Misplaced Pages

Animal rights: Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editContent deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 11:35, 18 January 2023 editBhagya sri113 (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users6,169 edits Addng wikilinks← Previous edit Latest revision as of 20:13, 9 January 2025 edit undoPete unseth (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users10,854 edits varying degrees of animal rights 
(111 intermediate revisions by 58 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
{{Short description|Belief that animals have interests that should be considered}} {{Short description|Rights belonging to animals}}
{{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)}} {{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)}}
] seeking alms in ] ]] ] in ]]]
] ]]] ] in a ]]]
{{Animal rights sidebar}} {{Animal rights sidebar}}
{{Rights|By claimant}} {{Rights|By claimant}}
], the 23rd Tirthankara, 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|isbn= 9781903998182}}</ref>]] ], 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 ].]] ], 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 philosophy according to which many or all ] have moral worth that is independent of their ] for 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—rights to life, liberty, and freedom from torture that may not be overridden by considerations of aggregate welfare.<ref>Taylor (2009), ch. 3.</ref> '''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> The ] is often used to reach this conclusion. This argument holds that if marginal human beings such as infants, senile people, and the ] disabled are granted moral status and negative rights, then nonhuman animals must be granted the same moral consideration, since animals do not lack any known morally relevant characteristic that marginal-case humans have.


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>
Many advocates for 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

Many animal rights advocates oppose assigning 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
| year = 1938 | year = 1938
| title = The American Biology Teacher | title = The American Biology Teacher
Line 18: Line 20:
| page = 211 | page = 211
| access-date = 16 April 2021 | 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> This idea, known as ], is considered by them to be a prejudice as irrational as any other.<ref>Horta (2010).</ref> They maintain that animals should no longer be viewed as property or used as food, clothing, entertainment, or beasts of burden because their status as a different species from humans should not give them different rights from humans.<ref>That a central goal of animal rights is to eliminate the property status of animals, see Sunstein (2004), p. 11ff. | 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> and hold that animals should not be considered 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 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 some forms of animal rights. * For food, clothing, research subjects or entertainment, see Francione (1995), p. 17.</ref> Cultural traditions such as ], ], ], ], ], and ] also espouse varying 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= ]}}</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 through 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. In parallel to the debate about moral rights, North American law schools 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 extending basic legal rights and ]hood to nonhuman 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 ] 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.
* For a discussion of animals and personhood, see Wise (2000), pp. 4, 59, 248ff; Wise (2004); Posner (2004); . * 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 }}.
* For the arguments and counter-arguments about awarding personhood only to great apes, see Garner (2005), p. 22. * For the arguments and counter-arguments about awarding personhood only to great apes, see Garner (2005), p. 22.
* Also see ] (February 20, 2000). , ''The New York Times''.</ref> {{As of |2019 | November}}, 29 countries had enacted ]; ] has granted a captive ] 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}}</ref> * 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 ]; ] granted captive ]s basic human rights in 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>

Outside the order of ], animal-rights discussions most often address the status of ]s (compare ]). Other animals (considered less sentient) have gained less attention; ] relatively little<ref>
{{cite book {{cite book
| last1 = Cohen | last1 = Cohen
Line 47: Line 47:
| quote = Too often overlooked in the animal world, according to Sapontzis, are insects that have interests, and therefore rights. | 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>
</ref>
(outside ]), and animal-like ] (despite their overwhelming numbers) hardly any.<ref>
The concept of "bacteria rights" can appear coupled with disdain or irony: The concept of "bacteria rights" can appear coupled with disdain or irony:
{{cite book {{cite book
Line 67: Line 66:
| 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.' | 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}}</ref> </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 be possessors of rights, a view summed up by the philosopher ] (1944–2020), 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}}</ref> animals may have some moral standing, but they are inferior in status to human beings, and any interests they have may be overridden, though what counts as "necessary" suffering or a legitimate sacrifice of interests can vary considerably.<ref>Garner (2005), pp. 11, 16. 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.
*Also see Frey (1980); and for a review of Frey, see .</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 have prompted reaction from the ] with the enactment of laws, including the ], allowing the prosecution of this sort of activity as ].<ref> *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 {{Cite book
|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=I_jh4VBi_HYC |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=I_jh4VBi_HYC
Line 80: Line 79:


==History== ==History==
{{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),
{{Main|History of animal rights}}
{{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 religion==
{{See also|Animals in Islam|Christianity and animal rights|Animal rights in Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism}} {{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>
For some the basis of animal rights is in religion or ] (or in general ]), with some religions banning killing of any animal, and in other religions animals can be considered ].


