that there are acts we should never perform, even if failing to do so entails a worse outcome.<ref>Craig (1988).</ref>


There are a number of positions that can be defended from a consequentalist or deontologist perspective, including the ], represented by ], and the ], which has been examined by Ingmar Persson and ]. The capabilities approach focuses on what individuals require to fulfill their capabilities: Nussbaum (2006) argues that animals need a right to life, some control over their environment, company, play, and physical health.<ref>Nussbaum (2006), pp. 388ff, 393ff; also see Nussbaum (2004), p. 299ff.</ref>
By the late 20th century, animal welfare societies and laws against cruelty to animals existed in almost every country in the world. Specialized animal advocacy groups also proliferated, including those dedicated to the preservation of endangered species, and others, such as ] (PETA), that protested against painful or brutal methods of hunting animals, the mistreatment of animals raised for food in ], and the use of animals in experiments and as entertainment.


], ], and ] also discuss animal rights in terms of animals being permitted to lead a life appropriate for their kind.<ref>Weir (2009): see Clark (1977); Rollin (1981); Midgley (1984).</ref> Egalitarianism favors an equal distribution of happiness among all individuals, which makes the interests of the worse off more important than those of the better off.<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160413170400/http://www.jstor.org/stable/25115834 |date=2016-04-13 }}; Vallentyne (2007).</ref> Another approach, ], holds that in considering how to act we should consider the character of the actor, and what kind of moral agents we should be. ] has suggested an approach to animal rights based on virtue ethics.<ref>Rowlands (2009), p. 98ff; Hursthouse (2000a); Hursthouse (2000b), p. 146ff.</ref> ] has proposed a ] approach.<ref name=Rowlands1998p118/><!--expand Clark, Nussbaum, virtue ethics-->
=== History of the modern movement ===
{{main|Animal liberation movement}}
The modern animal rights movement can be traced to the 1970s, and is one of the few examples of social movements that were created by philosophers, and in which they remain in the forefront.<ref name=EB3/>


===Utilitarianism===
In the early 1970s, a group of ] philosophers began to question whether the moral status of non-human animals was necessarily inferior to that of human beings.<ref name=EB1>"." ''Encyclopaedia Britannica Online''. 2007.</ref> The group included the psychologist ], who coined the phrase "]" in 1970, first using it in a privately printed pamphlet to describe the assignment of value to the interests of beings on the basis of their membership of a particular species.<ref name=Ryder>Ryder, Richard D. , ''The Guardian'', August 6, 2005</ref>
{{Further|Equal consideration of interests|Utilitarianism}}
Nussbaum (2004) writes that utilitarianism, starting with ] and ], has contributed more to the recognition of the moral status of animals than any other ethical theory.<ref>Nussbaum (2004), p. 302.</ref> The utilitarian philosopher most associated with animal rights is Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at ]. Singer is not a rights theorist, but {{Citation needed span|text=uses the language of rights to discuss how we ought to treat individuals.|date=October 2023}} He is a ],{{Needs update|date=October 2023|reason=Singer revealed in The Point of View of the Universe (2014) that he is no longer a preference utilitarian.}} meaning that he judges the rightness of an act by the extent to which it satisfies the preferences (interests) of those affected.<ref>For a discussion of preference utilitarianism, see Singer (2011), pp. 14ff, 94ff.</ref>


His position is that there is no reason not to give equal consideration to the interests of human and nonhumans, though his principle of equality does not require identical treatment. A mouse and a man both have an interest in not being kicked, and there are no moral or logical grounds for failing to accord those interests equal weight. Interests are predicated on the ability to suffer, nothing more, and once it is established that a being has interests, those interests must be given equal consideration.<ref name=Singer7>Singer (1990), pp. 7–8.</ref> Singer quotes the English philosopher ] (1838–1900): "The good of any one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view&nbsp;... of the Universe, than the good of any other."<ref name="Singer5">Singer 1990, p. 5.</ref>
Ryder became a contributor to the influential book ''Animals, Men and Morals: An Inquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-humans''<ref>Godlovitch R, Godlovitch S, and Harris J. (1972). ''Animals, Men and Morals: An Inquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-humans''</ref>. It was in a review of this book for the '']'' that ] put forward the basic arguments, based on ] and drawing an explicit comparison between ] and animal liberation, that in 1975 became '']'', the book often referred to as the "bible" of the animal rights movement.


]: interests are predicated on the ability to suffer.]]
In the 1980s and 1990s, the movement was joined by a wide variety of academic and professional groups, including theologians, lawyers, physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists, veterinarians,<ref name=EB3/> pathologists and former vivisectionists.
Singer argues that equality of consideration is a prescription, not an assertion of fact: if the equality of the sexes were based only on the idea that men and women were equally intelligent, we would have to abandon the practice of equal consideration if this were later found to be false. But the moral idea of equality does not depend on matters of fact such as intelligence, physical strength, or moral capacity. Equality therefore cannot be grounded on the outcome of scientific investigations into the intelligence of nonhumans. All that matters is whether they can suffer.<ref name=Singer1990p4>Singer (1990), p. 4.</ref>


Commentators on all sides of the debate now accept that animals suffer and feel pain, although it was not always so. ], professor of philosophy, animal sciences, and biomedical sciences at Colorado State University, writes that Descartes's influence continued to be felt until the 1980s. Veterinarians trained in the US before 1989 were taught to ignore pain, he writes, and at least one major veterinary hospital in the 1960s did not stock narcotic analgesics for animal pain control. In his interactions with scientists, he was often asked to "prove" that animals are conscious, and to provide "scientifically acceptable" evidence that they could feel pain.<ref name=Rollin117>Rollin (1989), pp. xii, pp. 117–118; {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728054434/https://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v8/n6/full/7400996.html |date=2020-07-28 }}.</ref>
Other books regarded as ground-breaking include ]'s ''The Case for Animal Rights'' (1983); James Rachels's ''Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism'' (1990); Steven M. Wise's ''Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals'' (2000); and Julian H. Franklin's ''Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy'' (2005).<ref name=EB3/>


Scientific publications have made it clear since the 1980s that the majority of researchers do believe animals suffer and feel pain, though it continues to be argued that their suffering may be reduced by an inability to experience the same dread of anticipation as humans or to remember the suffering as vividly.<ref>Singer (1990), pp. 10–17, citing Stamp Dawkins (1980), Walker (1983), and Griffin (1984); Garner (2005), pp. 13–14.</ref> The ability of animals to suffer, even it may vary in severity, is the basis for Singer's application of equal consideration. The problem of animal suffering, and animal consciousness in general, arose primarily because it was argued that animals ]. Singer writes that, if language were needed to communicate pain, it would often be impossible to know when humans are in pain, though we can observe pain behavior and make a calculated guess based on it. He argues that there is no reason to suppose that the pain behavior of nonhumans would have a different meaning from the pain behavior of humans.<ref>Singer (1990) p. 12ff.</ref>
== Philosophy ==
{{rights}}
Animal rights is the concept that all or some animals are entitled to possess their own lives; that they are deserving of, or already possess, certain moral rights; and that some basic rights for animals ought to be enshrined in law. The animal-rights view rejects the concept that animals are merely capital goods or property intended for the benefit of humans. The concept is often confused with ], which is the philosophy that takes cruelty towards animals and animal suffering into account, but that does not assign specific moral rights to them.


===Subjects-of-a-life===
The animal-rights philosophy does not necessarily maintain that human and non-human animals are equal. For example, animal-rights advocates do not call for voting rights for chickens. Some activists also make a distinction between ] or self-aware animals and other life forms, with the belief that only sentient animals, or perhaps only animals who have a significant degree of self-awareness, should be afforded the right to possess their own lives and bodies, without regard to how they are valued by humans. Activists maintain that any human being or institution that commodifies animals for food, entertainment, cosmetics, clothing, ], or for any other reason, infringes upon the animals' right to possess themselves and to pursue their own ends.
{{Further|The Case for Animal Rights}}
]: animals are subjects-of-a-life.]]
Tom Regan, professor emeritus of philosophy at North Carolina State University, argues in ''The Case for Animal Rights'' (1983) that nonhuman animals are what he calls "subjects-of-a-life", and as such are bearers of rights.<ref name=Regan243>Regan (1983), p. 243.</ref> He writes that, because the moral rights of humans are based on their possession of certain ] abilities, and because these abilities are also possessed by at least some nonhuman animals, such animals must have the same moral rights as humans. Although only humans act as moral agents, both marginal-case humans, such as infants, and at least some nonhumans must have the status of "moral patients".<ref name=Regan243/>


Moral patients are unable to formulate moral principles, and as such are unable to do right or wrong, even though what they do may be beneficial or harmful. Only moral agents are able to engage in moral action. Animals for Regan have "]" as subjects-of-a-life, and cannot be regarded as a means to an end, a view that places him firmly in the abolitionist camp. His theory does not extend to all animals, but only to those that can be regarded as subjects-of-a-life.<ref name=Regan243/> He argues that all normal mammals of at least one year of age would qualify:
In the late 1960s and early '70s, ] demonstrated that dogs repeatedly exposed to inescapable electroshocks are very similar to severely depressed humans. He wrote:
<blockquote>
So there are considerable parallels between the behaviors which define learned helplessness and major ] of depression. Helpless animals become passive in the face of later trauma; they do not initiate responses to control trauma and the amplitude of responding is lowered. Depressed patients are characterized by diminished response initiation; their behavioral repertoire is impoverished and in severe cases, almost stuporous. Helpless ] do not benefit from exposure to experiences in which responding now produces relief; rather they often revert to passively accepting shock. Depressed patients have strong negative expectations about the effectiveness of their own responding. They construe even actions that succeed as having failed and underestimate and devalue their own performance. In ], evidence exists which suggests that both learned helplessness and ] dissipate in time, are associated with weight loss and ], or loss of ], and ] depletion.<br /><br />


{{Blockquote|...&nbsp;individuals are subjects-of-a-life if they have beliefs and desires; perception, memory, and a sense of the future, including their own future; an emotional life together with feelings of pleasure and pain; preference- and welfare-interests; the ability to initiate action in pursuit of their desires and goals; a psychophysical identity over time; and an individual welfare in the sense that their experiential life fares well or ill for them, logically independently of their utility for others and logically independently of their being the object of anyone else's interests.<ref name=Regan243/>}}
Finally, it is not an accident that we have used the word “helplessness” to describe the behavior of dogs in our laboratory. Animals that lie down in traumatic shock that could be removed simply by jumping to the other side, and who fail even to make escape movements are readily seen as helpless. Moreover we should not forget that depressed patients commonly describe themselves helpless, hopeless, and powerless.<ref name=Seligman> Seligman, M.E. “Depression and Learned Helplessness.” In (R.J Friedmand and M.M. Katz Eds.) ''The Psychology of Depression: Contemporary Theory and Research''. V.H. Winston and Sons. 1974.</ref>
</blockquote>


