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| Summary: Do non-human animals have rights? |
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Author:Thomas Dixon ( United Kingdom )
Dr. Thomas Dixon is research fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. |
Created: Friday, June 30, 2000
Last Modified: Thursday, April 09, 2009
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The claim that animals have ‘rights’ was first put forward by the Australian philosopher Peter Singer in the 1970s and has been the subject of heated and emotional debates ever since. There are many contexts in which the question of ‘animal rights’ comes up. Should we farm animals? If so by what techniques? Should we eat animals? Should we hunt and fish them? Is it morally acceptable to use animals as sources of entertainment in the context of zoos, circuses, horse racing etc.? Often the same organisations that campaign on environmental issues (e.g. Greenpeace) are also concerned for the welfare of animals: both sets of concerns derive from a commitment to the value of Nature and the Earth. The question of animal rights might well come up in a debate on biodiversity, and is one with so many political and social implications that it is also worth having in its own right. This debate is about the ethical principles at issue; the separate debates on biodiversity, vegetarianism, zoos, blood sports, and animal experimentation deal with more of the concrete details. |
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| Human beings are complex evolved creatures who are accorded rights on the basis that they are able to think and to feel pain. Many other animals are also able to think (to some extent) and are certainly able to feel pain. Therefore non-human animals should also be accorded rights, e.g. to a free and healthy life. |
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Human beings are infinitely more complex than any other living creatures. Their abilities to think and talk, to form social systems with rights and responsibilities, and to feel emotions are uniquely developed well beyond any other animals. It is reasonable to try to prevent the most obvious cases of gratuitous suffering or torture of animals, but beyond that, non-human animals do not deserve to be given ‘rights’. |
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| Ever since the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859 we have known that human beings are related by common descent to all other animals. We owe a duty of care to our animal cousins. |
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The fact that we are (incredibly distantly) related to other animals does not mean that it makes sense to talk about them having ‘rights’. This sort of thinking would have absurd consequences: e.g. saying that we should respect the ‘right’ to life of bacteria, or the ‘right’ of the AIDS virus to move freely and without restriction, and to associate freely with other living organisms. We might wish to reduce unnecessary animal suffering, but not because all creatures to which we are distantly related have rights. |
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| We should err on the side of caution in ascribing rights to human or non-human creatures. If we place high standards (such as the ability to think, speak, or even to enter into a social contract) on the ascription of rights there is a danger than not only animals, but also human infants and mentally handicapped adults will be excluded from basic rights. |
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Only human beings who are members of society have ‘rights’. Rights are privileges that come with certain social duties and moral responsibilities. Animals are not capable of entering into this sort of ‘social contract’ – they are neither moral nor immoral creatures, they are amoral. They do not respect our ‘rights’, and they are irrational and entirely instinctual. Amoral and irrational creatures have neither rights nor duties – they are more like robots than people. All human beings or potential human beings (e.g. unborn children) can potentially be given rights, but o non-human animals fall into that category. |
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| Cruelty to animals (e.g. bull fighting, fox hunting, battery hen farming) is the sign of an uncivilised society – it encourages violence and barbarism in society more generally. A society that respects animals and restrains base and violent instincts is a more civilised one. |
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It is perfectly natural to use animals for our own nutrition and pleasure – in the wild there is much suffering as animals struggle to survive, are hunted by predators, and compete for food and resources. Human beings have been successful in this struggle for existence and do not need to feel ashamed of exploiting their position as a successful species in the evolutionary process. |
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| The basic cause of preventing exploitation of animals is not undermined by the fact that a small number of extremists and criminals attach themselves to it. And it is not reasonable to expect AR campaigners not to take medicine – they must look after their own health whatever way they can until a more humane sort of medicine is developed. |
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Animal Rights activists are hypocrites, extremists, and terrorists who don’t even care about human life. Organisations such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) use terrorist tactics and death-threats; PETA are also an extremist organisation. These AR extremists still avail themselves of modern medicine, however, which could not have been developed without experiments and tests on animals. Animal welfare is a reasonable concern, but talking of animal ‘rights’ is a sign of extremism and irrationality. |
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| | This House Believes that Animals Have Rights Too
This House Would Respect Animals’ Rights
This House Condemns the Exploitation of Animals
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colinwheeler
Member
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Posted: Mon Feb 8, 2010 12:17 pm |
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| I would say that only after a good deal of thought has been put into human rights could a debate be activley held about what sort of rights animals should have. All life should have rights. What rights those are is a more important question than if they should have them or not.
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rajesh005.703
Member
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Posted: Sun Feb 7, 2010 08:32 am |
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as animals treated with god .....some times it act as symbol of god so we should treated as animal as human being in ancient period therer said that human beings came from animal so animals are first came into this exsting world we should conisder animal as first then after that human being ...........animals are not kept in zoo for enternatiment we should treat them as human being
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cisse
Member
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Posted: Thu Feb 4, 2010 08:56 pm |
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Thanks for the information.............
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