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.
] 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 ], ] and ] faiths is the concept of ], or refraining from the destruction of life<!-- (], p.&nbsp;234)-->. According to Buddhist belief, 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"/> Ancient ] works such as the ] and ] contain passages that extend the idea of non-violence 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."}}</ref>


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>
In Islam, animal rights were recognized early by the ]. This recognition is based on both the ] and the ]. In the Qur'an, there are 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 the rights of animals.<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}}</ref>

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>


==Philosophical and legal approaches== ==Philosophical and legal approaches==
Line 102: Line 100:
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> 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>


], ], 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>; 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--> ], ], 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-->


===Utilitarianism=== ===Utilitarianism===
{{Further|Equal consideration of interests|Utilitarianism}} {{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 uses the language of rights to discuss how we ought to treat individuals. He is a ], 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> 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> 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>
Line 113: Line 111:
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> 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; .</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>


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> 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>
Line 156: Line 154:
{{Further|Women and animal advocacy|Ethics of care|Feminist ethics}} {{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).]] ] ] 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>.</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> 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 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.
Line 163: Line 161:


===Transhumanism=== ===Transhumanism===
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}}</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> 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=== ===Socialism and anti-capitalism===
Line 172: Line 170:


====R. G. Frey==== ====R. G. Frey====
], professor of philosophy at Bowling Green State University, is a preference utilitarian, as is Singer. But, in his early work, ''Interests and Rights'' (1980), Frey disagreed with Singer—who in his ''Animal Liberation'' (1975) wrote that the interests of nonhuman animals must be included 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> ], 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==== ====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, &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>. Cohen and Regan (2001).</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==== ====Richard Posner====
]: "facts will drive equality."<ref name=Posner/>]] ]: "facts will drive equality."<ref name=Posner/>]]
Judge ] of the ] debated the issue of animal rights in 2001 with Peter Singer.<ref>.</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>; , courtesy link on utilitarian.net. 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> *Also see Posner (2004).</ref>


Line 191: Line 189:
], 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/> ], 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/>


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}}</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>


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/> 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/>


] 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}}</ref>{{unreliable source?|WP:QUESTIONABLE|date=March 2021}} ] 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}}


==Public attitudes== ==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.<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 a 2000 paper by Harold Herzog and Lorna Dorr, previous academic surveys of attitudes toward animal rights tended to have 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> But a number of factors appear to correlate with people's attitudes about the treatment of animals and animal rights. These include gender, age, occupation, religion, and level of education. There is also evidence suggesting that 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>

A common misconception about animal rights is that its proponents want to grant nonhuman animals the same legal rights as humans, such as the ]. This is false. Rather, the idea is that animals should have rights that accord with their interests (for example, cats have no interest in voting, and so 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 that 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>


A 2007 survey that examined whether people who believe in ] are more likely to support animal rights than ] and believers in ] found that this was largely the case; according to the researchers, 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 that 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 found that those with favorable attitudes toward animal rights also tend to have favorable views of universal healthcare; 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>
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 }}</ref>


Two surveys found that attitudes toward 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>
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}}</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}}</ref>


Even though around 90% of U.S. 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 ], 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>
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 }}</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}}</ref>


In the U.S., the ] held many public protest slaughters in the late 1960s and early 1970s. 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 people 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>
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>