Whereas Singer is primarily concerned with improving the treatment of animals and accepts that, in some hypothetical scenarios, individual animals might be used legitimately to further human or nonhuman ends, Regan believes we ought to treat nonhuman animals as we would humans. He applies the strict ] ideal (which Kant himself applied only to humans) that they ought never to be sacrificed as a means to an end, and must be treated as ends in themselves.<ref>Regan (1983).</ref>
In contrast, animals like ] have simple nervous systems, and may be little more than automata, capable of basic reflexes but incapable of formulating any ends to their actions or plans to pursue them, and equally unable to notice whether they are in captivity. But the biology of ] is largely a ] and claims regarding the existence or absence of mind in other animals, based on their physiology, are speculative. American writer ], currently writing a doctoral thesis on the neuroscience of mind, argues:


===Abolitionism===
<blockquote>
{{Further|Abolitionism (animal rights)|Animals, Property, and the Law}}
Inevitably, scientists treat consciousness as a mere ''attribute'' of certain large-brained animals. The problem, however, is that nothing about a brain, when surveyed as a physical system, delares it to be a bearer of that peculiar, inner dimension that each of us experiences as consciousness in his own case … The operational definition of consciousness … is ''reportability''. But consciousness and reportabiltiy are not the same thing. Is a starfish conscious? No science that conflates consciousness with reportabilty will deliver an answer to this question. To look for consciousness in the world on the basis of its outward signs is the only thing we can do.<br /><br />
]: animals need only the right not to be regarded as property.]]
Gary Francione, professor of law and philosophy at ] in Newark, is a leading abolitionist writer, arguing that animals need only one right, the right not to be owned. Everything else would follow from that ]. He writes that, although most people would condemn the mistreatment of animals, and in many countries there are laws that seem to reflect those concerns, "in practice the legal system allows any use of animals, however abhorrent." The law only requires that any suffering not be "unnecessary". In deciding what counts as "unnecessary", an animal's interests are weighed against the interests of human beings, and the latter almost always prevail.<ref>Francione (1990), pp. 4, 17ff.</ref>


Francione's ''Animals, Property, and the Law'' (1995) was the first extensive jurisprudential treatment of animal rights. In it, Francione compares the situation of animals to the treatment of ], where legislation existed that appeared to protect them while the courts ignored that the institution of slavery itself rendered the protection unenforceable.<ref>Francione (1995), pp. 4–5.</ref> He offers as an example the United States ], which he describes as an example of symbolic legislation, intended to assuage public concern about the treatment of animals, but difficult to implement.<ref>Francione (1995), p. 208ff.</ref>
And so, while we know many things about ourselves in anatomical, physiological, and evolutionary terms, we currently have no idea why it is "like something" to be what we are. The fact that the universe is illuminated where you stand, the fact that your thoughts and moods and sensations have a qualitative character, is an absolute mystery.<ref name=Harris> Harris, S ''The End of Faith. Religion, Terror, And The Future Of Reason''.
W.W. Norton & Company. 2004.</ref>
</blockquote>


He argues that a focus on animal welfare, rather than animal rights, may worsen the position of animals by making the public feel comfortable about using them and entrenching the view of them as property. He calls animal rights groups who pursue animal welfare issues, such as ], the "]", arguing that they have more in common with 19th-century animal protectionists than with the animal rights movement; indeed, the terms "animal protection" and "protectionism" are increasingly favored. His position in 1996 was that there is no animal rights movement in the United States.<ref>
The animal-rights debate, much like the ] debate, is complicated by the difficulty of establishing clear-cut distinctions on which to base moral and political judgements. The default human/non-human animal relationship is deeply rooted in prehistory and tradition but arguments for animal rights are questionable due to the basic human inability to understand the subjective state of animals in question.<ref>{{cite journal
*Francione and Garner (2010), pp. 1ff, 175ff.
| last = Mameli
*Hall, Lee. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090508021512/http://www.friendsofanimals.org/programs/animal-rights/interview-with-gary-francione.html |date=May 8, 2009 }}, Friends of Animals. Retrieved February 3, 2011.</ref>
| first = M
| authorlink =
| coauthors = Bortolotti L
| title = Animal rights, animal minds and human mindreading
| journal = J. Med Ethics
| volume = 32
| issue =
| pages = 84–89
| date = ]
| publisher = Springer
| url = http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/~gmm32/MAMELI_ANIMALS_2006.pdf
| format = ]
| doi = 10.1136/jme.2005.013086
| accessdate = 2006-12-17 }}</ref>


===Contractarianism===
Opponents of animal rights have attempted to identify morally relevant differences between humans and animals that might justify the attribution of rights and interests to the former but not to the latter.<ref>*{{cite web
{{Further|Social contract}}
| last = Ross
], professor of philosophy at the University of Florida, has proposed a contractarian approach, based on the ] and the ]—a "state of nature" thought experiment that tests intuitions about justice and fairness—in ]'s '']'' (1971). In the original position, individuals choose principles of justice (what kind of society to form, and how primary social goods will be distributed), unaware of their individual characteristics—their race, sex, class, or intelligence, whether they are able-bodied or disabled, rich or poor—and therefore unaware of which role they will assume in the society they are about to form.<ref name=Rowlands1998p118>Rowlands (1998), p. 118ff, particularly pp. 147–152.</ref>
| first = Kelley L
| title = The Fallacies of Egoism and Altruism, and the Fundamental Principle of Morality
| url = http://www.friesian.com/moral-1.htm
| accessdate = 2006-12-17 }}</ref> Various distinguishing features of humans have been proposed, including the possession of a ], the ability to use ], ], a high level of ], and the ability to recognize the rights and interests of others. However, such criteria face the difficulty that they do not seem to apply to all and only humans: each may apply either to some but not to all humans, or to all humans but also to some animals.


The idea is that, operating behind the veil of ignorance, they will choose a social contract in which there is basic fairness and justice for them no matter the position they occupy. Rawls did not include species membership as one of the attributes hidden from the decision-makers in the original position. Rowlands proposes extending the veil of ignorance to include rationality, which he argues is an undeserved property similar to characteristics including race, sex and intelligence.<ref name="Rowlands1998p118"/>
Peter Singer and Tom Regan are the best-known proponents of animal liberation, though they differ in their philosophical approaches. Another influential thinker is ], who presents an ] view that non-human animals should have the basic right not to be treated as the property of humans.


=== Utilitarian approach === ===''Prima facie'' rights theory===
{{Further|Prima facie right}}
Although Singer is said to be the ideological founder of today's animal-liberation movement, his approach to an animal's moral status is not based on the concept of rights, but on the ] principle of ]. His 1975 book '']'' argues that humans grant moral consideration to other humans not on the basis of intelligence (in the instance of children, or the mentally disabled), on the ability to moralize (criminals and the insane), or on any other attribute that is inherently human, but rather on their ability to experience ''suffering''.<ref name=Singer>Singer, Peter. ''Animal Liberation'', 1975; second edition, New York: Avon Books, 1990, ISBN 0-940322-00-5</ref> As animals also experience suffering, he argues, excluding animals from such consideration is a form of discrimination known as "]."
American philosopher Timothy Garry has proposed an approach that deems nonhuman animals worthy of ''prima facie'' rights. In a philosophical context, a ''prima facie'' (Latin for "on the face of it" or "at first glance") right is one that appears to be applicable at first glance, but upon closer examination may be outweighed by other considerations. In his book '']'', ] characterizes such rights as "the right is real but leaves open the question of whether it is applicable and overriding in a particular situation".<ref name="Hinman1998p208">Hinman, Lawrence M. Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College, 1998. Print.</ref> The idea that nonhuman animals are worthy of ''prima facie'' rights is to say that, in a sense, animals have rights that can be overridden by many other considerations, especially those conflicting a human's right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Garry supports his view arguing:


{{Blockquote|...&nbsp;if a nonhuman animal were to kill a human being in the U.S., it would have broken the laws of the land and would probably get rougher sanctions than if it were a human. My point is that like laws govern all who interact within a society, rights are to be applied to all beings who interact within that society. This is not to say these rights endowed by humans are equivalent to those held by nonhuman animals, but rather that if humans possess rights then so must all those who interact with humans.<ref name=Garry2012p6>Garry, Timothy J. Nonhuman Animals: Possessors of Prima Facie Rights (2012), p.6</ref>}}
Singer uses a particularly compelling argument called the ]. If we give rights to humans based on some quality they possess, then we cannot argue that humans that lack that quality should have rights. Such a quality may be ''sentience'' or ''ability to enter a social contract'' or ''rationality''. But an infant born with a defect so that it will never have those qualities can not be granted rights without invoking ]. Singer argues that the way in which humans use animals is not justified, because the benefits to humans are negligible compared to the amount of animal suffering they necessarily entail, and because he feels the same benefits can be obtained in ways that do not involve the same degree of suffering.
A substantial multiple part debate between Singer and senior US Judge ] on ''Animal Liberation'' is listed online.<ref></ref> In it, Posner first argues that instead of starting his philosophy on the idea that consideration of pain for all animals is equal, his moral intuition tells him that humans prefer their own. If a dog threatened an infant, and it required causing more pain to the dog to get it to stop than the dog would have caused to the infant, then we, as humans, spare the infant. It would be "monstrous to spare the dog." Singer challenged Posner's ''moral intuition'' with ethical arguments that formerly unequal rights for homosexuals, women, and those of different races also were justified using moral intuition. Posner replies that equality in civil rights did not occur because of ethical arguments, but because facts mounted that there were not significant differences between humans based on race, sex, or sexual orientation that would support that inequality. If and when similar facts mount on the differences between humans and animals, those differences in rights too will erode. But facts will drive equality, and not ethical arguments that run contrary to moral instinct. Posner calls his approach ''soft utilitarian'' in contrast to Singer's ''hard utilitarian'', in which the terms ''hard'' and ''soft'' refer to the power of the logic of the ethical arguments to overpower moral intuition. Posner concludes his philosophical arguments <blockquote>The "soft" utilitarian position on animal rights is a moral intuition of many, probably most, Americans. We realize that animals feel pain, and we think that to inflict pain without a reason is bad. Nothing of practical value is added by dressing up this intuition in the language of philosophy; much is lost when the intuition is made a stage in a logical argument. When kindness toward animals is levered into a duty of weighting the pains of animals and of people equally, bizarre vistas of social engineering are opened up.</blockquote>


In sum, Garry suggests that humans have obligations to nonhuman animals; animals do not, and ought not to, have uninfringible rights against humans.
=== Rights-based approach ===
Tom Regan (''The Case for Animal Rights'' and '']'') argues that non-human animals, as "subjects-of-a-life," are bearers of rights like humans. He argues that, because the moral rights of humans are based on their possession of certain ] abilities, and because these abilities are also possessed by at least some non-human animals, such animals must have the same moral rights as humans. Although only humans act as moral agents, both marginal case humans and at least some non-humans must have the status of moral patients.


