Animals

Have animals rights? If so, which ones?

Comments

There's no clear reason why animals shouldn't have rights. After all, humans are animals and on our usual view, even infants and the severely mentally disabled have at least some rights. Certain rights – for example, the right to sign a contract – presuppose certain abilities and so non-human animals typically won't have those. Other rights don't presuppose any abilities and non-human animals might well have at least some of those. The right not to be tortured is a plausible example.

Which rights animals have is controversial. To this we can add that there's a lot of controversy about exactly what rights are. On that question, you might find it useful to take a look at this article from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. But for some issues, the notion of rights may be less important than it might seem. For example, someone might reasonably be persuaded that they shouldn't eat animals even if they're not sure that this is a matter of the rights of the animals.

This isn't to say that rights aren't important. It's just to say that the concept of rights isn't the only tool in our moral toolbox.

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