==See also== ==See also==
Line 219: Line 221:
*] *]
*] *]
*]
*] *]
*] *]
Line 224: Line 227:
*] *]
*] *]
*]
*] *]
*] *]
Line 230: Line 234:
*] *]
*] *]
*]
*] *]
*] *]
Line 243: Line 248:
==Bibliography== ==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. 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.
{{refbegin|indent=yes}} {{Refbegin|30em}}
*{{cite book |author-link=Carol Adams (feminist) |last=Adams |first=Carol J. |date=1996 |title=The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory |publisher=Continuum}} {{ISBN|1501312839}} *{{cite book |author-link=Carol Adams (feminist) |last=Adams |first=Carol J. |date=1996 |title=The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory |publisher=Continuum}} {{ISBN|1501312839}}
*{{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}} *{{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}}
Line 254: Line 259:
*{{cite book |last= Best|first=Steven|date=2014 |title=The Politics of Total Liberation: Revolution for the 21st Century|publisher=] |isbn=978-1137471116|doi=10.1057/9781137440723}} *{{cite book |last= Best|first=Steven|date=2014 |title=The Politics of Total Liberation: Revolution for the 21st Century|publisher=] |isbn=978-1137471116|doi=10.1057/9781137440723}}
*] (1977). ''The Moral Status of Animals''. Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0192830406}} *] (1977). ''The Moral Status of Animals''. Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0192830406}}
*] (1986). , ''New England Journal of Medicine'', vol. 315, issue 14, October, pp.&nbsp;865–870. *] (1986). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111127200740/http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/phil1200,Spr07/cohen.pdf |date=2011-11-27 }}, ''New England Journal of Medicine'', vol. 315, issue 14, October, pp.&nbsp;865–870.
*Cohen, Carl and Regan, Tom (2001). ''The Animal Rights Debate''. Rowman & Littlefield. {{ISBN|0847696626}} *Cohen, Carl and Regan, Tom (2001). ''The Animal Rights Debate''. Rowman & Littlefield. {{ISBN|0847696626}}
*] (ed.) (1988). "] Ethics" and "]." ''Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy''. *] (ed.) (1988). "] Ethics" and "]." ''Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy''.
Line 274: Line 279:
*] (2000a). ''On Virtue Ethics''. Oxford University Press. *] (2000a). ''On Virtue Ethics''. Oxford University Press.
*] (2000b). ''Ethics, Humans and Other Animals''. Routledge. *] (2000b). ''Ethics, Humans and Other Animals''. Routledge.
*Jakopovich, Daniel (2021). , ''Animals & Society Research Initiative, University of Victoria'', Canada. *Jakopovich, Daniel (2021). {{Webarchive|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/ |date=2022-11-29 }}, ''Animals & Society Research Initiative, University of Victoria'', Canada.
*] (1785). '']''. *] (1785). '']''.
*] (1995). , ''History Workshop Journal'', No. 40 (Autumn), pp.&nbsp;16–38. *] (1995). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200413040407/https://www.jstor.org/stable/4289385 |date=2020-04-13 }}, ''History Workshop Journal'', No. 40 (Autumn), pp.&nbsp;16–38.
*{{cite book |last=Kelch |first=Thomas G. |date=2011 |title=Globalization and Animal Law |publisher=Kluwer Law International}} *{{cite book |last=Kelch |first=Thomas G. |date=2011 |title=Globalization and Animal Law |publisher=Kluwer Law International}}
*] (1985). ''The Old Brown Dog: Women, Workers, and Vivisection in Edwardian England''. University of Wisconsin Press. *] (1985). ''The Old Brown Dog: Women, Workers, and Vivisection in Edwardian England''. University of Wisconsin Press.
Line 287: Line 292:
*Molland, Neil (2004). "Thirty Years of Direct Action" in Best and Nocella, ''op cit''. *Molland, Neil (2004). "Thirty Years of Direct Action" in Best and Nocella, ''op cit''.
*Monaghan, Rachael (2000). "Terrorism in the Name of Animal Rights," in Taylor, Maxwell and Horgan, John. ''The Future of Terrorism''. Routledge. *Monaghan, Rachael (2000). "Terrorism in the Name of Animal Rights," in Taylor, Maxwell and Horgan, John. ''The Future of Terrorism''. Routledge.
*Murray, L. (2006). , ''Encyclopædia Britannica's Advocacy for Animals''. *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''.
*] (1989). ''The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics''. University of Wisconsin Press. *] (1989). ''The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics''. University of Wisconsin Press.
*] (2004). "The ALF: Who, Why, and What?", in ] and Anthony Nocella. (eds).''Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals''. Lantern 2004. *] (2004). "The ALF: Who, Why, and What?", in ] and Anthony Nocella. (eds).''Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals''. Lantern 2004.
*{{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}} *{{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 }}
*] (2004). "Beyond Compassion and Humanity: Justice for Nonhuman Animals", in ] and Martha Nussbaum (eds.). ''Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions''. Oxford University Press. *] (2004). "Beyond Compassion and Humanity: Justice for Nonhuman Animals", in ] and Martha Nussbaum (eds.). ''Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions''. Oxford University Press.
*] (2006). ''Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership''. Belknap Press. *] (2006). ''Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership''. Belknap Press.
*] and ] (June 15, 2001). , ''Slate''. *] 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''.
*] and ] (2004). "Animal rights" in Sunstein and Nussbaum, ''op cit''. *] and ] (2004). "Animal rights" in Sunstein and Nussbaum, ''op cit''.