===Feminism and animal rights===
Animals in this class have "inherent value" as individuals, and cannot be regarded as means to an end. This is also called the "direct duty" view. According to Regan, we should abolish the breeding of animals for food, animal experimentation, and commercial hunting. Regan's theory does not extend to all sentient animals but only to those that can be regarded as "subjects-of-a-life." He argues that all normal mammals of at least one year of age would qualify in this regard.
{{Further|Women and animal advocacy|Ethics of care|Feminist ethics}}
] ] has written extensively about the link between feminism and animal rights, starting with ''The Sexual Politics of Meat'' (1990).]]
Women have played a central role in animal advocacy since the 19th century.<ref name="Lansbury et al">Lansbury (1985); Adams (1990); Donovan (1993); Gruen (1993); Adams (1994); Adams and Donovan (1995); Adams (2004); MacKinnon (2004).</ref> The anti-vivisection movement in the 19th and early 20th century in England and the United States was largely run by women, including ], ], ] and ] (1833–1916).<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200413040407/https://www.jstor.org/stable/4289385 |date=2020-04-13 }}.</ref> Garner writes that 70 per cent of the membership of the Victoria Street Society (one of the anti-vivisection groups founded by Cobbe) were women, as were 70 per cent of the membership of the British RSPCA in 1900.<ref>Garner (2005), p. 141, citing Elston (1990), p. 276.</ref>


The modern animal advocacy movement has a similar representation of women. They are not invariably in leadership positions: during the March for Animals in Washington, D.C., in 1990—the largest animal rights demonstration held until then in the United States—most of the participants were women, but most of the platform speakers were men.<ref name=Garner2005p142>Garner (2005), pp. 142–143.</ref> Nevertheless, several influential animal advocacy groups have been founded by women, including the ] by Cobbe in London in 1898; the ] by ] in 1962; and ], co-founded by ] in 1980. In the Netherlands, ] and ] were elected to parliament in 2006 representing the Parliamentary group for Animals.
The predation reductio argument is often applied to Regan's rights-based approach. If we are to protect animals with rights from moral patient humans, must we also protect them from other animals? This raises the issue of whether giving animals 'moral patient' status condemns to extermination certain classes of predation.<ref></ref><ref></ref>


The preponderance of women in the movement has led to a body of academic literature exploring feminism and animal rights, such as feminism and vegetarianism or ], the oppression of women and animals, and the male association of women and animals with nature and emotion, rather than reason—an association that several feminist writers have embraced.<ref name="Lansbury et al"/> ] writes that women and animals serve the same symbolic function in a patriarchal society: both are "the used"; the dominated, submissive "]".<ref>Gruen (1993), p. 60ff.</ref> When the British feminist ] (1759–1797) published '']'' (1792), ] (1758–1835), a Cambridge philosopher, responded with an anonymous parody, ''A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes'' (1792), saying that Wollstonecraft's arguments for women's rights could be applied equally to animals, a position he intended as '']''.<ref>Singer (1990), p. 1.</ref><!--add something about language; treatment of female animals; feminist care ethic; suffragettes--> In her works '']'' (1990) and ''The Pornography of Meat'' (2004), ] focuses in particular on what she argues are the links between the oppression of women and that of non-human animals.<ref name="green2003">{{cite magazine|author-last=Green |author-first=Elizabeth W. |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/10/2/fifteen-questions-for-carol-j-adams/ |title=Fifteen Questions For Carol J. Adams |magazine=The Harvard Crimson |date=10 October 2003 |access-date=22 November 2008}}</ref>
While Singer is primarily concerned with improving the treatment of animals and accepts that, at least in some hypothetical scenarios, animals could be legitimately used for further (human or non-human) ends, Regan believes we ought to treat animals as we would persons, and he applies the strict ] idea that they ought never to be sacrificed as mere means to ends, and must be treated as ends unto themselves. Notably, Kant himself did not believe animals were subject to what he called the moral law; like ] and ], Kant recommended kindness towards animals not for the sake of animals themselves, but mainly because he thought that those who are cruel towards animals are likely to tend to be cruel towards human beings too.<ref name="AnthropologyTodayApr07" />


===Transhumanism===
Despite these theoretical differences, both Singer and Regan largely agree about what to do in practise. For example, they agree that the adoption of a ] diet and the abolition of nearly all forms of ] are ethically mandatory.
Some ] argue for animal rights, liberation, and "uplift" of animal consciousness into machines.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Ethics of Animal Enhancement|author=George Dvorsky|author-link=George Dvorsky|url=https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/dvorsky20110729|access-date=2017-04-24|archive-date=2017-04-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170425030415/https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/dvorsky20110729|url-status=live}}</ref> Transhumanism also understands animal rights on a gradation or spectrum with other types of sentient rights, including human rights and the rights of conscious artificial intelligences (posthuman rights).<ref Name="Evans 2015">{{cite journal | last = Evans | first = Woody | author-link = Woody Evans | title = Posthuman Rights: Dimensions of Transhuman Worlds | journal = Teknokultura | volume = 12 | issue = 2 | date = 2015 | doi = 10.5209/rev_TK.2015.v12.n2.49072 | doi-access = free }}</ref>


===Socialism and anti-capitalism===
==== Rights require obligations ====
Critics such as ], professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan and the University of Michigan Medical School, oppose the granting of personhood to animals. Cohen wrote in the '']'' in October 1986: that "he holders of rights must have the capacity to comprehend rules of duty governing all, including themselves. In applying such rules, the holders of rights must recognize possible conflicts between what is in their own interest and what is just. Only in a community of beings capable of self-restricting moral judgments can the concept of a right be correctly invoked."


According to sociologist ] of ], the struggle for animal liberation must happen in tandem with a more generalized struggle against human oppression and exploitation under global ]. He says that under a more egalitarian ] system, one that would "allow a more just and peaceful order to emerge" and be "characterized by ] and a democratically controlled state and mass media", there would be "much greater potential to inform the public about vital global issues—and the potential for "campaigns to improve the lives of other animals" to be "more abolitionist in nature."{{sfn|Nibert|2013|p=270}} Philosopher ] of the ] states that the animal liberation movement, as characterized by the ] and its various offshoots, "is a significant threat to global capital." {{Blockquote|...&nbsp;Animal liberation challenges large sectors of the capitalist economy by assailing corporate agriculture and pharmaceutical companies and their suppliers. Far from being irrelevant to social movements, animal rights can form the basis for a broad coalition of progressive social groups and drive changes that strike at the heart of capitalist exploitation of animals, people and the earth.{{sfn|Best|2014|p=103}}}}
Cohen rejects ]'s argument that since a brain-damaged human could not exhibit the ability to make moral judgments, that moral judgments cannot be used as the distinguishing characteristic for determining who is awarded rights. Cohen states that the test for moral judgment "is not a test to be administered to humans one by one."<ref> {{cite journal | last = Cohen| first = Carl| | year = 1986| month = October| title = The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research| journal = ]| volume = 315| issue = 14| pages = 865–870| id = PMID 3748104}}</ref> This is also known as the Argument from Species Normality. <ref> {{cite news | Last = Graham| first = David|url=http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/graham/graham1.html |title=A Libertarian Replies to Tibor Machan's 'Why Animal Rights Don't Exist' |date=2004-03-29|accessdate=2007-03-05}}</ref>


===Critics===
The British philosopher ] has argued that rights can only be assigned to beings who are able to understand them and to reciprocate by observing their own obligations to other beings. Scruton also argues against animal rights on practical grounds. For example, in ''Animal Rights and Wrongs'', he supports foxhunting because it encourages humans to protect the habitat in which foxes live. <ref>{{cite book | last = Scruton | first = Roger | authorlink = Roger Scruton| title = Animal Rights and Wrongs| date = 1998| publisher = ]| id = ISBN 1-898309-19-1| pages = pp. 82–85}}</ref> However, he condemns ] because, he says, the animals are not provided with even a minimally acceptable life.<ref>{{cite book | last = Scruton| first = Roger| authorlink = Roger Scruton| title = Animal Rights and Wrongs| date = 1998| publisher = ]| id = ISBN 1-898309-19-1| pages = p. 93}}</ref>


====R. G. Frey====
The Foundation for Animal Use and Education states that "ur recognition of the rights of others stems from our unique human character as moral agents—that is, beings capable of making moral judgments and comprehending moral duty. Only human beings are capable of exercising moral judgment and recognizing the rights of one another. Animals do not exercise responsibility as moral agents. They do not recognize the rights of other animals. They kill and eat one another instinctively, as a matter of survival. They act from a combination of conditioning, fear, instinct and intelligence, but they do not exercise moral judgment in the process." {{Fact|date=February 2007}}<!--what is the Foundation for Animal Use?-->
], professor of philosophy at Bowling Green State University, is a preference utilitarian. In his early work, ''Interests and Rights'' (1980), Frey disagreed with Singer—who wrote in ''Animal Liberation'' (1975) that the interests of nonhuman animals must be given equal consideration when judging the consequences of an act—on the grounds that animals have no interests. Frey argues that interests are dependent on desire, and that no desire can exist without a corresponding belief. Animals have no beliefs, because a belief state requires the ability to hold a second-order belief—a belief about the belief—which he argues requires language: "If someone were to say, e.g. 'The cat believes that the door is locked,' then that person is holding, as I see it, that the cat holds the declarative sentence 'The door is locked' to be true; and I can see no reason whatever for crediting the cat or any other creature which lacks language, including human infants, with entertaining declarative sentences."<ref>Frey (1989), p. 40.</ref>


====Carl Cohen====
In ''The Animals Issue: Moral Theory in Practice'', the British philosopher Peter Carruthers argues that humans have obligations only to other beings who can take part in a hypothetical ].<ref>{{cite book | last = Carruthers| first = Peter|title = The Animals Issue: Moral Theory in Practice| date = 1992| publisher = ]| id = ISBN 0-521-43689-3|pages = pp. 90–92}}</ref> thus animals are excluded from the group of beings to whom humans have moral obligations.<ref>{{cite book | last = Carruthers| first = Peter| | title = The Animals Issue: Moral Theory in Practice| date = 1992| publisher = ]| id = ISBN 0-521-43689-3|pages = pp. 141–143}}</ref>
], professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan, argues that rights holders must be able to distinguish between their own interests and what is right. "The holders of rights must have the capacity to comprehend rules of duty governing all, including themselves. In applying such rules, &nbsp;... must recognize possible conflicts between what is in their own interest and what is just. Only in a community of beings capable of self-restricting moral judgments can the concept of a right be correctly invoked." Cohen rejects Singer's argument that, since a brain-damaged human could not make moral judgments, moral judgments cannot be used as the distinguishing characteristic for determining who is awarded rights. Cohen writes that the test for moral judgment "is not a test to be administered to humans one by one", but should be applied to the capacity of members of the species in general.<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111127200740/http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/phil1200,Spr07/cohen.pdf |date=2011-11-27 }}. Cohen and Regan (2001).</ref>