*] (2009). "Darwin, Charles," in Bekoff, ''op cit''. *] (2009). "Darwin, Charles," in Bekoff, ''op cit''.
Line 301: Line 306:
*] (1981). ''Animal Rights and Human Morality''. Prometheus Books. *] (1981). ''Animal Rights and Human Morality''. Prometheus Books.
*] (1989). ''The Unheeded Cry: Animal Consciousness, Animal Pain, and Science''. New York: Oxford University Press. *] (1989). ''The Unheeded Cry: Animal Consciousness, Animal Pain, and Science''. New York: Oxford University Press.
*] (2007). , ''Nature'', EMBO Reports 8, 6, pp.&nbsp;521–525. *] (2007). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728054434/https://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v8/n6/full/7400996.html |date=2020-07-28 }}, ''Nature'', EMBO Reports 8, 6, pp.&nbsp;521–525.
*] (2009) . ''Animal Rights. A Defense''. Palgrave Macmillan. *] (2009) . ''Animal Rights. A Defense''. Palgrave Macmillan.
*] (2000) . ''Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism''. Berg. *] (2000) . ''Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism''. Berg.
*] (1985). , ''American Philosophical Quarterly'', Vol. 22, No. 3 (July), pp.&nbsp;251–257. *] (1985). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160413211030/http://www.jstor.org/stable/20014103 |date=2016-04-13 }}, ''American Philosophical Quarterly'', Vol. 22, No. 3 (July), pp.&nbsp;251–257.
*] (1998). ''Animal Rights and Wrongs''. Claridge Press. *] (1998). ''Animal Rights and Wrongs''. Claridge Press.
*] (2000). , ''City Journal'', summer. *] (2000). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303191520/http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_3_urbanities-animal.html |date=2016-03-03 }}, ''City Journal'', summer.
*] (April 5, 1973). , '']'', Volume 20, Number 5. *] (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.
*] (1990) . ''Animal Liberation''. ]. *] (1990) . ''Animal Liberation''. ].
*] (2000) . ''Ethics into Action: ] and the Animal Rights Movement''. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. *] (2000) . ''Ethics into Action: ] and the Animal Rights Movement''. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
*] (2003). , ''The New York Review of Books'', vol 50, no. 8, May 15. *] (2003). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100330223321/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16276 |date=2010-03-30 }}, ''The New York Review of Books'', vol 50, no. 8, May 15.
*] (2004). "Ethics Beyond Species and Beyond Instincts," in Sunstein and Nussbaum, ''op cit''. *] (2004). "Ethics Beyond Species and Beyond Instincts," in Sunstein and Nussbaum, ''op cit''.
*] (2011) . ''Practical Ethics''. Cambridge University Press. *] (2011) . ''Practical Ethics''. Cambridge University Press.
*] (1981) , ''Journal of Medical Ethics''. June, 7(2): 95–102. *] (1981) {{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 }}, ''Journal of Medical Ethics''. June, 7(2): 95–102.
*] (1980). ''Animal Suffering: The Science of Animal Welfare''. Chapman and Hall. *] (1980). ''Animal Suffering: The Science of Animal Welfare''. Chapman and Hall.
*Stucki, Saskia (2020) , Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 40:533-560. *Stucki, Saskia (2020) {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210109121601/https://academic.oup.com/ojls/article/40/3/533/5862901 |date=2021-01-09 }}, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 40:533-560.
*] (2004). "Introduction: What are Animal Rights?" in Sunstein and Nussbaum, ''op cit''. *] (2004). "Introduction: What are Animal Rights?" in Sunstein and Nussbaum, ''op cit''.
*] and ] (2005). ''Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions''. Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0195305108}} *] and ] (2005). ''Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions''. Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0195305108}}
*Taylor, Angus (2009). ''Animals and Ethics: An Overview of the Philosophical Debate''. Broadview Press. *Taylor, Angus (2009). ''Animals and Ethics: An Overview of the Philosophical Debate''. Broadview Press.
*] (1792). "A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes," in Craciun, Adriana (2002). ''A Routledge Literary Sourcebook on Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman''. Routledge. *] (1792). "A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes," in Craciun, Adriana (2002). ''A Routledge Literary Sourcebook on Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman''. Routledge.
*] (2005). , ''The Journal of Ethics'', Vol. 9, No. 3/4, pp.&nbsp;403–433. *] (2005). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160413170400/http://www.jstor.org/stable/25115834 |date=2016-04-13 }}, ''The Journal of Ethics'', Vol. 9, No. 3/4, pp.&nbsp;403–433.
*] (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. *] (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}} *{{cite book |author-link=Paul Waldau |last=Waldau |first=Paul |date=2011 |title=Animal Rights: What Everyone Needs to Know |publisher=Oxford University Press}}
Line 329: Line 334:
*] (2002). ''Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights''. Perseus. *] (2002). ''Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights''. Perseus.
*] (2004). "Animal Rights, One Step at a Time," in Sunstein and Nussbaum, ''op cit''. *] (2004). "Animal Rights, One Step at a Time," in Sunstein and Nussbaum, ''op cit''.
*] (2007). , ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. *] (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}} {{refend}}