====Richard Posner====
Social contract arguments do not address the problem of animals acting ''as if'' they have entered into such contracts with others of their species. Cooperation and relatively peaceful coexistence in group situations are characterisics of many species. Jules Masserman (1905–1989), past president of the American Psychiatric Association, concluded in 1964 that: "A majority of rhesus monkeys will consistently suffer hunger rather than secure food at the expense of electroshock to a conspecific."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.madisonmonkeys.com/masserman.pdf |title="Altruistic" behavior in rhesus monkeys|accessdate=2007-03-29|coauthors=Masserman J, Wechkin S, Terris W|year=1964 |month=December|publisher='']''|pages=vol. 121: pp. 584–585}}</ref> In the Masserman study, it appears that rhesus monkeys might act in accordance with the ].
]: "facts will drive equality."<ref name=Posner/>]]
Judge ] of the ] debated the issue of animal rights in 2001 with Peter Singer.<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170914200057/http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/dialogues/features/2001/animal_rights/_2.html |date=September 14, 2017 }}.</ref> Posner posits that his ] tells him "that human beings prefer their own. If a dog threatens a human infant, even if it requires causing more pain to the dog to stop it, than the dog would have caused to the infant, then we favour the child. It would be monstrous to spare the dog."<ref name=Posner> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110821030817/http://www.slate.com/id/110101/entry/110129/ |date=August 21, 2011 }}; {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150509122917/http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/interviews-debates/200106--.htm |date=2015-05-09 }}, courtesy link on utilitarian.net.
*Also see Posner (2004).</ref>


Singer challenges this by arguing that formerly unequal rights for gays, women, and certain races were justified using the same set of intuitions. Posner replies that equality in civil rights did not occur because of ethical arguments, but because facts mounted that there were no morally significant differences between humans based on race, sex, or sexual orientation that would support inequality. If and when similar facts emerge about humans and animals, the differences in rights will erode too. But facts will drive equality, not ethical arguments that run contrary to instinct, he argues. Posner calls his approach "soft utilitarianism", in contrast to Singer's "hard utilitarianism". He argues:
=== Abolitionist view ===
] work (''Introduction to Animal Rights'', et.al.) is based on the premise that if non-human animals are considered to be property then any rights that they may be granted would be directly undermined by that property status. He points out that a call to equally consider the interests of your property against your own interests is absurd. Without the basic right not to be treated as the property of humans, non-human animals have no rights whatsoever, he says. Francione posits that sentience is the only valid determinant for moral standing, unlike Regan who sees qualitative degrees in the subjective experiences of his "subjects-of-a-life" based upon a loose determination of who falls within that category. Francione claims that there is no actual animal-rights movement in the United States, but only an ] movement. In line with his philosophical position and his work in animal-rights law for the Animal Rights Law Project<ref>{{cite web|url=http://animal-law.org|title=Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach|accessdate=2007-04-02}}</ref> at ], he points out that any effort that does not advocate the abolition of the property status of animals is misguided, in that it inevitably results in the institutionalization of animal exploitation. It is logically inconsistent and doomed never to achieve its stated goal of improving the condition of animals, he argues. Francione holds that a society which regards dogs and cats as family members yet kills cows, chickens, and pigs for food exhibits what he calls "moral schizophrenia."


{{Blockquote|The "soft" utilitarian position on animal rights is a moral intuition of many, probably most, Americans. We realize that animals feel pain, and we think that to inflict pain without a reason is bad. Nothing of practical value is added by dressing up this intuition in the language of philosophy; much is lost when the intuition is made a stage in a logical argument. When kindness toward animals is levered into a duty of weighting the pains of animals and of people equally, bizarre vistas of social engineering are opened up.<ref name=Posner/>}}
=== Analogies to human rights ===
Writer ] said in a 1992 speech to the Northeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies: "Strict observance of animal rights forbids even direct protection of people and their values against nature's many predators. Losses to people are acceptable … losses to animals are not. Logically then, beavers may change the flow of streams, but Man must not. Locusts may denude hundreds of miles of plant life … but Man must not. Cougars may eat sheep and chickens, but Man must not."<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?catid=169&type=issue | title = A guide the political left—Animal rights| accessdate= 2007-03-25}}</ref>


]: rights imply obligations.]]
However, many other animal rights activists believe that human rights and animal rights are closely connected. ], the founder of the ], talked of ] and ] as inspiration. ], the press officer for the A.L.F. in Britain, has referred to animal rights as "the ultimate liberation movement", and an extension of the human rights struggle.<ref></ref> ], who was a human rights activist before becoming involved in animal rights, has written several essays on the links between the two movements.


====Roger Scruton====
==== Animal rights and the Holocaust ====
], the British philosopher, argued that rights imply obligations. Every legal privilege, he wrote, imposes a burden on the one who does not possess that privilege: that is, "your right may be my duty." Scruton therefore regarded the emergence of the animal rights movement as "the strangest cultural shift within the liberal worldview", because the idea of rights and responsibilities is, he argued, distinctive to the human condition, and it makes no sense to spread them beyond our own species.<ref name=Scruton/>
{{main|Animal rights and the Holocaust}}
Some writers and animal rights groups have drawn a comparison between the treatment of animals and the ].<ref>Patterson, Charles. ''Eternal Treblinka'', Lantern Books, 2002.</ref>


He accused animal rights advocates of "pre-scientific" ], attributing traits to animals that are, he says, ]-like, where "only man is vile." It is within this fiction that the appeal of animal rights lies, he argued. The world of animals is non-judgmental, filled with dogs who return our affection almost no matter what we do to them, and cats who pretend to be affectionate when, in fact, they care only about themselves. It is, he argued, a fantasy, a world of escape.<ref name=Scruton>{{cite magazine |last=Scruton |first=Roger |author-link=Roger Scruton |date=Summer 2000 |title=Animal Rights |url=http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_3_urbanities-animal.html |magazine=City Journal |location=New York |publisher=Manhattan Institute for Policy Research |access-date=2005-12-04 |archive-date=2016-03-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303191520/http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_3_urbanities-animal.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>
Jewish Nobel Prize winner ], wrote in his book, ''" Enemies, a Love Story''" the following:


Scruton singled out ], a prominent Australian philosopher and animal-rights activist, for criticism. He wrote that Singer's works, including '']'', "contain little or no philosophical argument. They derive their radical moral conclusions from a vacuous utilitarianism that counts the pain and pleasure of all living things as equally significant and that ignores just about everything that has been said in our philosophical tradition about the real distinction between persons and animals."<ref name=Scruton/>
'' As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: In their behavior toward creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right''.


] countered this view of rights by distinguishing moral agents and moral patients.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thevegetariansite.com/ethics_regan.htm|title=Tom Regan: The Case For Animal Rights|website=The Vegetarian Site|access-date=November 2, 2019|archive-date=November 2, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191102054417/https://www.thevegetariansite.com/ethics_regan.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>{{unreliable source?|WP:QUESTIONABLE|date=March 2021}}
Charles Patterson in ''Eternal Treblinka'' argues that "Nazi genocide and modern society's enslavement and slaughter of non-human animals" share "common roots."<ref>Patterson, Charles. ''Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust'', Lantern Books, 1999.</ref> In a campaign largely based on Patterson's book, ] organized a touring exhibition in 2003 entitled "]" which mixed imagery of Jews in concentration camps with animals being killed and abused.<ref>Shafran, Rabbi Avi, "This time PETA’s guilty of missing the point", The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California, May 20, 2005. Cited by {{cite web | url = http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/25916/format/html/displaystory.html| title = This time PETA's guilty of missing the point| accessdate= 2006-08-09}}</ref>


==Public attitudes==
The ], a project of animal rights activists in ], compares itself to the Holocaust Memorial at ] and plans extensive use of such imagery in its exhibits.<ref name=ADL1>"Holocaust Imagery and Animal Rights", Anti Defamation League {{cite web | url = http://www.adl.org/Anti_semitism/holocaust_imagery.asp| title = Holocaust Imagery and Animal Rights| accessdate= 2006-08-09}}</ref>
According to a paper published in 2000 by Harold Herzog and Lorna Dorr, previous academic surveys of attitudes towards animal rights have tended to suffer from small sample sizes and non-representative groups.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Herzog |first1=Harold |last2=Dorr |first2=Lorna |date=2000 |title=Electronically Available Surveys of Attitudes Toward Animals |journal=Society & Animals |volume=10 |issue=2}}</ref> However, a number of factors appear to correlate with the attitude of individuals regarding the treatment of animals and animal rights. These include gender, age, occupation, religion, and level of education. There has also been evidence to suggest that prior experience with ] may be a factor in people's attitudes.<ref name="SignalAndTaylor2006">{{cite journal |last1=Apostol |first1=L. |last2=Rebega |first2=O.L. |last3=Miclea |first3=M. |date=2013 |title=Psychological and Socio-Demographic Predictors of Attitudes towards Animals |journal=Social and Behavioural Sciences |issue=78 |pages=521–525}}</ref>


According to some studies, women are more likely to empathize with the cause of animal rights than men.<ref name="SignalAndTaylor2006" /><ref>{{cite journal |last=Herzog |first=Harold |date=2007 |title=Gender Differences in Human-Animal Interactions: A Review |journal=Anthrozoös|volume=20 |issue=1 |pages=7–21|doi=10.2752/089279307780216687 |s2cid=14988443 }}</ref> A 1996 study suggested that factors that may partially explain this discrepancy include attitudes towards ] and science, scientific literacy, and the presence of a greater emphasis on "nurturance or compassion" among women.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Pifer |first=Linda |date=1996 |title=Exploring the Gender Gap in Young Adults' Attitudes about Animal Research |journal=Society and Animals |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=37–52 |doi=10.1163/156853096X00034 |pmid=11654528 |url=http://www.animalsandsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/pifer1.pdf |access-date=2021-06-04 |archive-date=2021-09-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210917222336/https://www.animalsandsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/pifer1.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>
The comparison between the modern treatment of animals by human beings and the treatment of Jews by the Nazis is regarded as controversial, and has been criticized by the ] (ADL) and the ].<ref name=tolerance>Willoughby, Brian. , ''Tolerance.org'', a webproject of the ], March 7, 2003, retrieved August 17,2006.</ref><ref name=ADL1>, ], August 2, 2005, retrieved August 17, 2006.</ref> ] of ] argues that, although there is "connective tissue" between animal suffering and the Holocaust, they "fall into different historical frameworks, and comparison between them aborts the … force of ].<ref name=RK>Kalechofsky, Roberta. ''Animal Suffering and the Holocaust: The Problem with Comparisons'', Micah Publications, 2003.</ref>


A common misconception on the concept of animal rights is that its proponents want to grant non-human animals the exact same legal rights as humans, such as the ]. This is not the case, as the concept is that animals should have rights with equal consideration to their interests (for example, cats do not have any interest in voting, so they should not have the right to vote).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/rights/rights_1.shtml|title=Ethics - Animal ethics: Animal rights|website=BBC Online|access-date=February 10, 2022|df=mdy-all|archive-date=March 24, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220324011846/https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/rights/rights_1.shtml|url-status=live}}</ref> A 2016 study found that support for ] may not be based on cogent philosophical rationales, and more open debate is warranted.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Joffe |first1=Ari R. |last2=Bara |first2=Meredith |last3=Anton |first3=Natalie |last4=Nobis |first4=Nathan |date=2016-03-29 |title=The ethics of animal research: a survey of the public and scientists in North America |journal=BMC Medical Ethics |volume=17 |page=17 |doi=10.1186/s12910-016-0100-x |issn=1472-6939 |pmc=4812627 |pmid=27025215 |df=mdy-all |doi-access=free }}</ref>
== Animal rights in law ==
] in a ] branch, ], 2004–2005<ref name=covancecruelty> ''Covance Cruelty''</ref>]]
The ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' cites the Roman jurist ] writing in the 3rd or 4th century ] that: ''"Hominum causa omne jus c onstitum"''—"All law was established for men's sake"—a position repeated in P.A. Fitzgerald's ''Salmond on Jurisprudence'' (1966), in which he wrote: "The law is made for men and allows no fellowship or bonds of obligation between them and the lower animals."<ref name=EB2007>"." ''Encyclopaedia Britannica Online''. 2007.</ref>