==Further reading== ==Further reading==
{{Wikiquote}} {{Wikiquote}}
{{Refbegin|30em}}
*] (2002). , The Animal Legal and Historical Center at Michigan State University College of Law. *] (2002). , The Animal Legal and Historical Center at Michigan State University College of Law.
*, The Animal Legal and Historical Center at Michigan State University College of Law. *, The Animal Legal and Historical Center at Michigan State University College of Law.
Line 342: Line 348:
*] (1997). ''Babies and Beasts: The Argument from Marginal Cases''. University of Illinois Press. *] (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}} *{{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''. ]. *] (2006). ''Animals in Islamic Tradition and Muslim Cultures''. ].
*Franklin, Julian H. (2005). ''Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy''. University of Columbia Press. *Franklin, Julian H. (2005). ''Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy''. University of Columbia Press.
*] (2003). , ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', July 1, 2003. *] (2003). , ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', July 1, 2003.
*_________ (2011). ''Ethics and Animals''. Cambridge University Press. *] (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. *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. *] 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. *] (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). ''Hidden: Animals in the Anthropocene''. Lantern Publishing & Media. *] 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. *] (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. *] (2002). ''Animal Rights, Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation''. Rowman and Litterfield.
Line 360: Line 367:
*] (2000). ''Life Force: The World of Jainism''. Asian Humanities Press. *] (2000). ''Life Force: The World of Jainism''. Asian Humanities Press.
*Wilson, Scott (2010). "" ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy''. *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}} {{Animal rights|state=expanded}}
Line 370: Line 379:
] ]
] ]
] ]

Latest revision as of 20:13, 9 January 2025

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. The argument from marginal cases is often used to reach this conclusion. This argument holds that if marginal human beings such as infants, senile people, and the cognitively disabled are granted moral status and negative rights, then nonhuman animals must be granted the same moral consideration, since animals do not lack any known morally relevant characteristic that marginal-case humans have.

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 animal rights advocates oppose assigning 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, and hold that animals should not be considered property or used as food, clothing, entertainment, or beasts of burden merely because they are not human. Cultural traditions such as Jainism, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, and animism also espouse varying forms of animal rights.

In parallel to the debate about moral rights, North American law schools now often teach animal law, and several legal scholars, such as Steven M. Wise and Gary L. Francione, support extending basic legal rights and personhood to nonhuman 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 sentience alone. As of November 2019, 29 countries had enacted bans on hominoid experimentation; Argentina granted captive orangutans basic human rights in 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 2000 paper by Harold Herzog and Lorna Dorr, previous academic surveys of attitudes toward animal rights tended to have small sample sizes and non-representative groups. But a number of factors appear to correlate with people's attitudes about the treatment of animals and animal rights. These include gender, age, occupation, religion, and level of education. There is also evidence suggesting that 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 about animal rights is that its proponents want to grant nonhuman animals the same legal rights as humans, such as the right to vote. This is false. Rather, the idea is that animals should have rights that accord with their interests (for example, cats have no interest in voting, and so 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 that more open debate is warranted.

A 2007 survey that examined whether people who believe in evolution are more likely to support animal rights than creationists and believers in intelligent design found that this was largely the case; according to the researchers, 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 that found that 48% of animal rights activists were atheists or agnostic. A 2019 Washington Post study found that those with favorable attitudes toward animal rights also tend to have favorable views of universal healthcare; reducing discrimination against African Americans, the LGBT community, and undocumented immigrants; and expanding welfare to aid the poor.

Two surveys found that attitudes toward 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 U.S. 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 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., the National Farmers Organization held many public protest slaughters in the late 1960s and early 1970s. 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 people to see animals needlessly and wastefully killed.