A 2007 survey to examine whether or not people who believed in ] were more likely to support animal rights than ] and believers in ] found that this was largely the case—according to the researchers, the respondents who were strong ] and believers in ] were less likely to advocate for animal rights than those who were less fundamentalist in their beliefs. The findings extended previous research, such as a 1992 study which found that 48% of animal rights activists were ] or ].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=DeLeeuwa |first1=Jamie |last2=Galen |first2=Luke |last3=Aebersold |first3=Cassandra |last4=Stanton |first4=Victoria |date=2007 |url=http://www.animalsandsociety.org/assets/library/745_s3.pdf |title=Support for Animal Rights as a Function of Belief in Evolution, Religious Fundamentalism, and Religious Denomination |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130620141651/http://www.animalsandsociety.org/assets/library/745_s3.pdf |archive-date=2013-06-20 |df=mdy-all |journal=Society and Animals |issue=15 |pages=353–363}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Galvin |first1=Shelley L. |last2=Herzog |first2=Harold A. Jr. |date=1992 |title=Ethical Ideology, Animal Rights Activism, And Attitudes Toward The Treatment Of Animals |journal=Ethics & Behavior |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=141–149 |doi=10.1207/s15327019eb0203_1 |pmid=11651362 |url=https://animalstudiesrepository.org/acwp_sata/23 |access-date=2020-08-29 |archive-date=2020-05-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200531171029/https://animalstudiesrepository.org/acwp_sata/23/ |url-status=live }}</ref> A 2019 study in '']'' found that those who have positive attitudes toward animal rights also tend to have a positive view of universal healthcare, favor reducing discrimination against African Americans, the LGBT community and undocumented immigrants, and expanding welfare to aid the poor.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Park|first1=Yon Soo|last2=Valentino|first2=Benjamin|date=July 26, 2019|title=Who supports animal rights? Here's what we found.|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/26/who-supports-animal-rights-heres-what-we-found/|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=July 26, 2019|df=mdy-all|archive-date=July 26, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190726122439/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/26/who-supports-animal-rights-heres-what-we-found/|url-status=live}}</ref>
This view categorizes animals as property; not as legal persons with rights, but as things that other legal persons exercise their rights in relation to. Current animal law therefore addresses the rights of the people who own animals, not the rights of the animals themselves.<ref name=EB2007/> There are ]s against cruelty to animals; laws that regulate the keeping of animals in cities and on farms; laws regulating the transit of animals internationally, and governing quarantine and inspection provisions. These are designed to offer animals some protection from unnecessary physical harm and to regulate the use of animals as food, but they offer no civil rights to animals, who have a status similar to that of human slaves before abolition.<ref name=WiseEB>"." ''Encyclopaedia Britannica Online''. 2007.</ref> American legal scholar ] writes in the ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' that the failure to recognize individual rights makes animals "invisible to civil law."<ref name=WiseEB/>


Two surveys found that attitudes towards animal rights tactics, such as ], are very diverse within the animal rights communities. Near half (50% and 39% in two surveys) of activists do not support direct action. One survey concluded "it would be a mistake to portray animal rights activists as homogeneous."<ref name="SignalAndTaylor2006"/><ref>{{cite journal |title=An attitude survey of animal rights activists |journal=Psychological Science |year=1991 |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=194–196 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9280.1991.tb00131.x |s2cid=145549994 |df=mdy-all|last1=Plous |first1=S. }}</ref>
There is increasing interest in the concept of animal rights in law. The idea of extending personhood to animals is gaining the support of mainstream legal scholars such as ]<ref name=DershowitzAA/> and ]<ref name=AAMC/>. Animal law courses are taught in 69 out of 180 U.S. law schools,<ref>, ], retrieved August 23, 2006.</ref> and 47 U.S. law schools have student ], with more being set up in Australia and Europe. Three specialist legal journals have been established—''Animal Law'', the ''Journal of Animal Law'', and the ''Journal of Animal Law and Ethics''.<ref name=WiseEB/>


Even though around 90% of US adults regularly consume meat,<ref>{{Cite web|last1=Berg|first1=Jennifer|last2=Jackson|first2=Chris|date=May 12, 2021|title=Nearly nine in ten Americans consume meat as part of their diet|url=https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/nearly-nine-ten-americans-consume-meat-part-their-diet|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210720111314/https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/nearly-nine-ten-americans-consume-meat-part-their-diet|archive-date=July 20, 2021|access-date=February 13, 2022|website=Ipsos}}</ref> almost half of them appear to support a ban on slaughterhouses: in ]'s 2017 survey of 1,094 U.S. adults' attitudes toward animal farming, 49% "support a ban on factory farming, 47% support a ban on slaughterhouses, and 33% support a ban on animal farming".<ref name="Ettinger">{{cite news |last=Ettinger |first=Jill |date=November 21, 2017 |title=70% of Americans Want Better Treatment for Farm Animals, Poll Finds |url=http://www.organicauthority.com/70-of-americans-want-better-treatment-for-farm-animals-poll-finds/ |newspaper=Organic Authority |access-date=13 February 2022 |archive-date=29 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180929115534/http://www.organicauthority.com/70-of-americans-want-better-treatment-for-farm-animals-poll-finds/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="vox 2">{{cite web |last=Piper |first=Kelsey |date=November 5, 2018 |title=California and Florida voters could change the lives of millions of animals on Election Day |url=https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/10/17/17955642/california-florida-voters-animal-welfare-election-day |publisher=] |access-date=13 February 2022 |archive-date=13 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220213174934/https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/10/17/17955642/california-florida-voters-animal-welfare-election-day |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Reese Anthis|first=Jacy|date=November 20, 2017|title=Animals, Food, and Technology (AFT) Survey 2017|url=https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/animal-farming-attitudes-survey-2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220104070248/https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/animal-farming-attitudes-survey-2017|archive-date=January 4, 2022|access-date=February 13, 2022|website=Sentience Institute|series=Surveys}}</ref> The 2017 survey was replicated by researchers at the ], who found similar results: 73% of respondents answered "yes" to the question "Were you aware that slaughterhouses are where livestock are killed and processed into meat, such that, without them, you would not be able to consume meat?"<ref name="food dive">{{cite web|last=Siegner|first=Cathy|date=January 25, 2018|title=Survey: Most consumers like meat, slaughterhouses not so much|url=https://www.fooddive.com/news/survey-most-consumers-like-meat-slaughterhouses-not-so-much/515301/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211102193320/https://www.fooddive.com/news/survey-most-consumers-like-meat-slaughterhouses-not-so-much/515301/|archive-date=November 2, 2021|access-date=February 13, 2022|publisher=Food Dive}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=Norwood |first1=Bailey |last2=Murray |first2=Susan |title=FooDS Food Deman Survey, Volume 5, Issue 9: January 18, 2018 |url=http://agecon.okstate.edu/files/january%202018.pdf |access-date=February 13, 2022 |website=Oklahoma State University |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190806000018/http://agecon.okstate.edu/files/january%202018.pdf |archive-date=6 August 2019 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
In 2006, ]ians founded the '']'', the first legal journal about animal law in a ]. Brazil has advanced legislation: since 1988, their Constitution recognizes the protection of animals against cruelty.


In the U.S., many public protest slaughters were held in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the ]. Protesting low prices for meat, farmers killed their animals in front of media representatives. The carcasses were wasted and not eaten. This effort backfired because it angered television audiences to see animals needlessly and wastefully killed.<ref>{{cite thesis |page=19 |url=http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1050951369 |title=Growing a new agrarian myth: the american agriculture movement, identity, and the call to save the family farm |first=Ryan J. |last=Stockwell |access-date=11 May 2020 |archive-date=15 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230415153833/https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_olink/r/1501/10?clear=10&p10_accession_num=miami1050951369 |url-status=live }}</ref>
Switzerland passed legislation in 1992 to recognize animals as beings, rather than things, and the protection of animals was enshrined in the German constitution in 2002, when its upper house of parliament voted to add the words "and animals" to the clause in the constitution obliging the state to protect the "natural foundations of life … in the interests of future generations."<ref name=CNN1>, ''CNN'', June 21, 2002</ref>

Steven Wise writes that the legal arguments in favor of animal rights are "powerfully assisted by increasingly sophisticated scientific investigations into the cognitive, emotional, and social capacities of animals and by advances in genetics, neuroscience, physiology, linguistics, psychology, evolution, and ethology, many of which have demonstrated that humans and animals share a broad range of behaviours, capacities, and genetic material." Wise argues that the first serious judicial challenges to the "legal thinghood of nonhuman animals" may only be a few years away.<ref name=WiseEB/>


==See also== ==See also==
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== Notes == ==References==
{{Reflist}}
<div class="references-2column">
<references/>
</div>


== References == ==Bibliography==
Books and papers are cited in short form in the footnotes, with full citations here. News and other sources are cited in full in the footnotes.
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*{{cite book |editor-last=Adams |editor1-first=Carol J. |editor2-first=Josephine |editor-link1=Carol Adams (feminist) |editor2-last=Donovan |editor-link2=Josephine Donovan |date=1995 |title=Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations |publisher=Duke University Press}} {{ISBN|0822316552}}
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*{{cite book |last=Kelch |first=Thomas G. |date=2011 |title=Globalization and Animal Law |publisher=Kluwer Law International}}
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*Murray, L. (2006). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726021231/http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2006/11/the-aspca-pioneers-in-animal-welfare/ |date=2011-07-26 }}, ''Encyclopædia Britannica's Advocacy for Animals''.
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*{{cite book |last=Nibert |first=David |date=2013 |title=Animal Oppression and Human Violence: Domesecration, Capitalism, and Global Conflict |url=http://cup.columbia.edu/book/animal-oppression-and-human-violence/9780231151894 |location= |publisher=] |isbn=978-0231151894 |access-date=2022-09-14 |archive-date=2022-11-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221104123609/http://cup.columbia.edu/book/animal-oppression-and-human-violence/9780231151894 |url-status=live }}
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*] and ] (June 15, 2001). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170914200057/http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/dialogues/features/2001/animal_rights/_2.html |date=2017-09-14 }}, ''Slate''.
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*] (1989). ''The Unheeded Cry: Animal Consciousness, Animal Pain, and Science''. New York: Oxford University Press.
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*] (April 5, 1973). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100224090339/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=9900 |date=2010-02-24 }}, '']'', Volume 20, Number 5.
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*] (2007). "Of Mice and Men: Equality and Animals" in Nils Holtug, and Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen (eds.) (2007). ''Egalitarianism: New Essays on the Nature and Value of Equality''. Oxford University Press.
*{{cite book |author-link=Paul Waldau |last=Waldau |first=Paul |date=2011 |title=Animal Rights: What Everyone Needs to Know |publisher=Oxford University Press}}
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*] (2002). ''Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights''. Perseus.
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*] (2007). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081118132310/https://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9007642/animal-rights |date=2008-11-18 }}, ''Encyclopædia Britannica''.
{{refend}}


== Further reading == ==Further reading==
{{Wikiquote}}
*
{{Refbegin|30em}}
<div>
*] (2002). , The Animal Legal and Historical Center at Michigan State University College of Law.
;Books about animal rights
*, The Animal Legal and Historical Center at Michigan State University College of Law.
*] (ed.) (2009). ''The Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare''. Greenwood.
*] and Nocella II, Anthony J. (eds). (2004). ''Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals.'' ]
*] and Nouët, Jean-Claude (eds.) (1998). ''The Universal Declaration of Animal Rights''. Ligue Française des Droits de l'Animal.
*] (1993). , in Cavalieri, Paola and Singer, Peter (eds.). ''The Great Ape Project''. St. Martin's Griffin.
*] (1997). ''Babies and Beasts: The Argument from Marginal Cases''. University of Illinois Press.
*{{cite book|title=Respecting Animals: A Balanced Approach to Our Relationship with Pets, Food, and Wildlife |year=2018 |first=David S. |last=Favre |publisher=Prometheus |isbn=978-1633884250}}
*], "Let them eat oysters" (review of ], ''Animal Liberation Now'', Penguin, 2023, {{ISBN|978 1 84792 776 7}}, 368 pp; and ], ''Justice for Animals'', Simon & Schuster, 2023, {{ISBN|978 1 982102 50 0}}, 372 pp.), '']'', vol. 45, no.19 (5 October 2023), pp.&nbsp;3, 5–8. The question of animal rights has been approached from a variety of theoretical orientations, including ] and ] ("CA") – none of them satisfactory to reviewer Lorna Finlayson, who teaches philosophy at England's ] and ends up (p.&nbsp;8) suggesting "think politically about animals: "It ought to be – it is – possible to arrange society differently." (p.&nbsp;8.)
*] (2006). ''Animals in Islamic Tradition and Muslim Cultures''. ].
*Franklin, Julian H. (2005). ''Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy''. University of Columbia Press.
*] (2003). , ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', July 1, 2003.
*] (2011). ''Ethics and Animals''. Cambridge University Press.
*Hall, Lee (2006). ''Capers in the Churchyard: Animal Rights Advocacy in the Age of Terror''. Nectar Bat Press.
*] and Clarke, Paul A. B.(eds.) (1990). ''Animal Rights: A Historic Anthology''. Columbia University Press.
*] (2007). ''From Dusk 'til Dawn: An Insider's View of the Growth of the Animal Liberation Movement''. Puppy Pincher Press.
*] and Wilson, Keith (eds). (2020). ''''. Lantern Publishing & Media.
*] (2012). "The Universal Declaration of Animal Rights or the Creation of a New Equilibrium between Species". Animal Law Review volume 19–1.
*] (2002). ''Animal Rights, Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation''. Rowman and Litterfield.
*{{cite book | editor-last = Nibert | editor-first = David | date = 2017 | title = Animal Oppression and Capitalism | publisher = Praeger Publishing | isbn = 978-1440850738}}
*Patterson, Charles (2002). ''Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust''. Lantern.
*] (1990). ''Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism''. Oxford University Press.
*Regan, Tom and Singer, Peter (eds.) (1976). ''Animal Rights and Human Obligations''. Prentice-Hall.
*Spiegel, Marjorie (1996). ''The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery''. Mirror Books.
*] (2006). "Can the Treatment of Animals Be Compared to the Holocaust?" ''Ethics and the Environment'' 11 (Spring): 97–132.
*] (2000). ''Life Force: The World of Jainism''. Asian Humanities Press.
*Wilson, Scott (2010). "" ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy''.
*Kymlicka, W., Donaldson, S. (2011) ''Zoopolis. A Political Theory of Animal Rights''. Oxford University Press.
{{Refend}}


{{Animal rights|state=expanded}}
*] ''The Moral Status of Animals''. (Clarendon Press 1977; pbk 1984)
{{Vegetarianism}}
*Clark, Stephn R.L. ''Biology and Christian Ethics''. (Cambridge University Press 2000)
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*]. ''Gaps in the mind''
{{Law country lists}}
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Latest revision as of 15:38, 26 September 2024

Rights belonging to animals This article is about the philosophy of animal rights. For current animal rights around the world, see Animal rights by country or territory. For a timeline of animal rights, see Timeline of animal welfare and rights. For other uses, see Animal rights (disambiguation).
A captive monkey in Shanghai
Chickens held inside a battery cage in a factory farm
Part of a series on
Animal rights
A paw
Overview
Movement
Animal abuse
Ideas
Related topics
Rights
Theoretical distinctions
Human rights
Rights by beneficiary
Other groups of rights
Parshvanatha, the 23rd Tirthankara, revived Jainism and ahimsa in the 9th century BCE, which led to a radical animal-rights movement in South Asia.
The c. 5th-century CE Tamil philosopher Valluvar, in his Tirukkural, taught ahimsa and moral vegetarianism as personal virtues. The plaque in this statue of Valluvar at an animal sanctuary in South India describes the Kural's teachings on ahimsa and non-killing, summing them up with the definition of veganism.

Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth independent of their utility to humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the same consideration as similar interests of human beings. Broadly speaking, and particularly in popular discourse, the term "animal rights" is often used synonymously with "animal protection" or "animal liberation". More narrowly, "animal rights" refers to the idea that many animals have fundamental rights to be treated with respect as individuals—rights to life, liberty, and freedom from torture that may not be overridden by considerations of aggregate welfare.

Many advocates of animal rights oppose the assignment of moral value and fundamental protections on the basis of species membership alone. They consider this idea, known as speciesism, a prejudice as irrational as any other. They maintain that animals should not be viewed as property or used as food, clothing, entertainment, or beasts of burden merely because they are not human. Multiple cultural traditions around the world such as Jainism, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto and Animism also espouse forms of animal rights.

In parallel to the debate about moral rights, law schools in North America now often teach animal law, and several legal scholars, such as Steven M. Wise and Gary L. Francione, support the extension of basic legal rights and personhood to non-human animals. The animals most often considered in arguments for personhood are hominids. Some animal-rights academics support this because it would break the species barrier, but others oppose it because it predicates moral value on mental complexity rather than on sentience alone. As of November 2019, 29 countries had enacted bans on hominoid experimentation; Argentina has granted captive orangutans basic human rights since 2014. Outside of primates, animal-rights discussions most often address the status of mammals (compare charismatic megafauna). Other animals (considered less sentient) have gained less attention—insects relatively little (outside Jainism) and animal-like bacteria hardly any. The vast majority of animals have no legally recognised rights.

Critics of animal rights argue that nonhuman animals are unable to enter into a social contract, and thus cannot have rights, a view summarised by the philosopher Roger Scruton, who writes that only humans have duties, and therefore only humans have rights. Another argument, associated with the utilitarian tradition, maintains that animals may be used as resources so long as there is no unnecessary suffering; animals may have some moral standing, but any interests they have may be overridden in cases of comparatively greater gains to aggregate welfare made possible by their use, though what counts as "necessary" suffering or a legitimate sacrifice of interests can vary considerably. Certain forms of animal-rights activism, such as the destruction of fur farms and of animal laboratories by the Animal Liberation Front, have attracted criticism, including from within the animal-rights movement itself, and prompted the U.S. Congress to enact laws, including the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, allowing the prosecution of this sort of activity as terrorism.

History

Main article: History of animal rights

The concept of moral rights for animals dates to Ancient India, with roots in early Jain and Hindu history, while Eastern, African, and Indigenous peoples also have rich traditions of animal protection. In the Western world, Aristotle viewed animals as lacking reason and existing for human use, though other ancient philosophers believed animals deserved gentle treatment. Major religious traditions, chiefly Indian or Dharmic religions, opposed animal cruelty. While scholars like Descartes saw animals as unconscious automata and Kant denied direct duties to animals, Jeremy Bentham emphasized their capacity to suffer. The publications of Charles Darwin eventually eroded the Cartesian view of animals. Darwin noted the mental and emotional continuity between humans and animals, suggesting the possibility of animal suffering. The anti-vivisection movement emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, driven significantly by women. From the 1970s onward, growing scholarly and activist interest in animal treatment has aimed to raise awareness and reform laws to improve animal rights and human–animal relationships.

In religion

See also: Animals in Islam; Christianity and animal rights; and Animal rights in Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism

For some the basis of animal rights is in religion or animal worship (or in general nature worship), with some religions banning killing any animal. In other religions animals are considered unclean. Hindu and Buddhist societies abandoned animal sacrifice and embraced vegetarianism from the 3rd century BCE. One of the most important sanctions of the Jain, Hindu, and Buddhist faiths is the concept of ahimsa, or refraining from the destruction of life. According to Buddhism, humans do not deserve preferential treatment over other living beings. The Dharmic interpretation of this doctrine prohibits the killing of any living being. These Indian religions' dharmic beliefs are reflected in the ancient Indian works of the Tolkāppiyam and Tirukkural, which contain passages that extend the idea of nonviolence to all living beings.

In Islam, animal rights were recognized early by the Sharia. This recognition is based on both the Qur'an and the Hadith. The Qur'an contains many references to animals, detailing that they have souls, form communities, communicate with God, and worship Him in their own way. Muhammad forbade his followers to harm any animal and asked them to respect animals' rights. Nevertheless, Islam does allow eating of certain species of animals.

According to Christianity, all animals, from the smallest to the largest, are cared for and loved. According to the Bible, "All these animals waited for the Lord, that the Lord might give them food at the hour. The Lord gives them, they receive; The Lord opens his hand, and they are filled with good things." It further says God "gave food to the animals, and made the crows cry."

Philosophical and legal approaches

Overview

Further information: Consequentialism and Deontological ethics
Martha Nussbaum, Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, is a proponent of the capabilities approach to animal rights.

The two main philosophical approaches to animal ethics are utilitarian and rights-based. The former is exemplified by Peter Singer, and the latter by Tom Regan and Gary Francione. Their differences reflect a distinction philosophers draw between ethical theories that judge the rightness of an act by its consequences (consequentialism/teleological ethics, or utilitarianism), and those that focus on the principle behind the act, almost regardless of consequences (deontological ethics). Deontologists argue that there are acts we should never perform, even if failing to do so entails a worse outcome.

There are a number of positions that can be defended from a consequentalist or deontologist perspective, including the capabilities approach, represented by Martha Nussbaum, and the egalitarian approach, which has been examined by Ingmar Persson and Peter Vallentyne. The capabilities approach focuses on what individuals require to fulfill their capabilities: Nussbaum (2006) argues that animals need a right to life, some control over their environment, company, play, and physical health.

Stephen R. L. Clark, Mary Midgley, and Bernard Rollin also discuss animal rights in terms of animals being permitted to lead a life appropriate for their kind. Egalitarianism favors an equal distribution of happiness among all individuals, which makes the interests of the worse off more important than those of the better off. Another approach, virtue ethics, holds that in considering how to act we should consider the character of the actor, and what kind of moral agents we should be. Rosalind Hursthouse has suggested an approach to animal rights based on virtue ethics. Mark Rowlands has proposed a contractarian approach.

Utilitarianism

Further information: Equal consideration of interests and Utilitarianism

Nussbaum (2004) writes that utilitarianism, starting with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, has contributed more to the recognition of the moral status of animals than any other ethical theory. The utilitarian philosopher most associated with animal rights is Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University. Singer is not a rights theorist, but uses the language of rights to discuss how we ought to treat individuals. He is a preference utilitarian, meaning that he judges the rightness of an act by the extent to which it satisfies the preferences (interests) of those affected.

His position is that there is no reason not to give equal consideration to the interests of human and nonhumans, though his principle of equality does not require identical treatment. A mouse and a man both have an interest in not being kicked, and there are no moral or logical grounds for failing to accord those interests equal weight. Interests are predicated on the ability to suffer, nothing more, and once it is established that a being has interests, those interests must be given equal consideration. Singer quotes the English philosopher Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900): "The good of any one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view ... of the Universe, than the good of any other."

Peter Singer: interests are predicated on the ability to suffer.

Singer argues that equality of consideration is a prescription, not an assertion of fact: if the equality of the sexes were based only on the idea that men and women were equally intelligent, we would have to abandon the practice of equal consideration if this were later found to be false. But the moral idea of equality does not depend on matters of fact such as intelligence, physical strength, or moral capacity. Equality therefore cannot be grounded on the outcome of scientific investigations into the intelligence of nonhumans. All that matters is whether they can suffer.

Commentators on all sides of the debate now accept that animals suffer and feel pain, although it was not always so. Bernard Rollin, professor of philosophy, animal sciences, and biomedical sciences at Colorado State University, writes that Descartes's influence continued to be felt until the 1980s. Veterinarians trained in the US before 1989 were taught to ignore pain, he writes, and at least one major veterinary hospital in the 1960s did not stock narcotic analgesics for animal pain control. In his interactions with scientists, he was often asked to "prove" that animals are conscious, and to provide "scientifically acceptable" evidence that they could feel pain.

Scientific publications have made it clear since the 1980s that the majority of researchers do believe animals suffer and feel pain, though it continues to be argued that their suffering may be reduced by an inability to experience the same dread of anticipation as humans or to remember the suffering as vividly. The ability of animals to suffer, even it may vary in severity, is the basis for Singer's application of equal consideration. The problem of animal suffering, and animal consciousness in general, arose primarily because it was argued that animals have no language. Singer writes that, if language were needed to communicate pain, it would often be impossible to know when humans are in pain, though we can observe pain behavior and make a calculated guess based on it. He argues that there is no reason to suppose that the pain behavior of nonhumans would have a different meaning from the pain behavior of humans.

Subjects-of-a-life

Further information: The Case for Animal Rights
Tom Regan: animals are subjects-of-a-life.

Tom Regan, professor emeritus of philosophy at North Carolina State University, argues in The Case for Animal Rights (1983) that nonhuman animals are what he calls "subjects-of-a-life", and as such are bearers of rights. He writes that, because the moral rights of humans are based on their possession of certain cognitive abilities, and because these abilities are also possessed by at least some nonhuman animals, such animals must have the same moral rights as humans. Although only humans act as moral agents, both marginal-case humans, such as infants, and at least some nonhumans must have the status of "moral patients".

Moral patients are unable to formulate moral principles, and as such are unable to do right or wrong, even though what they do may be beneficial or harmful. Only moral agents are able to engage in moral action. Animals for Regan have "intrinsic value" as subjects-of-a-life, and cannot be regarded as a means to an end, a view that places him firmly in the abolitionist camp. His theory does not extend to all animals, but only to those that can be regarded as subjects-of-a-life. He argues that all normal mammals of at least one year of age would qualify:

... individuals are subjects-of-a-life if they have beliefs and desires; perception, memory, and a sense of the future, including their own future; an emotional life together with feelings of pleasure and pain; preference- and welfare-interests; the ability to initiate action in pursuit of their desires and goals; a psychophysical identity over time; and an individual welfare in the sense that their experiential life fares well or ill for them, logically independently of their utility for others and logically independently of their being the object of anyone else's interests.

Whereas Singer is primarily concerned with improving the treatment of animals and accepts that, in some hypothetical scenarios, individual animals might be used legitimately to further human or nonhuman ends, Regan believes we ought to treat nonhuman animals as we would humans. He applies the strict Kantian ideal (which Kant himself applied only to humans) that they ought never to be sacrificed as a means to an end, and must be treated as ends in themselves.

Abolitionism

Further information: Abolitionism (animal rights) and Animals, Property, and the Law
Gary Francione: animals need only the right not to be regarded as property.

Gary Francione, professor of law and philosophy at Rutgers Law School in Newark, is a leading abolitionist writer, arguing that animals need only one right, the right not to be owned. Everything else would follow from that paradigm shift. He writes that, although most people would condemn the mistreatment of animals, and in many countries there are laws that seem to reflect those concerns, "in practice the legal system allows any use of animals, however abhorrent." The law only requires that any suffering not be "unnecessary". In deciding what counts as "unnecessary", an animal's interests are weighed against the interests of human beings, and the latter almost always prevail.

Francione's Animals, Property, and the Law (1995) was the first extensive jurisprudential treatment of animal rights. In it, Francione compares the situation of animals to the treatment of slaves in the United States, where legislation existed that appeared to protect them while the courts ignored that the institution of slavery itself rendered the protection unenforceable. He offers as an example the United States Animal Welfare Act, which he describes as an example of symbolic legislation, intended to assuage public concern about the treatment of animals, but difficult to implement.

He argues that a focus on animal welfare, rather than animal rights, may worsen the position of animals by making the public feel comfortable about using them and entrenching the view of them as property. He calls animal rights groups who pursue animal welfare issues, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the "new welfarists", arguing that they have more in common with 19th-century animal protectionists than with the animal rights movement; indeed, the terms "animal protection" and "protectionism" are increasingly favored. His position in 1996 was that there is no animal rights movement in the United States.

Contractarianism

Further information: Social contract

Mark Rowlands, professor of philosophy at the University of Florida, has proposed a contractarian approach, based on the original position and the veil of ignorance—a "state of nature" thought experiment that tests intuitions about justice and fairness—in John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971). In the original position, individuals choose principles of justice (what kind of society to form, and how primary social goods will be distributed), unaware of their individual characteristics—their race, sex, class, or intelligence, whether they are able-bodied or disabled, rich or poor—and therefore unaware of which role they will assume in the society they are about to form.

The idea is that, operating behind the veil of ignorance, they will choose a social contract in which there is basic fairness and justice for them no matter the position they occupy. Rawls did not include species membership as one of the attributes hidden from the decision-makers in the original position. Rowlands proposes extending the veil of ignorance to include rationality, which he argues is an undeserved property similar to characteristics including race, sex and intelligence.

Prima facie rights theory

Further information: Prima facie right

American philosopher Timothy Garry has proposed an approach that deems nonhuman animals worthy of prima facie rights. In a philosophical context, a prima facie (Latin for "on the face of it" or "at first glance") right is one that appears to be applicable at first glance, but upon closer examination may be outweighed by other considerations. In his book Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory, Lawrence Hinman characterizes such rights as "the right is real but leaves open the question of whether it is applicable and overriding in a particular situation". The idea that nonhuman animals are worthy of prima facie rights is to say that, in a sense, animals have rights that can be overridden by many other considerations, especially those conflicting a human's right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Garry supports his view arguing:

... if a nonhuman animal were to kill a human being in the U.S., it would have broken the laws of the land and would probably get rougher sanctions than if it were a human. My point is that like laws govern all who interact within a society, rights are to be applied to all beings who interact within that society. This is not to say these rights endowed by humans are equivalent to those held by nonhuman animals, but rather that if humans possess rights then so must all those who interact with humans.

In sum, Garry suggests that humans have obligations to nonhuman animals; animals do not, and ought not to, have uninfringible rights against humans.

Feminism and animal rights

Further information: Women and animal advocacy, Ethics of care, and Feminist ethics
The American ecofeminist Carol Adams has written extensively about the link between feminism and animal rights, starting with The Sexual Politics of Meat (1990).

Women have played a central role in animal advocacy since the 19th century. The anti-vivisection movement in the 19th and early 20th century in England and the United States was largely run by women, including Frances Power Cobbe, Anna Kingsford, Lizzy Lind af Hageby and Caroline Earle White (1833–1916). Garner writes that 70 per cent of the membership of the Victoria Street Society (one of the anti-vivisection groups founded by Cobbe) were women, as were 70 per cent of the membership of the British RSPCA in 1900.

The modern animal advocacy movement has a similar representation of women. They are not invariably in leadership positions: during the March for Animals in Washington, D.C., in 1990—the largest animal rights demonstration held until then in the United States—most of the participants were women, but most of the platform speakers were men. Nevertheless, several influential animal advocacy groups have been founded by women, including the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection by Cobbe in London in 1898; the Animal Welfare Board of India by Rukmini Devi Arundale in 1962; and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, co-founded by Ingrid Newkirk in 1980. In the Netherlands, Marianne Thieme and Esther Ouwehand were elected to parliament in 2006 representing the Parliamentary group for Animals.

The preponderance of women in the movement has led to a body of academic literature exploring feminism and animal rights, such as feminism and vegetarianism or veganism, the oppression of women and animals, and the male association of women and animals with nature and emotion, rather than reason—an association that several feminist writers have embraced. Lori Gruen writes that women and animals serve the same symbolic function in a patriarchal society: both are "the used"; the dominated, submissive "Other". When the British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Thomas Taylor (1758–1835), a Cambridge philosopher, responded with an anonymous parody, A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes (1792), saying that Wollstonecraft's arguments for women's rights could be applied equally to animals, a position he intended as reductio ad absurdum. In her works The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (1990) and The Pornography of Meat (2004), Carol J. Adams focuses in particular on what she argues are the links between the oppression of women and that of non-human animals.

Transhumanism

Some transhumanists argue for animal rights, liberation, and "uplift" of animal consciousness into machines. Transhumanism also understands animal rights on a gradation or spectrum with other types of sentient rights, including human rights and the rights of conscious artificial intelligences (posthuman rights).

Socialism and anti-capitalism

According to sociologist David Nibert of Wittenberg University, the struggle for animal liberation must happen in tandem with a more generalized struggle against human oppression and exploitation under global capitalism. He says that under a more egalitarian democratic socialist system, one that would "allow a more just and peaceful order to emerge" and be "characterized by economic democracy and a democratically controlled state and mass media", there would be "much greater potential to inform the public about vital global issues—and the potential for "campaigns to improve the lives of other animals" to be "more abolitionist in nature." Philosopher Steven Best of the University of Texas at El Paso states that the animal liberation movement, as characterized by the Animal Liberation Front and its various offshoots, "is a significant threat to global capital."

... Animal liberation challenges large sectors of the capitalist economy by assailing corporate agriculture and pharmaceutical companies and their suppliers. Far from being irrelevant to social movements, animal rights can form the basis for a broad coalition of progressive social groups and drive changes that strike at the heart of capitalist exploitation of animals, people and the earth.

Critics

R. G. Frey

R. G. Frey, professor of philosophy at Bowling Green State University, is a preference utilitarian. In his early work, Interests and Rights (1980), Frey disagreed with Singer—who wrote in Animal Liberation (1975) that the interests of nonhuman animals must be given equal consideration when judging the consequences of an act—on the grounds that animals have no interests. Frey argues that interests are dependent on desire, and that no desire can exist without a corresponding belief. Animals have no beliefs, because a belief state requires the ability to hold a second-order belief—a belief about the belief—which he argues requires language: "If someone were to say, e.g. 'The cat believes that the door is locked,' then that person is holding, as I see it, that the cat holds the declarative sentence 'The door is locked' to be true; and I can see no reason whatever for crediting the cat or any other creature which lacks language, including human infants, with entertaining declarative sentences."

Carl Cohen

Carl Cohen, professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan, argues that rights holders must be able to distinguish between their own interests and what is right. "The holders of rights must have the capacity to comprehend rules of duty governing all, including themselves. In applying such rules,  ... must recognize possible conflicts between what is in their own interest and what is just. Only in a community of beings capable of self-restricting moral judgments can the concept of a right be correctly invoked." Cohen rejects Singer's argument that, since a brain-damaged human could not make moral judgments, moral judgments cannot be used as the distinguishing characteristic for determining who is awarded rights. Cohen writes that the test for moral judgment "is not a test to be administered to humans one by one", but should be applied to the capacity of members of the species in general.

Richard Posner

Judge Richard Posner: "facts will drive equality."

Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit debated the issue of animal rights in 2001 with Peter Singer. Posner posits that his moral intuition tells him "that human beings prefer their own. If a dog threatens a human infant, even if it requires causing more pain to the dog to stop it, than the dog would have caused to the infant, then we favour the child. It would be monstrous to spare the dog."

Singer challenges this by arguing that formerly unequal rights for gays, women, and certain races were justified using the same set of intuitions. Posner replies that equality in civil rights did not occur because of ethical arguments, but because facts mounted that there were no morally significant differences between humans based on race, sex, or sexual orientation that would support inequality. If and when similar facts emerge about humans and animals, the differences in rights will erode too. But facts will drive equality, not ethical arguments that run contrary to instinct, he argues. Posner calls his approach "soft utilitarianism", in contrast to Singer's "hard utilitarianism". He argues:

The "soft" utilitarian position on animal rights is a moral intuition of many, probably most, Americans. We realize that animals feel pain, and we think that to inflict pain without a reason is bad. Nothing of practical value is added by dressing up this intuition in the language of philosophy; much is lost when the intuition is made a stage in a logical argument. When kindness toward animals is levered into a duty of weighting the pains of animals and of people equally, bizarre vistas of social engineering are opened up.

Roger Scruton: rights imply obligations.

Roger Scruton

Roger Scruton, the British philosopher, argued that rights imply obligations. Every legal privilege, he wrote, imposes a burden on the one who does not possess that privilege: that is, "your right may be my duty." Scruton therefore regarded the emergence of the animal rights movement as "the strangest cultural shift within the liberal worldview", because the idea of rights and responsibilities is, he argued, distinctive to the human condition, and it makes no sense to spread them beyond our own species.

He accused animal rights advocates of "pre-scientific" anthropomorphism, attributing traits to animals that are, he says, Beatrix Potter-like, where "only man is vile." It is within this fiction that the appeal of animal rights lies, he argued. The world of animals is non-judgmental, filled with dogs who return our affection almost no matter what we do to them, and cats who pretend to be affectionate when, in fact, they care only about themselves. It is, he argued, a fantasy, a world of escape.

Scruton singled out Peter Singer, a prominent Australian philosopher and animal-rights activist, for criticism. He wrote that Singer's works, including Animal Liberation, "contain little or no philosophical argument. They derive their radical moral conclusions from a vacuous utilitarianism that counts the pain and pleasure of all living things as equally significant and that ignores just about everything that has been said in our philosophical tradition about the real distinction between persons and animals."

Tom Regan countered this view of rights by distinguishing moral agents and moral patients.

Public attitudes

According to a paper published in 2000 by Harold Herzog and Lorna Dorr, previous academic surveys of attitudes towards animal rights have tended to suffer from small sample sizes and non-representative groups. However, a number of factors appear to correlate with the attitude of individuals regarding the treatment of animals and animal rights. These include gender, age, occupation, religion, and level of education. There has also been evidence to suggest that prior experience with pets may be a factor in people's attitudes.

According to some studies, women are more likely to empathize with the cause of animal rights than men. A 1996 study suggested that factors that may partially explain this discrepancy include attitudes towards feminism and science, scientific literacy, and the presence of a greater emphasis on "nurturance or compassion" among women.

A common misconception on the concept of animal rights is that its proponents want to grant non-human animals the exact same legal rights as humans, such as the right to vote. This is not the case, as the concept is that animals should have rights with equal consideration to their interests (for example, cats do not have any interest in voting, so they should not have the right to vote). A 2016 study found that support for animal testing may not be based on cogent philosophical rationales, and more open debate is warranted.

A 2007 survey to examine whether or not people who believed in evolution were more likely to support animal rights than creationists and believers in intelligent design found that this was largely the case—according to the researchers, the respondents who were strong Christian fundamentalists and believers in creationism were less likely to advocate for animal rights than those who were less fundamentalist in their beliefs. The findings extended previous research, such as a 1992 study which found that 48% of animal rights activists were atheists or agnostic. A 2019 study in The Washington Post found that those who have positive attitudes toward animal rights also tend to have a positive view of universal healthcare, favor reducing discrimination against African Americans, the LGBT community and undocumented immigrants, and expanding welfare to aid the poor.

Two surveys found that attitudes towards animal rights tactics, such as direct action, are very diverse within the animal rights communities. Near half (50% and 39% in two surveys) of activists do not support direct action. One survey concluded "it would be a mistake to portray animal rights activists as homogeneous."

Even though around 90% of US adults regularly consume meat, almost half of them appear to support a ban on slaughterhouses: in Sentience Institute's 2017 survey of 1,094 U.S. adults' attitudes toward animal farming, 49% "support a ban on factory farming, 47% support a ban on slaughterhouses, and 33% support a ban on animal farming". The 2017 survey was replicated by researchers at the Oklahoma State University, who found similar results: 73% of respondents answered "yes" to the question "Were you aware that slaughterhouses are where livestock are killed and processed into meat, such that, without them, you would not be able to consume meat?"

In the U.S., many public protest slaughters were held in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the National Farmers Organization. Protesting low prices for meat, farmers killed their animals in front of media representatives. The carcasses were wasted and not eaten. This effort backfired because it angered television audiences to see animals needlessly and wastefully killed.

See also

References

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Bibliography

Books and papers are cited in short form in the footnotes, with full citations here. News and other sources are cited in full in the footnotes.

Further reading

  • Lubinski, Joseph (2002). "Overview Summary of Animal Rights", The Animal Legal and Historical Center at Michigan State University College of Law.
  • "Great Apes and the Law", The Animal Legal and Historical Center at Michigan State University College of Law.
  • Bekoff, Marc (ed.) (2009). The Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare. Greenwood.
  • Best, Steven and Nocella II, Anthony J. (eds). (2004). Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals. Lantern Books
  • Chapouthier, Georges and Nouët, Jean-Claude (eds.) (1998). The Universal Declaration of Animal Rights. Ligue Française des Droits de l'Animal.
  • Dawkins, Richard (1993). Gaps in the mind, in Cavalieri, Paola and Singer, Peter (eds.). The Great Ape Project. St. Martin's Griffin.
  • Dombrowski, Daniel (1997). Babies and Beasts: The Argument from Marginal Cases. University of Illinois Press.
  • Favre, David S. (2018). Respecting Animals: A Balanced Approach to Our Relationship with Pets, Food, and Wildlife. Prometheus. ISBN 978-1633884250.
  • Finlayson, Lorna, "Let them eat oysters" (review of Peter Singer, Animal Liberation Now, Penguin, 2023, ISBN 978 1 84792 776 7, 368 pp; and Martha Nussbaum, Justice for Animals, Simon & Schuster, 2023, ISBN 978 1 982102 50 0, 372 pp.), London Review of Books, vol. 45, no.19 (5 October 2023), pp. 3, 5–8. The question of animal rights has been approached from a variety of theoretical orientations, including utilitarianism and capabilities approach ("CA") – none of them satisfactory to reviewer Lorna Finlayson, who teaches philosophy at England's University of Essex and ends up (p. 8) suggesting "think politically about animals: "It ought to be – it is – possible to arrange society differently." (p. 8.)
  • Foltz, Richard (2006). Animals in Islamic Tradition and Muslim Cultures. Oneworld Publications.
  • Franklin, Julian H. (2005). Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy. University of Columbia Press.
  • Gruen, Lori (2003). "The Moral Status of Animals", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, July 1, 2003.
  • Gruen, Lori (2011). Ethics and Animals. Cambridge University Press.
  • Hall, Lee (2006). Capers in the Churchyard: Animal Rights Advocacy in the Age of Terror. Nectar Bat Press.
  • Linzey, Andrew and Clarke, Paul A. B.(eds.) (1990). Animal Rights: A Historic Anthology. Columbia University Press.
  • Mann, Keith (2007). From Dusk 'til Dawn: An Insider's View of the Growth of the Animal Liberation Movement. Puppy Pincher Press.
  • McArthur, Jo-Anne and Wilson, Keith (eds). (2020). Hidden: Animals in the Anthropocene. Lantern Publishing & Media.
  • Neumann, Jean-Marc (2012). "The Universal Declaration of Animal Rights or the Creation of a New Equilibrium between Species". Animal Law Review volume 19–1.
  • Nibert, David (2002). Animal Rights, Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation. Rowman and Litterfield.
  • Nibert, David, ed. (2017). Animal Oppression and Capitalism. Praeger Publishing. ISBN 978-1440850738.
  • Patterson, Charles (2002). Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust. Lantern.
  • Rachels, James (1990). Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism. Oxford University Press.
  • Regan, Tom and Singer, Peter (eds.) (1976). Animal Rights and Human Obligations. Prentice-Hall.
  • Spiegel, Marjorie (1996). The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery. Mirror Books.
  • Sztybel, David (2006). "Can the Treatment of Animals Be Compared to the Holocaust?" Ethics and the Environment 11 (Spring): 97–132.
  • Tobias, Michael (2000). Life Force: The World of Jainism. Asian Humanities Press.
  • Wilson, Scott (2010). "Animals and Ethics" Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  • Kymlicka, W., Donaldson, S. (2011) Zoopolis. A Political Theory of Animal Rights. Oxford University Press.
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