See also

References

  1. Kumar, Satish (September 2002). You are, therefore I am: A declaration of dependence. Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 9781903998182.
  2. DeGrazia (2002), ch. 2; Taylor (2009), ch. 1.
  3. Taylor (2009), ch. 3.
  4. Compare for example similar usage of the term in 1938: The American Biology Teacher. Vol. 53. National Association of Biology Teachers. 1938. p. 211. Retrieved 16 April 2021. 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.
  5. Horta (2010).
  6. 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.
  7. "Animal Law Courses". Animal Legal Defense Fund. Archived from the original on 2020-12-04. Retrieved 2020-12-13.
  8. For animal-law courses in North America, see "Animal law courses" Archived 2010-06-13 at the Wayback Machine, Animal Legal Defense Fund. Retrieved July 12, 2012.
  9. Giménez, Emiliano (January 4, 2015). "Argentine orangutan granted unprecedented legal rights". edition.cnn.com. CNN Espanol. Archived from the original on April 3, 2021. Retrieved April 21, 2015.
  10. Cohen, Carl; Regan, Tom (2001). The Animal Rights Debate. Point/Counterpoint: Philosophers Debate Contemporary Issues Series. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 47. ISBN 9780847696628. Retrieved 16 April 2021. Too often overlooked in the animal world, according to Sapontzis, are insects that have interests, and therefore rights.
  11. The concept of "bacteria rights" can appear coupled with disdain or irony: Pluhar, Evelyn B. (1995). "Human "superiority" and the argument from marginal cases". Beyond Prejudice: The Moral Significance of Human and Nonhuman Animals. Book collections on Project MUSE. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. p. 9. ISBN 9780822316480. Retrieved 16 April 2021. 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.'
  12. Jakopovich, Daniel (2021). "The UK's Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill Excludes the Vast Majority of Animals: Why We Must Expand Our Moral Circle to Include Invertebrates". Animals & Society Research Initiative, University of Victoria, Canada. Archived from the original on 2022-11-29. Retrieved 2022-06-18.
  13. ^ Scruton, Roger (Summer 2000). "Animal Rights". City Journal. New York: Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2005-12-04.
  14. Liguori, G.; et al. (2017). "Ethical Issues in the Use of Animal Models for Tissue Engineering: Reflections on Legal Aspects, Moral Theory, 3Rs Strategies, and Harm-Benefit Analysis" (PDF). Tissue Engineering Part C: Methods. 23 (12): 850–862. doi:10.1089/ten.TEC.2017.0189. PMID 28756735. S2CID 206268293. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-09-15. Retrieved 2019-07-12.
  15. Garner (2005), pp. 11, 16.
  16. Singer (2000), pp. 151–156.
  17. Martin, Gus (15 June 2011). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Second Edition. SAGE. ISBN 9781412980166 – via Google Books.
  18. Tähtinen, Unto (1976). Ahimsa. Non-Violence in Indian Tradition. London. pp. 2–3 (English translation: Schmidt p. 631). ISBN 0-09-123340-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  19. ^ Grant, Catharine (2006). The No-nonsense Guide to Animal Rights. New Internationalist. p. 24. ISBN 9781904456407. 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.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  20. "Animal rights". BBC. Archived from the original on 8 March 2021. Retrieved 17 March 2019. 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.
  21. Owen, Marna A. (2009). Animal Rights: Noble Cause Or Needless Effort?. Twenty-First Century Books. p. 12. ISBN 9780761340829.
  22. "Animal Rights." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007.
  23. Waddicor, M. H., Montesquieu and the Philosophy of Natural Law (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1970), p. 63 Archived 16 August 2021 at the Wayback Machine.
  24. "Animal Consciousness, No. 2. Historical background". Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. 23 December 1995. Archived from the original on 6 September 2008. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
  25. Parker, J. V., Animal Minds, Animal Souls, Animal Rights (Lanham: University Press of America, 2010), p. 16 Archived 16 August 2021 at the Wayback Machine, 88 Archived 16 August 2021 at the Wayback Machine, 99 Archived 16 August 2021 at the Wayback Machine.
  26. Kant, Immanuel (1785). Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals
  27. Bentham, Jeremy. 1780. "Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence". pp. 307–335 in An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. London: T. Payne and Sons.
  28. 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: Rodopi, 2013), p. 37 Archived 16 August 2021 at the Wayback Machine.
  29. Workman, L. (2013). Charles Darwin: The Shaping of Evolutionary Thinking. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 177. ISBN 978-1-137-31323-2. Archived from the original on 16 August 2021. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  30. Franco, Nuno Henrique (2013-03-19). "Animal Experiments in Biomedical Research: A Historical Perspective". Animals. 3 (1): 238–273. doi:10.3390/ani3010238. ISSN 2076-2615. PMC 4495509. PMID 26487317.
  31. Ross, Karen (2014). "Winning Women's Votes: Defending Animal Experimentation and Women's Clubs in New York, 1920–1930". New York History. 95 (1): 26–40. doi:10.1353/nyh.2014.0050.
  32. Garner (2005), pp. 21–22.
  33. Meenakshi Sundaram, T. P. (1957). "Vegetarianism in Tamil Literature". 15th World Vegetarian Congress 1957. International Vegetarian Union (IVU). Archived from the original on 22 January 2022. Retrieved 17 April 2022. 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."
  34. "BBC - Religions - Islam: Animals". bbc.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2020-02-04. Retrieved 2019-12-20.
  35. Proverbs 30:24 and NW; Psalm 104:24, 25, 27, 28
  36. Ps 147:9
  37. Craig (1988).
  38. Nussbaum (2006), pp. 388ff, 393ff; also see Nussbaum (2004), p. 299ff.
  39. Weir (2009): see Clark (1977); Rollin (1981); Midgley (1984).
  40. Vallentyne (2005) Archived 2016-04-13 at the Wayback Machine; Vallentyne (2007).
  41. Rowlands (2009), p. 98ff; Hursthouse (2000a); Hursthouse (2000b), p. 146ff.
  42. ^ Rowlands (1998), p. 118ff, particularly pp. 147–152.
  43. Nussbaum (2004), p. 302.
  44. For a discussion of preference utilitarianism, see Singer (2011), pp. 14ff, 94ff.
  45. Singer (1990), pp. 7–8.
  46. Singer 1990, p. 5.
  47. Singer (1990), p. 4.
  48. Rollin (1989), pp. xii, pp. 117–118; Rollin (2007) Archived 2020-07-28 at the Wayback Machine.
  49. Singer (1990), pp. 10–17, citing Stamp Dawkins (1980), Walker (1983), and Griffin (1984); Garner (2005), pp. 13–14.
  50. Singer (1990) p. 12ff.
  51. ^ Regan (1983), p. 243.
  52. Regan (1983).
  53. Francione (1990), pp. 4, 17ff.
  54. Francione (1995), pp. 4–5.
  55. Francione (1995), p. 208ff.
  56. Francione (1996), p. 32ff
  57. Hinman, Lawrence M. Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College, 1998. Print.
  58. Garry, Timothy J. Nonhuman Animals: Possessors of Prima Facie Rights (2012), p.6
  59. ^ Lansbury (1985); Adams (1990); Donovan (1993); Gruen (1993); Adams (1994); Adams and Donovan (1995); Adams (2004); MacKinnon (2004).
  60. Kean (1995) Archived 2020-04-13 at the Wayback Machine.
  61. Garner (2005), p. 141, citing Elston (1990), p. 276.
  62. Garner (2005), pp. 142–143.
  63. Gruen (1993), p. 60ff.
  64. Singer (1990), p. 1.
  65. Green, Elizabeth W. (10 October 2003). "Fifteen Questions For Carol J. Adams". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 22 November 2008.
  66. George Dvorsky. "The Ethics of Animal Enhancement". Archived from the original on 2017-04-25. Retrieved 2017-04-24.
  67. Evans, Woody (2015). "Posthuman Rights: Dimensions of Transhuman Worlds". Teknokultura. 12 (2). doi:10.5209/rev_TK.2015.v12.n2.49072.
  68. Nibert 2013, p. 270.
  69. Best 2014, p. 103.
  70. Frey (1989), p. 40.
  71. pg. 94-100 Archived 2011-11-27 at the Wayback Machine. Cohen and Regan (2001).
  72. ^ Posner (June 15, 2001) Archived August 21, 2011, at the Wayback Machine; Posner-Singer debate in full Archived 2015-05-09 at the Wayback Machine, courtesy link on utilitarian.net.
    • Also see Posner (2004).
  73. Singer (June 15, 2001) Archived September 14, 2017, at the Wayback Machine.
  74. "Tom Regan: The Case For Animal Rights". The Vegetarian Site. Archived from the original on November 2, 2019. Retrieved November 2, 2019.
  75. Herzog, Harold; Dorr, Lorna (2000). "Electronically Available Surveys of Attitudes Toward Animals". Society & Animals. 10 (2).
  76. ^ Apostol, L.; Rebega, O.L.; Miclea, M. (2013). "Psychological and Socio-Demographic Predictors of Attitudes towards Animals". Social and Behavioural Sciences (78): 521–525.
  77. Herzog, Harold (2007). "Gender Differences in Human-Animal Interactions: A Review". Anthrozoös. 20 (1): 7–21. doi:10.2752/089279307780216687. S2CID 14988443.
  78. Pifer, Linda (1996). "Exploring the Gender Gap in Young Adults' Attitudes about Animal Research" (PDF). Society and Animals. 4 (1): 37–52. doi:10.1163/156853096X00034. PMID 11654528. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-09-17. Retrieved 2021-06-04.
  79. "Ethics - Animal ethics: Animal rights". BBC Online. Archived from the original on March 24, 2022. Retrieved February 10, 2022.
  80. Joffe, Ari R.; Bara, Meredith; Anton, Natalie; Nobis, Nathan (March 29, 2016). "The ethics of animal research: a survey of the public and scientists in North America". BMC Medical Ethics. 17: 17. doi:10.1186/s12910-016-0100-x. ISSN 1472-6939. PMC 4812627. PMID 27025215.
  81. DeLeeuwa, Jamie; Galen, Luke; Aebersold, Cassandra; Stanton, Victoria (2007). "Support for Animal Rights as a Function of Belief in Evolution, Religious Fundamentalism, and Religious Denomination" (PDF). Society and Animals (15): 353–363. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 20, 2013.
  82. Galvin, Shelley L.; Herzog, Harold A. Jr. (1992). "Ethical Ideology, Animal Rights Activism, And Attitudes Toward The Treatment Of Animals". Ethics & Behavior. 2 (3): 141–149. doi:10.1207/s15327019eb0203_1. PMID 11651362. Archived from the original on 2020-05-31. Retrieved 2020-08-29.
  83. Park, Yon Soo; Valentino, Benjamin (July 26, 2019). "Who supports animal rights? Here's what we found". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on July 26, 2019. Retrieved July 26, 2019.
  84. Plous, S. (1991). "An attitude survey of animal rights activists". Psychological Science. 2 (3): 194–196. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.1991.tb00131.x. S2CID 145549994.
  85. Berg, Jennifer; Jackson, Chris (May 12, 2021). "Nearly nine in ten Americans consume meat as part of their diet". Ipsos. Archived from the original on July 20, 2021. Retrieved February 13, 2022.
  86. Ettinger, Jill (November 21, 2017). "70% of Americans Want Better Treatment for Farm Animals, Poll Finds". Organic Authority. Archived from the original on 29 September 2018. Retrieved 13 February 2022.
  87. Piper, Kelsey (November 5, 2018). "California and Florida voters could change the lives of millions of animals on Election Day". Vox. Archived from the original on 13 February 2022. Retrieved 13 February 2022.
  88. Reese Anthis, Jacy (November 20, 2017). "Animals, Food, and Technology (AFT) Survey 2017". Sentience Institute. Surveys. Archived from the original on January 4, 2022. Retrieved February 13, 2022.
  89. Siegner, Cathy (January 25, 2018). "Survey: Most consumers like meat, slaughterhouses not so much". Food Dive. Archived from the original on November 2, 2021. Retrieved February 13, 2022.
  90. Norwood, Bailey; Murray, Susan. "FooDS Food Deman Survey, Volume 5, Issue 9: January 18, 2018" (PDF). Oklahoma State University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 August 2019. Retrieved February 13, 2022.
  91. Stockwell, Ryan J. Growing a new agrarian myth: the american agriculture movement, identity, and the call to save the family farm (Thesis). p. 19. Archived from the original on 15 April 2023. Retrieved 11 May 2020.

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.
Animal rights
Topics (overviews, concepts, issues, cases)
Overviews
Concepts
Issues
Animal agriculture
Animal testing
Animal welfare
Fishing
Wild animals
Other
Cases
Methodologies
Observances
Advocates (academics, writers, activists)
Academics
and writers
Contemporary
Historical
Activists
Contemporary
Historical
Movement (groups, parties)
Groups
Contemporary
Historical
Parties
Activism
Media (books, films, periodicals, albums)
Books
Films
Periodicals
Journals
Magazines
Albums
Fairs and exhibitions
Veganism and vegetarianism
Perspectives
Veganism
Vegetarianism
Lists
Ethics
Secular
Religious
Food
and drink
Groups
and events
Vegan
Vegetarian
Companies
Books,
reports,
journals
Films and shows
Magazines
Academics,
activists,
authors,
physicians
Vegan
Vegetarian
Chefs and
cookbook authors
Restaurants
Former restaurants
Related
Lists of countries by laws and law enforcement rankings
Age of
Drugs and
alcohol
Death
Guns
Punishment
Policing
Obscenity
Reproduction
Censorship
Human rights
Freedom of movement
Property and
environment
Business
Violence
International
ownership
Other
Categories: