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{{Short description|Rights belonging to animals}}
{{redirect|Animal liberation}}
{{About|the philosophy of animal rights|current animal rights around the world|Animal rights by country or territory|a timeline of animal rights|Timeline of animal welfare and rights|other uses|Animal rights (disambiguation)}}
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] in a ]]]
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{{Rights|By claimant}}
| name = Animal rights
], 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>]]
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], 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 ].]]
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| cap1 = Animal rights advocates argue that animals ought to be viewed as ], not property.<ref>See, for example, Francione, Gary. ''Animals as persons''. Columbia University Press, 2008, p. 1.</ref>
| lbl1 = Description
| row1 = Animals are members of the moral community, and should not be used as food, clothing, research subjects, or entertainment.<ref name=lead>, Association of American Medical Colleges, retrieved July 12, 2006; Taylor, Angus. , Broadview Press, 2009.</ref>
| lbl2 = Early proponents
| row2 = ] (1748&ndash;1832)<br/>] (1851&ndash;1939)
| lbl3 = Modern proponents
| row3 = ], ],<br/>]
| lbl4 = Key texts
| row4 = Salt's (1894)<br/> Singer's '']'' (1972)
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| row5 = Philosophy, ethics
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'''Animal rights''' is a philosophical argument for the elevation in society and law of certain higher ]<!-- no insects, for example--> from a status of non-sentient ] to that of sentient creatures or ] (depending on how "]" is defined).<ref>For example, Steiner, Gary. In Gary Francione (ed.). ''Animals as persons: essays on the abolition of animal exploitation''. Columbia University Press, 2008, p. ix ff.</ref>
Hence to animals of a certain minimum intelligence would be extended "]," and protections (perhaps privileges), similar or equivalent to the ] humans beings claim.<ref name=EB3>"." ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. 2007.</ref> The term "animal rights" represents a collection of philosophical arguments designed to have influence in social and legal contexts &mdash;ranging from a basic moral argument for ] toward other creatures, through '']'', ], and other arguments, to suggest that those creatures have "]," either ].


'''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.
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'''Animal rights''', also referred to as '''animal liberation''', is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings.<ref name=EB3>"." ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. 2007.</ref> Advocates approach the issue from different philosophical positions, but agree that animals should be viewed as non-human ]s and members of the ], and should not be used as food, clothing, research subjects, or entertainment.<ref name=lead>, Association of American Medical Colleges, retrieved July 12, 2006; Taylor, Angus. , Broadview Press, 2009.</ref> They argue that human beings should stop seeing other ] as property—not even as property to be treated kindly.<ref>For example, Steiner, Gary. In Gary Francione (ed.). ''Animals as persons: essays on the abolition of animal exploitation''. Columbia University Press, 2008, p. ix ff.</ref>
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The idea of awarding rights to animals has the support of legal scholars such as ] and ] of ],<ref>See Dershowitz, Alan. ''Rights from Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights'', 2004, pp. 198–99; "Darwin, Meet Dershowitz," ''The Animals' Advocate'', Winter 2002, volume 21; , ''Encyclopaedia Britannica Online''. 2007; and , Association of American Medical Colleges, retrieved July 12, 2006.</ref> while Toronto lawyer ] argued in 2008 that the movement had reached the stage the ] was at 25 years earlier.<ref name=Dube>Dube, Rebecca. , ''The Globe and Mail'', July 15, 2008.</ref> ] is taught in 117 out of 180 law schools in the United States, in eight law schools in Canada, and is routinely covered in universities in philosophy or applied ethics courses.<ref>Dube, Rebecca. , ''The Globe and Mail'', July 15, 2008; , ]; Garner, Robert. ''Animals, politics and morality''. Manchester University Press, 2004, p. 4 ff.</ref>


Broadly speaking, and particularly in popular discourse, the term "animal rights" is often used synonymously with "animal protection" or "animal liberation". More narrowly, "animal rights" refers to the idea that many animals have fundamental rights to be treated with respect as individuals—], ], and ] from torture—that may not be overridden by considerations of aggregate welfare.<ref>Taylor (2009), ch. 3.</ref>
Critics argue that animals are unable to enter into a ] or make moral choices, and for that reason cannot be regarded as possessors of rights, a position summed up by the philosopher ], who writes that only humans have duties and therefore only humans have rights.<ref name=Scruton2>Scruton, Roger. , ''City Journal'', summer 2000.</ref> A parallel argument is that there is nothing inherently wrong with using animals as resources so long there is no unnecessary suffering, a view known as the ] position.<ref name=Frey>Frey, R.G. ''Interests and Rights: The Case against Animals''. Clarendon Press, 1980 ISBN 0-19-824421-5</ref> There has also been criticism, including from within the ] itself, of certain forms of animal rights activism, in particular the destruction of fur farms and animal laboratories by the ].


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
==Development of the idea==
| year = 1938
===Moral status of animals in the ancient world===
| title = The American Biology Teacher
{{main|Moral status of animals in the ancient world|Human exceptionalism}}
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=gQbbAAAAMAAJ
]'s ]. The ] said ] gave humankind "dominion" over non-humans.<ref name=Francione36/>]]
| publisher = National Association of Biology Teachers
The 21st-century debates about how humans should treat animals can be traced to the ancient world. The idea that the use of animals by humans&mdash;for food, clothing, entertainment, and as research subjects&mdash;is morally acceptable, springs mainly from two sources. First, there is the idea of a divine hierarchy based on the theological concept of "dominion", from ] (1:20-28), where ] is given "dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." Although the concept of dominion need not entail property rights, it has been interpreted over the centuries to imply ownership.<ref name=Scruton2/><ref name=Francione36>Francione, Gary. ''Animals, Property, and the Law''. Temple University Press, 1995, pp. 36-37.</ref>
| volume = 53
| page = 211
| access-date = 16 April 2021
| quote = The foundation from which these behaviors spring is the ideology known as speciesism. Speciesism is deeply rooted in the widely-held belief that the human species is entitled to certain rights and privileges.}}</ref> They consider this idea, known as ], a prejudice as irrational as any other,<ref>Horta (2010).</ref> 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 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, 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.
There is also the idea that animals are inferior because they lack rationality and language, and as such are worthy of less consideration than humans, or even none.<ref name=Francione36/> Springing from this is the idea that individual animals have no separate moral identity: a pig is simply an example of the class of pigs, and it is to the class, not to the individual, that human responsibility or stewardship applies. This leads to the argument that the use of individual animals is acceptable so long as the species is not threatened with extinction.<ref name=Scruton2/>
* 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.
* 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>
{{cite book
| last1 = Cohen
| first1 = Carl
| author-link1 = Carl Cohen (philosopher)
| last2 = Regan
| first2 = Tom
| author-link2 = Tom Regan
| title = The Animal Rights Debate
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=JPHtAAAAMAAJ
| series = Point/Counterpoint: Philosophers Debate Contemporary Issues Series
| year = 2001
| location = Lanham, Maryland
| publisher = Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
| publication-date = 2001
| page = 47
| isbn = 9780847696628
| access-date = 16 April 2021
| quote = Too often overlooked in the animal world, according to Sapontzis, are insects that have interests, and therefore rights.
}}
</ref> (outside ]) and animal-like ] hardly any.<ref>
The concept of "bacteria rights" can appear coupled with disdain or irony:
{{cite book
| last1 = Pluhar
| first1 = Evelyn B.
| author-link1 = Evelyn Pluhar
| chapter = Human "superiority" and the argument from marginal cases
| title = Beyond Prejudice: The Moral Significance of Human and Nonhuman Animals
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=S4VyLcBzek0C
| series = Book collections on Project MUSE
| year = 1995
| location = Durham, North Carolina
| publisher = Duke University Press
| publication-date = 1995
| page = 9
| isbn = 9780822316480
| access-date = 16 April 2021
| quote = For example, in an editorial entitled 'Animal Rights Nonsense,' ... in the prestigious science journal ''Nature'', defenders of animal rights are accused of being committed to the absurdity of 'bacteria rights.'
}}
</ref> The vast majority of animals have no legally recognised rights.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Jakopovich|first=Daniel|date=2021|title=The UK's Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill Excludes the Vast Majority of Animals: Why We Must Expand Our Moral Circle to Include Invertebrates|url=https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/asri/2021/10/17/the-uks-animal-welfare-sentience-bill-excludes-the-vast-majority-of-animals-why-we-should-expand-our-moral-circle-to-include-invertebrates|journal=Animals & Society Research Initiative, University of Victoria, Canada|access-date=2022-06-18|archive-date=2022-11-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221129010538/https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/asri/2021/10/17/the-uks-animal-welfare-sentience-bill-excludes-the-vast-majority-of-animals-why-we-should-expand-our-moral-circle-to-include-invertebrates/|url-status=live}}</ref>


Critics of animal rights argue that nonhuman animals are unable to enter into a ], and thus cannot have rights, a view summarised by the philosopher ], who writes that only humans have duties, and therefore only humans have rights.<ref name=Scruton/> Another argument, associated with the ] tradition, maintains that animals may be used as resources so long as there is no unnecessary suffering;<ref name="Ethical">{{cite journal| author1= Liguori, G.| display-authors= etal| year= 2017| title= Ethical Issues in the Use of Animal Models for Tissue Engineering: Reflections on Legal Aspects, Moral Theory, 3Rs Strategies, and Harm-Benefit Analysis| journal= Tissue Engineering Part C: Methods| volume= 23| issue= 12| pages= 850–862| doi= 10.1089/ten.TEC.2017.0189| pmid= 28756735| s2cid= 206268293| url= https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/51950145/ten.tec.2017.0189.pdf| access-date= 2019-07-12| archive-date= 2020-09-15| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200915060144/https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/51950145/ten.tec.2017.0189.pdf| url-status= live}}</ref> animals may have some moral standing, but any interests they have may be overridden in cases of comparatively greater gains to aggregate welfare made possible by their use, though what counts as "necessary" suffering or a legitimate sacrifice of interests can vary considerably.<ref>Garner (2005), pp. 11, 16.
===17th century: Animals as automata===
*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>
====1641: Descartes====
{{Cite book
{{see|Dualism (philosophy of mind)|Scientific Revolution}}
|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=I_jh4VBi_HYC
]' remains influential regarding how the issue of animal consciousness&mdash;or as he saw it, lack thereof&mdash;should be approached.<ref name=Midgley1999/>]]
|title= The SAGE Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Second Edition
{{rquote|right| eat without pleasure, cry without pain, grow without knowing it; they desire nothing, fear nothing, know nothing. &mdash; ] (1638&ndash;1715)<ref name=Malebranche>Malebranche, Nicholas. in Rodis-Lewis, G. (ed.). ''Oeuvres complètes''. Paris: J. Vrin. 1958-70, II, p. 394, cited in Harrison, Peter. "Descartes on Animals," ''The Philosophical Quarterly'', Vol. 42, No. 167, April 1992, pp. 219-227; also see Carter, Alan. "Animals, Pain and Morality," ''Journal of Applied Philosophy'', Volume 22, No. 1, March 2005, pp. 17–22.</ref>}}
|first= Gus|last= Martin|date= 15 June 2011
The year 1641 was significant for the idea of animal rights. The great influence of the century was the French philosopher, ] (1596&ndash;1650), whose ''Meditations'' was published that year, and whose ideas about animals informed attitudes well into the 21st century.<ref name=Midgley1999/>
|publisher= SAGE|via= Google Books|isbn= 9781412980166
}}
</ref>


==History==
Writing during the ]&mdash;a revolution of which he was one of the chief architects&mdash;Descartes proposed a ] of the universe, the aim of which was to show that the world could be mapped out without allusion to ] experience. The senses deceive, he wrote in the '']'' in 1641, and "it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once."<ref>Descartes, René. '']''. First published 1641, cited in Cottingham, John. "Descartes, René" in Honderich, Ted. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy''. Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 188-192.</ref>
{{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),
{{rquote|right|Hold then the same view of the dog which has lost his master, which has sought him in all the thoroughfares with cries of sorrow, which comes into the house troubled and restless, goes downstairs, goes upstairs; goes from room to room, finds at last in his study the master he loves, and betokens his gladness by soft whimpers, frisks, and caresses.
{{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}}
There are barbarians who seize this dog, who so greatly surpasses man in fidelity and friendship, and nail him down to a table and dissect him alive, to show you the mesaraic veins! You discover in him ''all the same organs of feeling as in yourself''. Answer me, ], has Nature arranged all the springs of feeling in this animal ''to the end that he might not feel''? &mdash; ] (1694&ndash;1778)<ref>"Bêtes, ''Dictionnaire Philosophique''.</ref>}}
His mechanistic approach was extended to the issue of animal ]. Mind, for Descartes, was a thing apart from the physical universe, a ], linking human beings to the mind of God. The non-human, on the other hand, are nothing but complex ], with no souls, minds, or reason. They can see, hear, and touch, but they are not, in any sense, conscious, and are unable to suffer or even to feel pain.<ref name=Midgley1999>Midgley, Mary. , ''The New Statesman'', May 24, 1999.</ref>


==In religion==
In the '']'', published in 1637, Descartes wrote that the ability to reason and use language involves being able to respond in complex ways to "all the contingencies of life," something that animals clearly cannot do. He argued from this that any sounds animals make do not constitute language, but are simply automatic responses to external stimuli.<ref>Descartes, René. '']''. First published 1637, cited in Cottingham, John. "Descartes, René" in Honderich, Ted. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy''. Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 188-192.</ref>
{{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>
====1635, 1641, 1654: First known laws protecting animals====
] writes that the first known legislation against animal cruelty in the English-speaking world was passed in Ireland in 1635. It prohibited pulling wool off sheep, and the attaching of ploughs to horses' tails, referring to "the cruelty used to beasts," which Ryde writes is probably the earliest reference to this concept in the English language.<ref>''The Statutes at Large''. Dublin, 1786, chapter 15, pp. 168-9, cited in Ryder, Richard. ''Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism''. Berg, 2000, p. 49.</ref>


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.
In 1641, the year Descartes' ''Meditations'' was published, the first legal code to protect domestic animals in North America was passed by the ].<ref name=Francione7/> The colony's constitution was based on '']'' by the Reverend ] (1578&ndash;1652), a lawyer, ] clergyman, and ] graduate, originally from Suffolk, England.<ref>Ward, Nathaniel. ''The Earliest New England Code of Laws, 1641''. A. Lovell & Company, 1896.</ref> Ward listed the "rites" the Colony's general court later endorsed, including rite number 92: "No man shall exercise any Tirrany or Crueltie toward any bruite Creature which are usuallie kept for man's use." Historian ] writes that, at the height of Descartes' influence in Europe, it is significant that the early New Englanders created a law that implied animals were not unfeeling automata.<ref name=Nash19>Nash, Roderick. ''The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics''. University of Wisconsin Press, 1989, p. 19.</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>
The Puritans passed animal protection legislation in England too. Katheen Kete of ], Hartford, Connecticut writes that animal welfare laws were passed in 1654 as part of the ordinances of the ]&mdash;the government under ], which lasted 1653–1659&mdash;during the ]. Cromwell disliked blood sports, particularly ], ], ], as well as ] and bull running, both said to tenderize the meat. These could frequently be seen in towns, villages, in fairgrounds, and became associated for the Puritans with idleness, drunkenness, and gambling. Kete writes that the Puritans interpreted the dominion of man over animals in the Book of Genesis to mean responsible stewardship, rather than ownership. The opposition to blood sports became part of what was seen as Puritan interference in people's lives, which became a ] of resistance to them, Kete writes, and the animal protection laws were overturned during the ], when ] was returned to the throne in 1660.<ref name=Kete2>Kete, Kathleen. "Animals and Ideology: The Politics of Animal Protection in Europe," in Rothfels, Nigel. ''Representing Animals''. Indiana University Press, 2002, p. 19 ff.</ref> Bull baiting remained lawful in England for another 162 years, until it was ].


==Philosophical and legal approaches==
====1693: Locke====
] argued against animal cruelty, but only because of the effect it has on human beings.]]
Against Descartes, the British philosopher ] (1632&ndash;1704) argued, in ''Some Thoughts Concerning Education'' in 1693, that animals do have feelings, and that unnecessary cruelty toward them is morally wrong, but&mdash;echoing ]&mdash;the right not to be so harmed adhered either to the animal's owner, or to the person who was being harmed by being cruel, not to the animal itself. Discussing the importance of preventing children from tormenting animals, he wrote: "For the custom of tormenting and killing of beasts will, by degrees, harden their minds even towards men."<ref>Locke, John. ''Some Thoughts Concerning Education'', 1693, Ruth Weissbourd Grant and Nathan Tarcov (eds.). Hackett Publishing, 1996, p. 91.</ref>


===Overview===
===18th century: The centrality of sentience, not reason===
{{Further|Consequentialism|Deontological ethics}}
] argued in 1754 that animals are part of ], and have ]s, because they are sentient.]]
], Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, is a proponent of the ] to animal rights.]]
====1754: Rousseau====
The two main philosophical approaches to animal ethics are utilitarian and rights-based. The former is exemplified by ], and the latter by ] and ]. Their differences reflect a distinction philosophers draw between ethical theories that judge the rightness of an act by its consequences (consequentialism/teleological ethics, or utilitarianism), and those that focus on the principle behind the act, almost regardless of consequences (deontological ethics). Deontologists argue that there are acts we should never perform, even if failing to do so entails a worse outcome.<ref>Craig (1988).</ref>
] (1712&ndash;1778) argued in ] in 1754 that animals should be part of ], not because they are rational, but because they are ]:


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>
{{cquote| we put an end to the time-honoured disputes concerning the participation of animals in natural law: for it is clear that, being destitute of intelligence and liberty, they cannot recognize that law; as they partake, however, in some measure of our nature, in consequence of the sensibility with which they are endowed, they ought to partake of ]; so that mankind is subjected to a kind of obligation even toward the brutes. It appears, in fact, that if I am bound to do no injury to my fellow-creatures, this is less because they are rational than because they are sentient beings: and this quality, being common both to men and beasts, ought to entitle the latter at least to the privilege of not being wantonly ill-treated by the former.<ref>Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. '''', 1754, preface.</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> {{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-->
====1785: Kant====
{{rquote|right|Animals ... are there merely as a means to an end. That end is man. &mdash; ]<ref>Kant, Immanuel. ''Lecture on Ethics''. L. Infield (trans.) HarperTorchbooks 1963, p. 239. Also see Ze'ev Levy, Ze'ev. , ''Judaism'', winter 1996.</ref>}}
The German philosopher ] (1724&ndash;1804), following Locke, opposed the idea that humans have duties toward non-humans. For Kant, cruelty to animals was wrong solely on the grounds that it was bad for humankind. He argued in 1785 that humans have duties only toward other humans, and that "cruelty to animals is contrary to man's duty to ''himself'', because it deadens in him the feeling of sympathy for their sufferings, and thus a natural tendency that is very useful to morality in relation to other humans is weakened."<ref name=Kant1785>Kant, Immanuel. ''], part II (The Metaphysical Principles of the Doctrine of Virtue), paras 16 and 17.</ref>


====1789: Bentham==== ===Utilitarianism===
{{Further|Equal consideration of interests|Utilitarianism}}
]: "The time will come, when humanity will extend its mantle over every thing which breathes" (1781).<ref>Bentham, Jeremy. ''Principles of Penal Law''. Part III, 1781.</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>
Four years later, one of the founders of modern ], the English philosopher ] (1748&ndash;1832), although deeply opposed to the concept of natural rights, argued with Rousseau that it was the ability to suffer, not the ability to reason, that should be the benchmark of how we treat other beings. If rationality were the criterion, many humans, including babies and disabled people, would also have to be treated as though they were things.<ref name=Benthall>Benthall, Jonathan. , ''Anthropology Today'', volume 23, issue 2, April 2007, p. 1.</ref> He wrote in 1789, just as slaves were being ], but were still held captive in the British dominions:


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>
{{cquote|The day has been, I grieve to say in many places it is not yet past, in which the greater part of the species, under the denomination of slaves, have been treated by the law exactly upon the same footing, as, in England for example, the inferior races of animals are still. The day ''may'' come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been witholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day come to be recognized that the number of the legs, the ] of the skin, or the termination of the '']'' are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason or perhaps the faculty of ]? But a full-grown horse or dog, is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? the question is not, Can they ''reason''?, nor Can they ''talk''? but, Can they ''suffer?'' <ref name=Bentham>Bentham, Jeremy. '''', first published 1789, chapter 17; this edition Burns, J.H. and Hart, H.L.A. (eds.) ''The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham''. Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 283, footnote.</ref>}}


]: interests are predicated on the ability to suffer.]]
====1792: Thomas Taylor====
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>
Despite Rousseau and Bentham, the idea that animals did or ought to have rights remained ridiculous. When ] (1759&ndash;1797), the British feminist writer, published '']'' in 1792, ] (1758&mdash;1835), a ] philosopher, responded with an anonymous tract called ''Vindication of the Rights of Brutes'', intended as a '']''. Taylor took Wollstonecraft's arguments, and those of ]'s '']'' (1790), and showed that they applied equally to animals, leading to the conclusion that animals have "intrinsic and real dignity and worth," a conclusion absurd enough, in his view, to discredit Wollstonecraft's and Paine's positions entirely.<ref>Singer, Peter. ''Animal Liberation''. New York Review/Random House, second edition 1990, p. 1; Sunstein, Cass R. , ''The New York Times'', February 20, 2000. Also see Taylor, Thomas. ''A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes'', London 1792, in Craciun, Adriana. ''A Routledge Literary Sourcebook on Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman''. Routledge, 2002, p. 40.</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>
===19th century: Emergence of ''jus animalium''===
====Legislation====
], where livestock had been sold since the 10th century. They were fined 20 ]s each.]]
{{see|Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act 1822|Cruelty to Animals Act 1835|Cruelty to Animals Act 1849|Cruelty to Animals Act 1876}}
{{rquote|right|What could be more innocent than ], boxing, or dancing? &mdash; ], British Foreign Secretary in April 1800 in response to a bill to ban bull baiting.<ref>''Hansard'', April 18, 1800, cited in cited in Singer, Peter. ''Animal Liberation''. Random House, 1990, p. 192.</ref>}}
] was outlawed in England by the ]. Painting by ], 1824]]


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>
The 19th century saw an explosion of interest in animal protection, particularly in England. Debbie Legge and Simon Brooman of ] wrote that the educated classes became concerned about attitudes toward the old, the needy, children, and the insane, and that this concern was extended to non-humans. Before the 19th century, there had been prosecutions for poor treatment of animals, but only because of the damage to the animal as property. In 1793, for example, John Cornish was found not guilty of maiming a horse after pulling its tongue out, the judge ruling that he could be found guilty only if there was evidence of malice toward the owner.<ref name=Legge40>Legge, Debbi and Brooman, Simon. ''Law Relating to Animals''. Cavendish Publishing, p. 40.</ref>


===Subjects-of-a-life===
From 1800 onwards, there were several attempts in England to introduce animal welfare or rights legislation. The first was a bill in 1800 against ], introduced by Sir William Pulteney, and opposed by the Secretary at War, ], on the grounds that it was anti-working class. Another attempt was made in 1802 by ], again opposed by Windham, who said that the Bill was supported by Methodists and Jacobins who wished, for different reasons, to "destroy the Old English character, by the abolition of all rural sports" and that bulls, when they were in the ascendant in the contest, did not dislike the situation.<ref>''Speeches in Parliament, of the Right Honourable William Windham. Volume I'' (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1812), pp. 340-356.</ref> In 1809, ] introduced a bill to protect cattle and horses from malicious wounding, wanton cruelty, and beating, this one opposed by Windham because it would be used against the "lower orders" when the real culprits would be property owners.<ref>Windham, William. </ref> Judge ] writes that the ] found the proposal so sentimental that they drowned Erskine out with cat calls and cock crowing.<ref>Parry, Edward Abbott. ''The Law and the Poor'', 1914; this edition The Lawbook Exchange Ltd., 2004, p. 219.</ref>
{{Further|The Case for Animal Rights}}
]: animals are subjects-of-a-life.]]
Tom Regan, professor emeritus of philosophy at North Carolina State University, argues in ''The Case for Animal Rights'' (1983) that nonhuman animals are what he calls "subjects-of-a-life", and as such are bearers of rights.<ref name=Regan243>Regan (1983), p. 243.</ref> He writes that, because the moral rights of humans are based on their possession of certain ] abilities, and because these abilities are also possessed by at least some nonhuman animals, such animals must have the same moral rights as humans. Although only humans act as moral agents, both marginal-case humans, such as infants, and at least some nonhumans must have the status of "moral patients".<ref name=Regan243/>


Moral patients are unable to formulate moral principles, and as such are unable to do right or wrong, even though what they do may be beneficial or harmful. Only moral agents are able to engage in moral action. Animals for Regan have "]" as subjects-of-a-life, and cannot be regarded as a means to an end, a view that places him firmly in the abolitionist camp. His theory does not extend to all animals, but only to those that can be regarded as subjects-of-a-life.<ref name=Regan243/> He argues that all normal mammals of at least one year of age would qualify:
=====1822: Martin's Act=====
{{see|Badger baiting|Bull baiting|Cockfighting}}
{{rquote|right|''If I had a donkey wot wouldn't go,''<br>
''D' ye think I'd wollop him? No, no, no!''<br>
''But gentle means I'd try, d' ye see,''<br>
''Because I hate all cruelty.''<br>
''If all had been like me, in fact,''<br>
''There'd ha' been no occasion for ]''.<br>
<br>
&mdash; ] ditty inspired by the prosecution under Martin's Act of Bill Burns for cruelty to a donkey.<ref name=RSPCAhistory/>}}
In 1821, the Treatment of Horses bill was introduced by Colonel ], MP for ] in Ireland, but it was lost among laughter in the ] that the next thing would be rights for asses, dogs, and cats.<ref name=Legge41>Legge, Debbi and Brooman, Simon. ''Law Relating to Animals''. Cavendish Publishing, p. 41.</ref>


{{Blockquote|...&nbsp;individuals are subjects-of-a-life if they have beliefs and desires; perception, memory, and a sense of the future, including their own future; an emotional life together with feelings of pleasure and pain; preference- and welfare-interests; the ability to initiate action in pursuit of their desires and goals; a psychophysical identity over time; and an individual welfare in the sense that their experiential life fares well or ill for them, logically independently of their utility for others and logically independently of their being the object of anyone else's interests.<ref name=Regan243/>}}
Nicknamed "Humanity Dick" by ], Martin finally succeeded in 1822 with his "Ill Treatment of Horses and Cattle Bill," or ], as it became known, the world's first major piece of animal protection legislation. It was given ] on June 22 that year as '']'', and made it an offence, punishable by fines up to five pounds or two months imprisonment, to "beat, abuse, or ill-treat any horse, mare, gelding, mule, ass, ox, cow, heifer, steer, sheep or other cattle."<ref> in Legge, Debbi and Brooman, Simon. ''Law Relating to Animals''. Cavendish Publishing, p. 40.</ref> Any citizen was entitled to bring charges under the Act.<ref name=Phelps100>Phelps, Norman. ''The Longest Struggle: Animal Advocacy from Pythagoras to PETA''. Lantern Books, 2007, p. 100.</ref>
] with the donkey in an astonished courtroom, leading to the world's first known conviction for animal cruelty.]]


Whereas Singer is primarily concerned with improving the treatment of animals and accepts that, in some hypothetical scenarios, individual animals might be used legitimately to further human or nonhuman ends, Regan believes we ought to treat nonhuman animals as we would humans. He applies the strict ] ideal (which Kant himself applied only to humans) that they ought never to be sacrificed as a means to an end, and must be treated as ends in themselves.<ref>Regan (1983).</ref>
Legge and Brooman argue that the success of the Bill lay in the personality of "Humanity Dick," who was able to shrug off the ridicule from the House of Commons, and whose own sense of humour managed to capture its attention. It was Martin himself who brought the first prosecution under the Act, when he had Bill Burns, a ]&mdash;a street seller of fruit&mdash;arrested for beating a donkey. Seeing in court that the magistrates seemed bored and didn't much care about the donkey, he sent for it, parading its injuries before a reportedly astonished court. Burns was fined, becoming the first person in the world known to have been convicted of animal cruelty. Newspapers and music halls were full of jokes about the "Trial of Bill Burns," as it became known, and how Martin had relied on the testimony of a donkey, giving Martin's Act some welcome publicity.<ref name=RSPCAhistory/><ref name=Phelps100/> The trial became the subject of a painting (right), which hangs in the headquarters of the ] in London.<ref name=RSPCAAu>, RSPCA Australia, retrieved March 25, 2008.</ref>


===Abolitionism===
Other countries followed suit in passing legislation or making decisions that favoured animals. In 1882, the courts in New York ruled that wanton cruelty to animals was a ] at ].<ref name=Francione7>Francione, Gary. ''Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement''. Temple University Press, 1996, p. 7.</ref> In France in 1850, ] succeeded in having the ''Loi Grammont'' passed, outlawing cruelty against domestic animals, and leading to years of arguments about whether bulls could be classed as domestic in order to ban ].<ref>McCormick, John. Bullfighting: Art, Technique and Spanish Society''. Transaction Publishers, 1999, p. 211.</ref> The state of Washington followed in 1859, New York in 1866, California in 1868, Florida in 1889.<ref name=Legge50>Legge, Debbi and Brooman, Simon. ''Law Relating to Animals''. Cavendish Publishing, p. 50.</ref> In England, a series of amendments extended the reach of the 1822 Act, which became the ], outlawing ], baiting, and ], followed by another ], and ].
{{Further|Abolitionism (animal rights)|Animals, Property, and the Law}}
]: animals need only the right not to be regarded as property.]]
Gary Francione, professor of law and philosophy at ] in Newark, is a leading abolitionist writer, arguing that animals need only one right, the right not to be owned. Everything else would follow from that ]. He writes that, although most people would condemn the mistreatment of animals, and in many countries there are laws that seem to reflect those concerns, "in practice the legal system allows any use of animals, however abhorrent." The law only requires that any suffering not be "unnecessary". In deciding what counts as "unnecessary", an animal's interests are weighed against the interests of human beings, and the latter almost always prevail.<ref>Francione (1990), pp. 4, 17ff.</ref>


Francione's ''Animals, Property, and the Law'' (1995) was the first extensive jurisprudential treatment of animal rights. In it, Francione compares the situation of animals to the treatment of ], where legislation existed that appeared to protect them while the courts ignored that the institution of slavery itself rendered the protection unenforceable.<ref>Francione (1995), pp. 4–5.</ref> He offers as an example the United States ], which he describes as an example of symbolic legislation, intended to assuage public concern about the treatment of animals, but difficult to implement.<ref>Francione (1995), p. 208ff.</ref>
=====1824: Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals=====
{{rquote|right|At a meeting of the Society instituted for the purpose of preventing cruelty to animals, on the 16th day of June 1824, at Old Slaughter's Coffee House, ]: ] Esqr, MP, in the Chair,


He argues that a focus on animal welfare, rather than animal rights, may worsen the position of animals by making the public feel comfortable about using them and entrenching the view of them as property. He calls animal rights groups who pursue animal welfare issues, such as ], the "]", arguing that they have more in common with 19th-century animal protectionists than with the animal rights movement; indeed, the terms "animal protection" and "protectionism" are increasingly favored. His position in 1996 was that there is no animal rights movement in the United States.<ref>
It was resolved:
*Francione and Garner (2010), pp. 1ff, 175ff.
*Hall, Lee. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090508021512/http://www.friendsofanimals.org/programs/animal-rights/interview-with-gary-francione.html |date=May 8, 2009 }}, Friends of Animals. Retrieved February 3, 2011.</ref>


===Contractarianism===
That a committee be appointed to superintend the Publication of Tracts, Sermons, and similar modes of influencing public opinion, to consist of the following Gentlemen:
{{Further|Social contract}}
], professor of philosophy at the University of Florida, has proposed a contractarian approach, based on the ] and the ]—a "state of nature" thought experiment that tests intuitions about justice and fairness—in ]'s '']'' (1971). In the original position, individuals choose principles of justice (what kind of society to form, and how primary social goods will be distributed), unaware of their individual characteristics—their race, sex, class, or intelligence, whether they are able-bodied or disabled, rich or poor—and therefore unaware of which role they will assume in the society they are about to form.<ref name=Rowlands1998p118>Rowlands (1998), p. 118ff, particularly pp. 147–152.</ref>


The idea is that, operating behind the veil of ignorance, they will choose a social contract in which there is basic fairness and justice for them no matter the position they occupy. Rawls did not include species membership as one of the attributes hidden from the decision-makers in the original position. Rowlands proposes extending the veil of ignorance to include rationality, which he argues is an undeserved property similar to characteristics including race, sex and intelligence.<ref name="Rowlands1998p118"/>
Sir ] MP, A Warre Esqr. MP, ] Esqr. MP, ] Esqr., Revd. A Broome, Revd. G Bonner, Revd G A Hatch, A E Kendal Esqr., Lewis Gompertz Esqr., Wm. Mudford Esqr., Dr. Henderson.


===''Prima facie'' rights theory===
Resolved also:
{{Further|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 '']'', ] characterizes such rights as "the right is real but leaves open the question of whether it is applicable and overriding in a particular situation".<ref name="Hinman1998p208">Hinman, Lawrence M. Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College, 1998. Print.</ref> The idea that nonhuman animals are worthy of ''prima facie'' rights is to say that, in a sense, animals have rights that can be overridden by many other considerations, especially those conflicting a human's right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Garry supports his view arguing:


{{Blockquote|...&nbsp;if a nonhuman animal were to kill a human being in the U.S., it would have broken the laws of the land and would probably get rougher sanctions than if it were a human. My point is that like laws govern all who interact within a society, rights are to be applied to all beings who interact within that society. This is not to say these rights endowed by humans are equivalent to those held by nonhuman animals, but rather that if humans possess rights then so must all those who interact with humans.<ref name=Garry2012p6>Garry, Timothy J. Nonhuman Animals: Possessors of Prima Facie Rights (2012), p.6</ref>}}
That a Committee be appointed to adopt measures for Inspecting the Markets and Streets of the Metropolis, the Slaughter Houses, the conduct of Coachmen, etc.- etc, consisting of the following Gentlemen:


In sum, Garry suggests that humans have obligations to nonhuman animals; animals do not, and ought not to, have uninfringible rights against humans.
T F Buxton Esqr. MP, ] Esqr., MP, ], L B Allen Esqr., C C Wilson Esqr., Jno. Brogden Esqr., Alderman Brydges, A E Kendal Esqr., E Lodge Esqr., J Martin Esqr. T G Meymott Esqr.


===Feminism and animal rights===
A. Broome,
{{Further|Women and animal advocacy|Ethics of care|Feminist ethics}}
] ] has written extensively about the link between feminism and animal rights, starting with ''The Sexual Politics of Meat'' (1990).]]
Women have played a central role in animal advocacy since the 19th century.<ref name="Lansbury et al">Lansbury (1985); Adams (1990); Donovan (1993); Gruen (1993); Adams (1994); Adams and Donovan (1995); Adams (2004); MacKinnon (2004).</ref> The anti-vivisection movement in the 19th and early 20th century in England and the United States was largely run by women, including ], ], ] and ] (1833–1916).<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200413040407/https://www.jstor.org/stable/4289385 |date=2020-04-13 }}.</ref> Garner writes that 70 per cent of the membership of the Victoria Street Society (one of the anti-vivisection groups founded by Cobbe) were women, as were 70 per cent of the membership of the British RSPCA in 1900.<ref>Garner (2005), p. 141, citing Elston (1990), p. 276.</ref>


The modern animal advocacy movement has a similar representation of women. They are not invariably in leadership positions: during the March for Animals in Washington, D.C., in 1990—the largest animal rights demonstration held until then in the United States—most of the participants were women, but most of the platform speakers were men.<ref name=Garner2005p142>Garner (2005), pp. 142–143.</ref> Nevertheless, several influential animal advocacy groups have been founded by women, including the ] by Cobbe in London in 1898; the ] by ] in 1962; and ], co-founded by ] in 1980. In the Netherlands, ] and ] were elected to parliament in 2006 representing the Parliamentary group for Animals.
Honorary Secretary <ref name=RSPCAhistory/><ref name=Phelps100/>}}
{{see|Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals}}
Richard Martin soon realized that magistrates did not take the Martin Act seriously, and that it was not being reliably enforced. Several members of parliament decided to form a society to bring prosecutions under the Act. The Reverend Arthur Broome, a ] man who had recently become the vicar of Bromley-by-Bow, arranged a meeting in Old Slaughter's Coffee House in ], a London café frequented by artists and actors.<ref name=RSPCAhistory>, Animal Legal and Historical Center, Michigan State University College of Law, retrieved March 25, 2008.</ref>


The preponderance of women in the movement has led to a body of academic literature exploring feminism and animal rights, such as feminism and vegetarianism or ], the oppression of women and animals, and the male association of women and animals with nature and emotion, rather than reason—an association that several feminist writers have embraced.<ref name="Lansbury et al"/> ] writes that women and animals serve the same symbolic function in a patriarchal society: both are "the used"; the dominated, submissive "]".<ref>Gruen (1993), p. 60ff.</ref> When the British feminist ] (1759–1797) published '']'' (1792), ] (1758–1835), a Cambridge philosopher, responded with an anonymous parody, ''A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes'' (1792), saying that Wollstonecraft's arguments for women's rights could be applied equally to animals, a position he intended as '']''.<ref>Singer (1990), p. 1.</ref><!--add something about language; treatment of female animals; feminist care ethic; suffragettes--> In her works '']'' (1990) and ''The Pornography of Meat'' (2004), ] focuses in particular on what she argues are the links between the oppression of women and that of non-human animals.<ref name="green2003">{{cite magazine|author-last=Green |author-first=Elizabeth W. |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/10/2/fifteen-questions-for-carol-j-adams/ |title=Fifteen Questions For Carol J. Adams |magazine=The Harvard Crimson |date=10 October 2003 |access-date=22 November 2008}}</ref>
The group met on June 16, 1824, and included a number of MPs: Richard Martin, Sir ], Sir ], ], and Sir ], who had been an MP, and who became one again in 1826. They decided to form a "Society instituted for the purpose of preventing cruelty to animals," or the ], as it became known. It determined to send men to inspect the ] in the City of London, where livestock had been sold since the 10th century, as well as ]s, and the practices of ] toward their horses.<ref name=RSPCAhistory/> The Society became the Royal Society in 1840, when it was granted a ] by ], herself strongly opposed to vivisection.<ref name=Legge47>Legge, Debbi and Brooman, Simon. ''Law Relating to Animals''. Cavendish Publishing, p. 47.</ref><ref>, ''Time'' magazine, January 26, 1970.</ref>


===Transhumanism===
=====1824: Early examples of direct action=====
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>
Noel Molland writes that, in 1824, Catherine Smithies, an anti-slavery activist, set up an SPCA youth wing called the Bands of Mercy. It was a children's club modeled on the ] Bands of Hope, which were intended to encourage children to campaign against drinking and gambling. The Bands of Mercy were similarly meant to encourage a love of animals.<ref name=Molland68>Molland, Neil. "Thirty Years of Direct Action" in Best & Nocella (eds), ''Terrorists or Freedom Fighters'', Lantern Books, 2004, p. 68.</ref>


===Socialism and anti-capitalism===
Molland writes that some of its members responded with more enthusiasm than Smithies intended, and became known for engaging in ] against hunters by sabotaging their rifles, although Kim Stallwood of the Animal Rights Network writes he has often heard these stories but has never been able to find solid evidence to support them.<ref>Stallwood, Kim. "A Personal Overview of Direct Action" in Best & Nocella (eds), ''Terrorists or Freedom Fighters, Lantern Books, 2004, p. 82).</ref> Whether the story is true or ], the idea of the youth group was revived by ] in 1972, when he and Cliff Goodman set up the Band of Mercy as a militant, anti-hunting guerrilla group, which slashed hunters' vehicles' tires and smashed their windows. In 1976, some of the same activists, sensing that the Band of Mercy name sounded too accommodating, founded the ].<ref name=Molland68/>


According to sociologist ] of ], the struggle for animal liberation must happen in tandem with a more generalized struggle against human oppression and exploitation under global ]. He says that under a more egalitarian ] system, one that would "allow a more just and peaceful order to emerge" and be "characterized by ] and a democratically controlled state and mass media", there would be "much greater potential to inform the public about vital global issues—and the potential for "campaigns to improve the lives of other animals" to be "more abolitionist in nature."{{sfn|Nibert|2013|p=270}} Philosopher ] of the ] states that the animal liberation movement, as characterized by the ] and its various offshoots, "is a significant threat to global capital." {{Blockquote|...&nbsp;Animal liberation challenges large sectors of the capitalist economy by assailing corporate agriculture and pharmaceutical companies and their suppliers. Far from being irrelevant to social movements, animal rights can form the basis for a broad coalition of progressive social groups and drive changes that strike at the heart of capitalist exploitation of animals, people and the earth.{{sfn|Best|2014|p=103}}}}
=====1866: American SPCA=====
The first animal protection group in the United States was the ] (ASPCA), founded by ] in April 1866. Bergh had been appointed by President ] to a diplomatic post in Russia, and had been disturbed by the treatment of animals there. He consulted with the president of the RSPCA in London, the ], and returned to the U.S. to speak out against bullfights, cockfights, and the beating of horses. He created a "Declaration of the Rights of Animals," and in 1866, persuaded the ] to pass anti-cruelty legislation and to grant the ASPCA the authority to enforce it.<ref>, ''Encyclopaedia Britannica's Advocacy for Animals'', November 20, 2006.</ref>
] founded two of the world's first anti-vivisection societies.]]


====Other groups==== ===Critics===
The remainder of the century saw the creation of many animal protection groups. In 1875, the Irish feminist ] founded the Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection, the world's first organization opposed to animal research, which became the ]. In 1898, she set up the ], with which she campaigned against the use of dogs in research, coming close to success with the 1919 Dogs (Protection) Bill, which almost became law.


====R. G. Frey====
====1824: Development of the concept of animal rights====
], 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>
The period saw the first extended interest in the idea that non-humans might have natural rights, or ought to have legal ones. In 1824, Lewis Gompertz, one of the men who attended the first meeting of the SPCA in June that year, published ''Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes'', in which he argued that every living creature, human and non-human, has more right to the use of its own body than anyone else has to use it, and that our duty to promote happiness applies equally to all beings.<ref name=Taylor62/>


====Carl Cohen====
In 1879, Edward Nicholson argued in ''Rights of an Animal'' that animals have the same natural right to life and liberty that human beings do, arguing strongly against Descartes' mechanistic view, or what he called the "Neo-Cartesian snake," that they lack consciousness.<ref name=Taylor62>Taylor, Angus. ''Animals and Ethics''. Broadview Press, 2009, p. 62.</ref><ref>Nicholson, Edward. '''', 1879, chapter 6.</ref> Other writers of the time who explored whether animals might have natural rights were John Lewis, Edward Evans, and J. Howard Moore.<ref name=Nash137>Nash, Roderick. ''The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics''. University of Wisconsin Press, 1989, p. 137.</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>


=====1839: Schopenhauer===== ====Richard Posner====
]: "facts will drive equality."<ref name=Posner/>]]
], the view that cruelty is wrong only because it hardens human beings was "revolting and abominable."<ref name=Schopenhauer96>Schopenhauer, Arthur. '']''. This edition Hackett Publishing, 1998, p. 96.</ref>]]
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.
The development in England of the concept of animal rights was strongly supported by the German philosopher, ] (1788&ndash;1860). He wrote that Europeans were "awakening more and more to a sense that beasts have rights, in proportion as the strange notion is being gradually overcome and outgrown, that the animal kingdom came into existence solely for the benefit and pleasure of man."<ref name=SchopenhauerPhelps/> He applauded the animal protection movement in England&mdash;"To the honor, then, of the English be it said that they are the first people who have, in downright earnest, extended the protecting arm of the law to animals."<ref name=SchopenhauerPhelps>Schopenhauer, Arthur. ''On the Basis of Morality'', cited in Phelps, Norm. ''The Longest Struggle: Animal Advocacy from Pythagoras to PETA''. Lantern Books, 2007, p. 153-154.</ref>&mdash;and argued against the dominant ]ian idea that animal cruelty is wrong only insofar as it brutalizes humans:
*Also see Posner (2004).</ref>


Singer challenges this by arguing that formerly unequal rights for gays, women, and certain races were justified using the same set of intuitions. Posner replies that equality in civil rights did not occur because of ethical arguments, but because facts mounted that there were no morally significant differences between humans based on race, sex, or sexual orientation that would support inequality. If and when similar facts emerge about humans and animals, the differences in rights will erode too. But facts will drive equality, not ethical arguments that run contrary to instinct, he argues. Posner calls his approach "soft utilitarianism", in contrast to Singer's "hard utilitarianism". He argues:
{{cquote|Thus only for practice are we to have sympathy for animals, and they are, so to speak, the pathological phantom for the purpose of practicing sympathy for human beings. In common with the whole of Asia not tainted by ] (that is, ]), I regard such propositions as revolting and abominable ... his philosophical morality ... is only a ] one in disguise ... Thus, because ] morality leaves animals out of account ... they are at once outlawed in philosophical morals; they are mere "things," mere ''means'' to any ends whatsoever. They can therefore be used for vivisection, hunting, coursing, bullfights, and horse racing, and can be whipped to death as they struggle along with heavy carts of stone. Shame on such a morality that is worthy of ]s, ]s, and ], and that fails to recognize the eternal essence that exists in every living thing ...<ref name=Schopenhauer96>Schopenhauer, Arthur. ''On the Basis of Morality''. This edition Hackett Publishing, 1998, p. 96.</ref>}}


{{Blockquote|The "soft" utilitarian position on animal rights is a moral intuition of many, probably most, Americans. We realize that animals feel pain, and we think that to inflict pain without a reason is bad. Nothing of practical value is added by dressing up this intuition in the language of philosophy; much is lost when the intuition is made a stage in a logical argument. When kindness toward animals is levered into a duty of weighting the pains of animals and of people equally, bizarre vistas of social engineering are opened up.<ref name=Posner/>}}
Schopenhauer's views on animal rights stopped short of advocating vegetarianism, arguing that, so long as an animal's death was quick, men would suffer more by not eating meat than animals would suffer by being eaten. He wrote in ''The Basis of Morality'': "It is asserted that beasts have no rights ... that 'there are no duties to be fulfilled towards animals.' Such a view is one of revolting coarseness, a barbarism of the West, whose source is Judaism." A few passages later, he called the idea that animals exist for human benefit a "Jewish stence."<ref>Schopenhauer, Arthur. ''On the Basis of Morality'', Part III, chap 8, cited in Phelps, Norm. ''The Longest Struggle: Animal Advocacy from Pythagoras to PETA''. Lantern Books, 2007, p. 153-154.</ref>


]: rights imply obligations.]]
=====1894: Henry Salt and an "epistemological breakthrough"=====
In 1894, ], a former master at ], who had set up the Humanitarian League to lobby for a ban on hunting the year before, created what Keith Tester of the ] has called an "] break," in ''Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress''.<ref name=TaylorTester>Tester, Keith (1991) cited in Taylor, Angus. ''Animals and Ethics''. Broadview Press, 2009, p. 62.</ref> Salt wrote that the object of his essay was to "set the principle of animals' rights on a consistent and intelligible footing, to show that this principle underlies the various efforts of humanitarian reformers ..." Concessions to the demands for ''jus animalium'' have been made grudgingly to date, he writes, with an eye on the interests of animals ''qua'' property, rather than as rights bearers:


====Roger Scruton====
{{cquote|Even the leading advocates of animal rights seem to have shrunk from basing their claim on the only argument which can ultimately be held to be a really sufficient one&mdash;the assertion that animals, as well as men, though, of course, to a far less extent than men, are possessed of a distinctive individuality, and, therefore, are in justice entitled to live their lives with a due measure of that "restricted freedom" to which Herbert Spencer alludes.<ref name=Salt1/>}}
], 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 |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>
He argued that there is no point in claiming rights for animals if we subordinate those rights to human desire, and took issue with the idea that the life of a human might have more moral worth or purpose. " notion of the life of an animal having 'no moral purpose,' belongs to a class of ideas which cannot possibly be accepted by the advanced humanitarian thought of the present day&mdash;it is a purely arbitrary assumption, at variance with our best instincts, at variance with our best science, and absolutely fatal (if the subject be clearly thought out) to any full realization of animals' rights. If we are ever going to do justice to the lower races, we must get rid of the antiquated notion of a "great gulf" fixed between them and mankind, and must recognize the common bond of humanity that unites all living beings in one universal brotherhood."<ref name=Salt1>Salt, Henry S. '', Macmillan & Co., 1894, chapter 1. He cited Spencer's definition of rights: "Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal liberty of any other man ... Whoever admits that each man must have a certain restricted freedom, asserts that it is right he should have this restricted freedom.... And hence the several particular freedoms deducible may fitly be called, as they commonly are called, his rights."</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/>
====Late 1890s: Opposition to anthropomorphism====
{{see|Behaviorism|B. F. Skinner}}
Richard Ryder writes that attitudes toward animals began to harden in the late 1890s, when scientists embraced the idea that what they saw as ]&mdash;the attribution of human qualities to non-humans&mdash;was unscientific. Animals had to be approached as physiological entities only, as ] wrote in 1927, "without any need to resort to fantastic speculations as to the existence of any possible subjective states."<ref name=Ryder6>Ryder, Richard. ''Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism''. Berg, 2000, p. 6.</ref><ref name=Ryderbio>, ''richarddryer.co.uk'', retrieved March 24, 2008.</ref> This stance hearkened back to the position of Descartes in the 17th century that non-humans were purely mechanical, like clocks, with no rationality and perhaps even with no consciousness.


] 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}}
===20th century: Increase in animal use; animal rights movement===
{{see|Animal Welfare Act|Brown Dog Affair|Animal liberation movement|Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986|List of animal rights groups}}
<!--====1911: Protection of Animals Act====-->
====1933: ''Tierschutzgesetz''====
{{see|Animal protection in Nazi Germany|Animal rights and the Holocaust|Ecofascism|Nazi human experimentation|The Holocaust#Medical experiments|Vegetarianism of Adolf Hitler}}
]'', a German satirical magazine, on September 3, 1933, showing lab animals giving the ] to ], after restrictions on ] were announced.]]
On coming to power in January 1933, the ] passed the most comprehensive set of animal protection laws in Europe.<ref>] became chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933.</ref> Kathleen Kete of ], Hartford, Connecticut writes that it was the first known attempt by a government to break the species barrier, the traditional binary of humans and animals. Humans as a species lost their sacrosanct status, with ]s at the top of the hierarchy, followed by wolves, eagles, and pigs, and Jews languishing with rats at the bottom. Kete writes that it was the worst possible answer to the question of what our relationship with other species ought to be.<ref name=Kete>, ''Cabinet'', issue 4, Fall 2001.</ref>


==Public attitudes==
On November 24, 1933, the ''Tierschutzgesetz'', or animal protection law, was introduced, with ] announcing an end to animal cruelty: "''Im neuen Reich darf es keine Tierquälerei mehr geben.''" ("In the new Reich, no more animal cruelty will be allowed.") It was followed on July 3, 1934 by the ''Reichsjagdgesetz'', prohibiting hunting; on July 1, 1935 by the ''Naturschutzgesetz'', a comprehensive piece of environmental legislation; on November 13, 1937 by a law regulating animal transport by car; and on September 8, 1938 by a similar one dealing with animals on trains.<ref>Giese, Klemens and Kahler, Waldemar. ''Das deutsche Tierschutzrecht: Bestimmungen zum Schutz der Tiere''. Berlin: Duncker and Humbolt, 1939, pp. 190-220, and 261-272, cited in Sax, Boria. ''Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust'', p. 114.</ref> The least painful way to shoe a horse was prescribed, as was the correct way to cook a lobster to prevent them from being boiled alive.<ref name="Kete"/> Several senior Nazis, including Hitler, ], ], and ], adopted some form of ], though by most accounts not strictly, with Hitler allowing himself the occasional dish of meat. Himmler also mandated vegetarianism for senior ] officers, although this was due mainly to health concerns rather than for animal welfare.<ref>Proctor, Robert N. ''The Nazi War on Cancer''. Princeton University Press, 1999, pp. 135-137, for Hitler; Sax, Boria. ''Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust''. Klaus P. Fischer, 2000, p. 35, citing Arluke, Arnold and Sax, Boria. "Understanding Animal Protection and the Holocaust" in ''Anthrozoös'', vol. V, no.1 (1992), pp. 17-28 for Hess and Goebbels; and Sax 2000 citing Hermand, Jost. ''Grüne Utopien in Deutschland: Zur Geschichte des Ökologischen Bewusstseins'', Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1991, p. 114 for Himmler.</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>
Shortly before the ''Tierschutzgesetz'' was introduced, vivisection was first banned, then restricted. Animal research was viewed as part of "Jewish science," and "internationalist" medicine, indicating a mechanistic mind that saw nature as something to be dominated, rather than respected. ] first announced a ban on August 16, 1933, following Hitler's wishes, but Hitler's personal physician, Dr. Morrel, reportedly persuaded him that this was not in the interests of German research, and in particular defence research.<ref name=Sax112>Sax, Boria. ''Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust'', p. 112.</ref> The ban was therefore revised three weeks later, on September 5, 1933, when eight conditions were announced under which animal tests could be conducted, with a view to reducing pain and unnecessary experiments.<ref>Uekoetter, Frank. ''The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany'', Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 55-56.</ref> Primates, horses, dogs, and cats were given special protection, and licenses to conduct vivisection were to be given to institutions, not to individuals.<ref>Rudacille, Deborah. ''The Scalpel and the Butterfly''. University of California Press, 2000, pp. 83-88, citing Arnold Luke and Clinton R. Sanders. ''Regarding Animals''.</ref> The removal of the ban was justified with the announcement: "It is a law of every community that, when necessary, single individuals are sacrificed in the interests of the entire body."<ref>Giese, Klemens and Kahler, Waldemar. ''Das Deutsche Tierschutzrecht: Bestimmungen zum Schutz der Tiere''. Berlin: Duncker und Humbolt, 1939, p. 294, cited in Sax, Boria. ''Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust'', p. 112.</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>
Medical experiments were later conducted on Jews and ] children in camps, particularly in ] by Dr. ], and on others regarded as inferior, including prisoners-of-war. Because the human subjects were often in such poor health, researchers feared that the results of the experiments were unreliable, and so human experiments were repeated on animals. Dr Hans Nachtheim, for example, induced ] on human adults and children without their consent by injecting them with ], then repeated the experiments on rabbits to check the results.<ref name=Sax113>Sax, Boria. ''Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust'', p. 113, citing Deichmann, p. 234.</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>
====Post 1945: Increase in animal use====
Despite the proliferation of animal protection legislation, animals had no legal rights. Debbie Legge writes that existing legislation was very much tied to the idea of human interests, whether protecting human sensibilities by outlawing cruelty, or protecting property rights by making sure animals were not damaged. The over-exploitation of fishing stocks, for example, is viewed as harming the environment for people; the hunting of animals to extinction means that humans in the future will derive no enjoyment from them; ] results in financial loss to the owner, and so on.<ref name="Legge50"/>


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>
Notwithstanding the interest in animal welfare of the previous century, the situation for animals arguably deteriorated in the 20th century, particularly after the ]. This was in part because of the increase in the numbers used in ]&mdash;300 in the UK in 1875, 19,084 in 1903, and 2.8 million in 2005 (50&ndash;100 million worldwide)<ref>; , Public Monument and Sculpture Association's National Recording Project); , Her Majesty’s Stationery Office); , Nuffield Council on Bioethics, section 1.6.</ref> and an modern annual estimated range of 10 million to upwards of 100 million in the U.S.<ref>Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, 3rd Ed. p. 37 (2002) citing U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, Alternatives to Animal Use in Research, Testing, and Education (1986) p. 64.</ref>&mdash;but mostly because of the ], which saw billions of animals raised and killed for food each year on a scale not possible before the war.<ref>Ten ] animals are now killed for food every year in the U.S. alone (Williams, Erin E. and DeMello, Margo. ''Why Animals Matter''. Prometheus Books, 2007, p. 73).</ref><!--Also mention animal byproducts industry-->


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>
====1960s: Formation of the Oxford group====
A small group of intellectuals, particularly at ]&mdash;now known as the Oxford Group&mdash;began to view the increasing use of animals as unacceptable exploitation.<ref name=EB1>"." ''Encyclopaedia Britannica Online''. 2007.</ref> In 1964, Ruth Harrison published ''Animal Machines'', a critique of ], which proved influential. Psychologist ], who became a member of the Oxford Group, cites a 1965 ''Sunday Times'' article by novelist ], called "The Rights of Animals," as having encouraged his own interest. He writes that it was the first time a major newspaper had devoted so much space to the issue.<ref name="Ryder6"/> Robert Garner of the University of Leicester writes that Harrison's and Brophy's articles led to an explosion of interest in the relationship between humans and non-humans, or what Garner calls the "new morality."<ref>Garner, Robert. ''Animals, politics and morality''. Manchester University Press, 2004, p. 3 ff.</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>
Brophy wrote:

{{cquote|The relationship of ] to the other animals is one of unremitting exploitation. We employ their work; we eat and wear them. We exploit them to serve our superstitions: whereas we used to sacrifice them to our gods and tear out their entrails in order to foresee the future, we now sacrifice them to science, and experiment on their entrail in the hope&mdash;or on the mere offchance&mdash;that we might thereby see a little more clearly into the present ... To us it seems incredible that the Greek philosophers should have scanned so deeply into right and wrong and yet never noticed the immorality of slavery. Perhaps 3000 years from now it will seem equally incredible that we do not notice the immorality of our own oppression of animals.<ref>Brophy, Brigid. ''The Sunday Times'', October 10, 1965, cited in Ryder, Richard. ''Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism''. First published by Basil Blackwell, 1989; this edition Berg, 2000, p. 5; and in Stallwood, Kim. "Hackenfeller's Ape by Brigid Brophy", ''Grumpy Vegan'', February 5, 2007.</ref>}}

Ryder had been disturbed by incidents he had witnessed as a researcher in animal laboratories in the UK and U.S., and in what he calls a "spontaneous eruption of thought and indignation," he wrote letters to the editor of ''The Daily Telegraph'' about the issue, which were published on April 7, May 3, and May 20, 1969. Brophy read them, and put Ryder in touch with Oxford philosophers Stanley and Roslind Godlovitch, and John Harris, who were working on a book of moral philosophy about the treatment of animals.<ref name="Ryder6"/> Ryder subsequently became a contributor to their highly influential ''Animals, Men and Morals: An Inquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-humans'' (1971), as did Harrison and Brophy.<ref>Godlovitch R, Godlovitch S, and Harris J. (1972). ''Animals, Men and Morals: An Inquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-humans''</ref> Rosalind Godlovitch's essay "Animal and Morals" was published in the same year.

====1970: Coining the term "speciesism"====
In 1970, Ryder coined the phrase "]" in a privately printed pamphlet&mdash;having first thought of it in the bath&mdash;to describe the assignment of value to the interests of beings on the basis of their membership of a particular species.<ref name=Ryder>Ryder, Richard D. , ''The Guardian'', August 6, 2005.</ref> Peter Singer used the term in ''Animal Liberation'' in 1975, and it stuck within the animal rights movement, becoming an entry in the '']'' in 1989.<ref>Singer, Peter. ''Animal Liberation''. Random House, 1990, p. 269, footnote 4.</ref>

====1975: Publication of ''Animal Liberation''====
{{see|Animal Liberation (book)|Animal rights#Utilitarian approach}}
]'s '']'', published in 1975, became pivotal.]]
It was in a review of ''Animals, Men and Morals'' for the '']'' on April 5, 1973, that the Australian philosopher, ], first put forward his arguments in favour of animal liberation, which have become pivotal within the movement.<ref>Singer, Peter. , ''The New York Review of Books'', Volume 20, Number 5, April 5, 1973; also see a reader's response , letter from David Rosinger, reply from Peter Singer, ''The New York Review of Books'', Volume 20, Number 10, June 14, 1973.</ref> He based his arguments on the principle of ], the view, broadly speaking, that an act is right insofar as it leads to the "greatest happiness of the greatest number," a phrase first used in 1776 by Jeremy Bentham in ''A Fragment on Government''. He drew an explicit comparison between the ] and the liberation of animals.

In 1970, over lunch in Oxford with fellow student Richard Keshen, who was a vegetarian, Singer first came to believe that, by eating animals, he was engaging in the oppression of other species by his own. Keshen introduced Singer to the Godlovitches, and Singer and Roslind Godlovitch spent hours together refining their views. Singer's review of the Godlovitches' book evolved into '']'', published in 1975, now widely regarded as the "bible" of the modern animal rights movement.<ref>Singer, Peter. ''Animal Liberation''. Random House, 1990, pp. xiv-xv.</ref>

Although he regards himself as an animal rights advocate, Singer uses the term "right" as "shorthand for the kind of protection that we give to all members of our species."<ref>Skidelsky, Edward. , ''New Statesman'', June 5, 2000.</ref> There is no rights theory in his work. He rejects the idea that humans or non-humans have natural or moral rights, and proposes instead the ], arguing that there are no logical, moral, or biological grounds to suppose that a violation of the basic interests of a human&mdash;for example, the interest in not suffering&mdash;is different in any morally significant way from a violation of the basic interests of a non-human. Singer's position is that of the English philosopher ] (1838&ndash;1900), who wrote: "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."<ref name=Singer5>Singer, Peter. ''Animal Liberation''. Second edition, New York Review/Routledge, 1990, p. 5.</ref>

The publication of ''Animal Liberation'' triggered a groundswell of scholarly interest in animal rights. ] wrote in 2001 that philosophers had written more about animal rights in the previous 20 years than in the 2,000 years before that.<ref>Regan, Tom. ''Defending Animal Rights'', University of Illinois Press, 2001, p. 67.</ref> Robert Garner writes that Charles Magel's extensive bibliography of the literature, ''Keyguide to Information Sources in Animal Rights'' (1989), contains 10 pages of philosophical material on animals up to 1970, but 13 pages between 1970 and 1989.<ref>Magel 1989, pp. 13-25, cited in Garner, Robert. ''Animals, Politics, and Morality''. University of Manchester Press, 2004, p. 2; also see , ''New Scientist'', January 20, 1990.</ref>

====1976: Founding of the Animal Liberation Front====
{{main|Animal Liberation Front|Timeline of ALF actions|Anarchism and animal rights|Veganarchism}}
] in 1976.]]
In parallel with the Oxford Group, grassroots activists were also developing ideas about animal rights. A British law student, ], formed an anti-hunting activist group in Luton in 1971, later calling it the Band of Mercy after a 19th-century RSPCA youth group. The Band attacked hunters' vehicles by slashing tires and breaking windows, calling their brand of activism "active compassion." In November 1973, they engaged in their first act of ] when they set fire to a Hoechst Pharamaceuticals research laboratory near ]. The Band claimed responsibility, identifying itself to the press as a "nonviolent guerilla organization dedicated to the liberation of animals from all forms of cruelty and persecution at the hands of mankind."<ref name=Molland70>Molland, Neil. "Thirty Years of Direct Action" in Best & Nocella (eds), ''Terrorists or Freedom Fighters, Lantern Books, 2004, pp. 70-74.</ref>
{{rquote|left|''The people who run this country, they have shares, they have investments in pharmaceutical companies ... who are experimenting on animals, so to think that you can write to these people, and say "we don't like what you're doing, we want you to change," and expect them to do so, it's not going to happen.'' &mdash; ], ALF.<ref name=Keith>]. ''Behind the Mask'', Uncaged Films, 2006.</ref>}}
In August 1974, Lee and another activist were sentenced to three years in prison. They were paroled after 12 months, with Lee emerging more militant than ever. In 1976, he brought together the remaining Band of Mercy activists, with some fresh faces, 30 activists in all, in order to start a new movement. He called it the ] (ALF), a name he hoped would come to "haunt" those who used animals.<ref name=Molland70/><ref name=Monaghan160>Monaghan, Rachael. "Terrorism in the Name of Animal Rights," in Taylor, Maxwell and Horgan, John. ''The Future of Terrorism''. Routledge 2000, pp. 160-161.</ref>

The ALF is now active in 38 countries, operating as a ], with ]s acting on a ] basis, often learning of each other's existence only when acts of "liberation" are claimed. Activists see themselves as a modern ], the network that helped slaves escape from the U.S. to Canada, passing animals from ALF cells, who have removed them from farms and laboratories, to sympathetic veterinarians to safe houses and finally to sanctuaries. Controversially, some activists also engage in sabotage and ], as well as threats and intimidation, acts that have lost the movement a great deal of sympathy in mainstream public opinion.
{{rquote|right|''My secretary called me to say that I had to contact ... the Metropolitan police ... to receive a fax of a press release that I was going to be murdered if an animal rights activist (] on ]) died. ... It's very difficult for to understand that Daddy goes to work every morning, and, you know, whether he's going to come back.'' &mdash; Clive Page, professor of ] ], ].<ref name=BBCPage>, BBC Radio 4, March 25, 2002.</ref>}}

The decentralized model of activism is intensely frustrating for law enforcement organizations, who find the cells and networks difficult to infiltrate, because they tend to be organized around known friends.<ref>Ben Gunn, former Chief Constable, Cambridge Constabulary, interviewed for "It Could Happen to You", True Spies, BBC Two, November 10, 2002.</ref> In 2005, the U.S. ] indicated how seriously it takes the ALF when it included them in a list of ].<ref>Rood, Justin. , ''Congressional Quarterly'', March 25, 2005. See also Tolson, Giselle. , ''The Bard Observer'', Issue 15, 2006, retrieved August 17, 2006.</ref>

The tactics of some of the more determined ALF activists are ] to many animal rights advocates, such as Singer, who regard the animal rights movement as something that should occupy the moral high ground, an impossible claim to sustain when others are bombing buildings and risking lives in the name of the same idea. ALF activists respond to the criticism with the argument that, as ] of ] puts it, "Thinkers may prepare revolutions, but bandits must carry them out."<ref name=NewkirkBest341>Newkirk, Ingrid. "The ALF: Who, Why, and What?", ''Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals''. Best, Steven & Nocella, Anthony J (eds). Lantern 2004, p. 341./</ref>

====1980: Henry Spira and "reintegrative shaming"====
], a former seaman and civil rights activist, became the most notable of the new animal advocates in the United States. A proponent of gradual change, he introduced the idea of "reintegrative shaming," whereby a relationship is formed between a group of animal rights advocates and a corporation they see as misusing animals, with a view to obtaining concessions or halting a particular practice.

Spira's first campaign was in opposition to the ] in 1976, where cats were being experimented on, research that he successfully persuaded them to halt. His most notable achievement was in 1980, when he convinced the cosmetics company ] to stop using the ], whereby ingredients are dripped into the eyes of rabbits to ]. He took out a full-page ad in several newspapers, featuring a rabbit with sticking plaster over the eyes, which asked, "How many rabbits does Revlon blind for beauty's sake?" Revlon stopped using animals for cosmetics testing, donated money to help set up ], and was swiftly followed by other leading cosmetics companies.<ref name=Feder>Feder, Barnaby J. , ''The New York Times'', November 26, 1889.</ref><ref>Singer, Peter. ''Ethics Into Action: Henry Spira and the Animal Rights Movement'', 1998; also see Singer, Peter. , ''The New York Review of Books'', vol 50, no. 8, May 15, 2003.</ref>

The techniques Spira used have been widely adopted by animal rights groups, most notably by ]. The approach has its critics on the ] side of the movement, such as ], who argue that it aligns the movement with 19th-century animal welfare societies, making them "new welfarists," rather than animal rights groups proper. It takes the movement back to its roots, critics argue, rather than moving toward the ] that the abolitionists want to see, whereby humans stop seeing animals as property, rather than as property to be treated kindly.

===21st century: First rights proposed for animals===
====January 2008: Court rulings about chimpanzee personhood====
In January 2008, Austria's Supreme Court ruled that Matthew Hiasl Pan, a chimpanzee, was not a person, after the Association Against Animal Factories sought personhood status for him because the shelter he lived in went bankrupt. Matthew was captured as a baby in Sierra Leone in 1982, then smuggled to Austria to be used in pharmaceutical experiments, but was confiscated by customs officials when he arrived in the country and taken to the shelter instead. He lived there for 25 years, but the group that ran it went bankrupt in 2007. Donors offered to help him, but under Austrian law only a person can receive personal gifts, so any money sent to Matthew would be lost to the shelter's bankruptcy. The Association has appealed the ruling to the ]. His lawyer, Eberhart Theuer, has asked the court to appoint a legal guardian for Matthew and to grant him four rights: the right to life, limited freedom of movement, personal safety, and the right to claim property.<ref>, Associated Press, January 15, 2008; Stinson, Jeffrey. , ''USA Today'', July 15, 2008; Albertsdottir, Ellen. (Today's animal rights), ''Sydskenskan'', February 5, 2010 ().</ref>

====June 2008: Spain passes rights resolution for non-human primates====
On June 25, 2008, a committee of Spain's national legislature became the first to vote for a resolution to extend limited rights to non-human primates. The parliamentary Environment Committee recommended giving chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans the right not to be used in medical experiments or in circuses, and recommended making it illegal to kill apes, except in self-defense, based upon Peter Singer's ] (GAP). Pedro Pozas of GAP in Spain called it "a historic day in the struggle for animal rights ... which will doubtless go down in the history of humanity."<ref>
*McNeil, Donald G. , ''The New York Times'', July 13, 2008
*Roberts, Martin. , Reuters, June 25, 2008
*Glendinning, Lee. ''The Guardian'', June 26, 2008
*Singer, Peter. , ''The Guardian'', July 18, 2008.
*, ''Time'' magazine, July 18, 2008.</ref> The committee's proposal has not yet been enacted into law.<ref>{{cite web
|url= http://www.congreso.es/portal/page/portal/Congreso/PopUpCGI?CMD=VERLST&BASE=puw9&DOCS=1-1&DOCORDER=LIFO&QUERY=%28CDD200805230019.CODI.%29#%28P%C3%A1gina9%29
|title=IX Legislatura: Serie D: General 161/000099
|work=Boletín Oficial de las Cortes Generales|publisher=Congreso de los Diputados|date=23 May 2008|location=Madrid|page=22
|accessdate=3 March 2010
}}</ref>

====January 2010: Dolphin intelligence====
In January 2010, a team of scientists announced research results suggesting that dolphins are second in intelligence only to human beings, and that they should be regarded as "non-human persons."<ref>Leake, Jonathan. , ''The Sunday Times'', January 3, 2010.</ref>

==Main philosophical approaches==
===Overview===
{{see|Consequentialism|Deontological ethics}}
There are two main philosophical approaches to the issue of animal rights: a utilitarian and a rights-based one. The former is exemplified by ], professor of bioethics at ], and the latter by ], professor emeritus of philosophy at ], and ], professor of law and philosophy at ]

Their differences reflect a distinction philosophers draw between ethical theories that judge the rightness of an act by its consequences (called ], ], or ], which is Singer's position), and those that judge acts to be right or wrong ''in themselves'', almost regardless of consequences (called ], of which Regan and Francione are adherents). A consequentialist might argue, for example, that lying is wrong if the lie will make someone unhappy. A deontologist would argue that lying is wrong in principle.

Within the animal rights debate, Singer does not believe there are such things as ] and that animals have them, although he uses the language of rights as shorthand for how we ought to treat individuals. Instead, he argues that, when we weigh the consequences of an act in order to judge whether it is right or wrong, the interests of animals, primarily their interest in avoiding suffering, ought to be given equal consideration to the similar interests of humans. That is, where the suffering of one individual, human or non-human, is equivalent to that of any other, there is no moral reason to award more weight to either one of them. Regan's and Francione's approaches, on the other hand, are not driven by the weighing of consequences. Regan believes that animals are what he calls "subjects-of-a-life," who have moral rights for that reason, and that moral rights ought not to be ignored. Francione argues that animals have one moral right, and need one legal one: the right not to be regarded as property. All else will follow from that one ], he argues.

===Utilitarian approach===
{{see|Act utilitarianism|Animal language|Animal Liberation (book)|Preference utilitarianism}}
====Peter Singer: Equal consideration of interests====
] is a utilitarian, not a rights theorist.]]
Singer is an ], or more specifically a ], meaning that he judges the rightness of an act by its consequences, and specifically by the extent to which it satisfies the preferences of those affected, maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. (There are other forms of utilitarianism, such as ], which judges the rightness of an act according to the usual consequences of whichever moral rule the act is an instance of.)

Singer's position is that there are no moral grounds for failing to give equal consideration to the interests of human and non-humans. His principle of equality does not require equal or identical treatment, but ]. A mouse and a man both have an interest in not being kicked down the street, because both would suffer if so kicked, and there are no moral or logical grounds, Singer argues, for failing to accord their interests in not being kicked equal weight.<ref name=Singer7>Singer, Peter. ''Animal Liberation''. Second edition, New York Review/Routledge, 1990, pp. 7-8.</ref> Singer quotes the English philosopher ]: "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."<ref name="Singer5"/> This reflects Jeremy Bentham's position: "ach to count for one, and none for more than one." Unlike the position of a man or a mouse, a stone would not suffer if kicked down the street, and therefore has no interest in avoiding it. Interests, Singer argues, are predicated on the ability to suffer, and nothing more, and once it is established that a being has interests, those interests must be given equal consideration. The issue of the extent to which animals can suffer is therefore key.<!--suffering, whether animals can; equality prescriptive, not descriptive; speciesism, discuss; plus OED 1989, AL p. 269; Argument from Marginal Cases-->

=====Animal suffering=====
Singer writes that commentators on all sides of the debate now accept that animals suffer and feel pain, although it was not always so. ], a philosopher and professor of animal sciences, writes that Descartes' influence continued to be felt until the 1980s. Veterinarians trained in the U.S. 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, Bernard. ''The Unheeded Cry: Animal Consciousness, Animal Pain, and Science''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. xii, 117-118, cited in Carbone, Larry. '"What Animal Want: Expertise and Advocacy in Laboratory Animal Welfare Policy''. Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 150; and Rollin, Bernard. , EMBO reports 8, 6, 2007, pp. 521–525.</ref>

Singer writes that scientific publications have made it clear over the last two decades 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>See Walker, Stephen. ''Animal Thoughts''. Routledge 1983; Griffin, Donald. ''Animal Thinking''. Harvard University Press, 1984; Stamp Dawkins, Marian. ''Animal Suffering: The Science of Animal Welfare''. Chapman and Hall, 1980, cited in Singer, Peter. ''Animal Liberation''. Second edition, New York Review/Routledge, 1990, p. 270, footnote 11.</ref> In the most recent edition of ''Animal Liberation,'' Singer cites research indicating that animal impulses, emotions, and feelings are located in the diencephalon, pointing out that this region is well developed in mammals and birds.<ref>Singer, Peter. ''Animal Liberation'', 2002, p. 11, citing Lord Brain, "Presidential Address," in C.A. Keele and R. Smith, ed.s, The Assessment of Pain in Men and Animals (London: Universities Federation for Animal Welfare, 1962).</ref> Singer also relies on the work of Richard Sarjeant to support his position. Sarjeant pointed out that non-human animals possess anatomical complexity of the cerebral cortex and neuroanatomy that is nearly identical to that of the human nervous system, arguing that, "very particle of factual evidence supports the contention that the higher mammalian vertebrates experience pain sensations at least as acute as our own. To say that they feel less because they are lower animals is an absurdity; it can easily be shown that many of their senses are far more acute than ours."<ref name=Singer/Serjeant>Singer, Peter. ''Animal Liberation'' (2002), p.&nbsp;12 citing Serjeant, Richard. ''The Spectrum of Pain'' (London: Hart Davis, 1969), p.&nbsp;72.</ref>

The problem of animal suffering, and animal consciousness in general, arises primarily because animals have no ], leading scientists to argue that it is impossible to know when an animal is suffering. This situation may change as increasing numbers of chimps are taught ], although skeptics question whether their use of it portrays real understanding. Singer writes that, following the argument that language is needed to communicate pain, it would often be impossible to know when humans are in pain. All we can do is observe pain behavior, he writes, and make a calculated guess based on it. As ] argued, if someone is screaming, clutching a part of their body, moaning quietly, or apparently unable to function, especially when followed by an event that we believe would cause pain in ourselves, that is in large measure what it ''means'' to be in pain.<ref>Wittgenstein, Ludwig. '']''. First published 1953; latest edition Blackwell 2001.</ref> Singer argues that there is no reason to suppose animal pain behavior would have a different meaning.

=====Equality a prescription, not a fact=====
{{rquote|right|''They talk about this thing in the head; what do they call it?'' ''That's it. What's that got to do with women's rights or Negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?'' &mdash; ]<ref>Tanner, Leslie. (ed.) ''Voices from Women's Liberation'', Signet, 1970, cited in Singer, Peter. ''Animal Liberation''. Second edition, New York Review/Routledge, 1990, p. 6.</ref>}}
Singer argues that equality between humans is not based on anything factual, but is simply a prescription. Humans do, in fact, differ in many ways. If the equality of the sexes were based on the idea, for example, that men and women are in principle capable of being equally intelligent, but this was later found to be false, it would mean we would have to abandon the practice of equal consideration. But equality of consideration is based on a prescription, not a description. It is, Singer writes, a moral idea, not an assertion of fact.<ref name=Singer4>Singer, Peter. ''Animal Liberation''. Second edition, New York Review/Routledge, 1990, p. 4.</ref> He quotes President ], the principal author in 1776 of the ]: "Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the property or persons of others."<ref>Jefferson, Thomas. "Letter to Henry Gregoire, February 25, 1809, cited in Singer, Peter. ''Animal Liberation''. Second edition, New York Review/Routledge, 1990, p. 6.</ref>

===Rights-based approach===
====Tom Regan: Subjects-of-a-life====
]: animals are subjects-of-a-life.]]
Tom Regan argues in ''The Case for Animal Rights'' and '']'' that non-human animals are what he calls "subjects-of-a-life," and as such are bearers of rights. He argues that, because the moral rights of humans are based on their possession of certain ] abilities, and because these abilities are also possessed by at least some non-human animals, such animals must have the same moral rights as humans. Although only humans act as moral agents, both marginal-case humans, such as infants, and at least some non-humans 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 "inherent value" as subjects-of-a-life, and cannot be regarded as a means to an end. This is also called the "direct duty" view. His theory does not extend to all sentient animals but only to those that can be regarded as subjects-of-a-life. He argues that all normal mammals of at least one year of age would qualify in this regard.<!--The predation reduction argument is often applied to Regan's rights-based approach. If we are to protect animals with rights from moral patient humans, must we also protect them from other animals? This raises the issue of whether giving animals 'moral patient' status condemns to extermination certain classes of predation.<ref></ref><ref></ref>--> 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 non-human ends, Regan believes we ought to treat non-human animals as we would humans. He applies the strict ] ideal (which Kant himself applied only to humans) that they ought never to be sacrificed as a means to an end, and must be treated as ends in themselves.

====Gary Francione: Abolitionism====
]: animals need only one right, the right not to be owned.]]
Abolitionism falls within the framework of the rights-based approach, though it regards only one right as necessary: the right not to be owned. Abolitionists argue that the key to reducing animal suffering is to recognize that legal ownership of sentient beings is unjust and must be abolished. The most prominent of the abolitionists is ], professor of law and philosophy at ]. He argues that focusing on ] may actually worsen the position of animals, because it entrenches the view of them as property, and makes the public more comfortable about using them.

Francione calls animal rights group who pursue animal welfare issues, such as ], the "new welfarists," arguing that they have more in common with 19th-century animal protectionists than with the animal rights movement. He argues that there is no animal rights movement in the United States.<ref>Francione, Gary. ''Rain Without thunder: the Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement'', 1996; Hall, Lee. , Friends of Animals, accessed June 23, 2009.</ref>

===Critics===
====Carl Cohen====
] argues that animals cannot distinguish their interests from what is right.<ref name=Cohen/>]]
Critics such as ], professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan and the University of Michigan Medical School, oppose the granting of personhood to animals, arguing 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."<ref name=Cohen/>

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 name=Cohen>Cohen, Carl. "The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research"], ''New England Journal of Medicine'', vol. 315, issue 14, October 1986, pp. 865-870.</ref>

====Posner&ndash;Singer debate====
] argues that "facts will drive equality."<ref name=Posner/>]]
Judge ] of the ] debated the issue of animal rights with Peter Singer on ''Slate''.<ref name=Posner>, Posner-Singer debate, ''Slate'', June 12, 2001, accessed May 3, 2010; the debate begins .</ref> Posner argues 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."

Singer challenges Posner's moral intuition by arguing that formerly unequal rights for ]s, women, and certain races were justified using the same set of intuitions. Posner replies that equality in ] 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 the difference, or lack thereof, between 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."<ref name=Posner/>

====Roger Scruton====
{{rquote|right|''Considerate la vostra semenza:''<br>
''Fatti non foste a viver come bruti,''<br>
''Ma per segue virtute e conoscenza.''<br>
<br>
("You were not made to live as brutes<br>
but to follow virtue and knowledge.")<br>
&mdash; ], cited by Scruton.<ref name=Scruton2/>}}

The British philosopher ] argues that rights imply obligations. Every legal privilege, he writes, imposes a burden on the one who does not possess that privilege: that is, "your right may be my duty." Scruton therefore regards the emergence of the animal rights movement as "the strangest cultural shift within the liberal worldview," because the idea of rights and responsibilities are, he argues, distinctive to the human condition, and it makes no sense to spread them beyond our own species.<ref name=Scruton2/>

He accuses 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 argues. 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 argues, a fantasy, a world of escape.<ref name=Scruton2/>
<!--section on Roger Frey, Robert Garner?-->


==See also== ==See also==
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== Notes == ==References==
{{reflist|2}} {{Reflist}}


==Further reading== ==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.
{{refbegin|2}}
{{Refbegin|30em}}
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*{{cite book |editor-last=Adams |editor1-first=Carol J. |editor2-first=Josephine |editor-link1=Carol Adams (feminist) |editor2-last=Donovan |editor-link2=Josephine Donovan |date=1995 |title=Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations |publisher=Duke University Press}} {{ISBN|0822316552}}
* New York: Continuum, 2004.
*{{cite book |author-link=Carol Adams (feminist) |last=Adams |first=Carol J. |date=2004 |title=The Pornography of Meat |publisher=Continuum}} {{ISBN|9781590565100}}
*& Donovan, Josephine. (eds). London: Duke University Press, 1995.
*Benthall, Jonathan (2007). , ''Anthropology Today'', volume 23, issue 2, April.
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*Auxter, Thomas.
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*{{cite book |author-link=Paul Waldau |last=Waldau |first=Paul |date=2011 |title=Animal Rights: What Everyone Needs to Know |publisher=Oxford University Press}}
*Walker, Stephen (1983). ''Animal Thoughts''. Routledge.
*Weir, Jack (2009). "Virtue Ethics," in ]. ''Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare''. Greenwood. {{ISBN|0313352593}}
*Williams, Erin E. and DeMello, Margo (2007). ''Why Animals Matter''. Prometheus Books.
*] (2000). ''Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals''. Da Capo Press.
*] (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''.
*] (2007). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081118132310/https://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9007642/animal-rights |date=2008-11-18 }}, ''Encyclopædia Britannica''.
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==Further reading==
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{{Wikiquote}}
;Animal rights in philosophy and law
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* {{sep entry|moral-animal|The Moral Status of Animals|Lori Gruen}}
*] (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.
* .
*] (ed.) (2009). ''The Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare''. Greenwood.
*
*] and Nocella II, Anthony J. (eds). (2004). ''Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals.'' ]
* ]
*] and Nouët, Jean-Claude (eds.) (1998). ''The Universal Declaration of Animal Rights''. Ligue Française des Droits de l'Animal.
*
*] (1993). , in Cavalieri, Paola and Singer, Peter (eds.). ''The Great Ape Project''. St. Martin's Griffin.
*
*] (1997). ''Babies and Beasts: The Argument from Marginal Cases''. University of Illinois Press.
*
*{{cite book|title=Respecting Animals: A Balanced Approach to Our Relationship with Pets, Food, and Wildlife |year=2018 |first=David S. |last=Favre |publisher=Prometheus |isbn=978-1633884250}}
* .
*], "Let them eat oysters" (review of ], ''Animal Liberation Now'', Penguin, 2023, {{ISBN|978 1 84792 776 7}}, 368 pp; and ], ''Justice for Animals'', Simon & Schuster, 2023, {{ISBN|978 1 982102 50 0}}, 372 pp.), '']'', vol. 45, no.19 (5 October 2023), pp.&nbsp;3, 5–8. The question of animal rights has been approached from a variety of theoretical orientations, including ] and ] ("CA") – none of them satisfactory to reviewer Lorna Finlayson, who teaches philosophy at England's ] and ends up (p.&nbsp;8) suggesting "think politically about animals: "It ought to be – it is – possible to arrange society differently." (p.&nbsp;8.)
*
*] (2006). ''Animals in Islamic Tradition and Muslim Cultures''. ].
* .
*Franklin, Julian H. (2005). ''Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy''. University of Columbia Press.
*
*] (2003). , ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', July 1, 2003.
* Brent A. Singer: ''An Extension of Rawls' Theory of Justice to Environmental Ethics''. Environmental Ethics 10, 1988, p.&nbsp;217-231
*] (2011). ''Ethics and Animals''. Cambridge University Press.
* Donald VanDeVeer: ''Of Beasts, Persons, and the Original Position''. The Monist 62, 1979, p.&nbsp;368-377
*Hall, Lee (2006). ''Capers in the Churchyard: Animal Rights Advocacy in the Age of Terror''. Nectar Bat Press.
*
*] and Clarke, Paul A. B.(eds.) (1990). ''Animal Rights: A Historic Anthology''. Columbia University Press.
*] (2007). ''From Dusk 'til Dawn: An Insider's View of the Growth of the Animal Liberation Movement''. Puppy Pincher Press.
*] and Wilson, Keith (eds). (2020). ''''. Lantern Publishing & Media.
*] (2012). "The Universal Declaration of Animal Rights or the Creation of a New Equilibrium between Species". Animal Law Review volume 19–1.
*] (2002). ''Animal Rights, Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation''. Rowman and Litterfield.
*{{cite book | editor-last = Nibert | editor-first = David | date = 2017 | title = Animal Oppression and Capitalism | publisher = Praeger Publishing | isbn = 978-1440850738}}
*Patterson, Charles (2002). ''Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust''. Lantern.
*] (1990). ''Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism''. Oxford University Press.
*Regan, Tom and Singer, Peter (eds.) (1976). ''Animal Rights and Human Obligations''. Prentice-Hall.
*Spiegel, Marjorie (1996). ''The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery''. Mirror Books.
*] (2006). "Can the Treatment of Animals Be Compared to the Holocaust?" ''Ethics and the Environment'' 11 (Spring): 97–132.
*] (2000). ''Life Force: The World of Jainism''. Asian Humanities Press.
*Wilson, Scott (2010). "" ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy''.
*Kymlicka, W., Donaldson, S. (2011) ''Zoopolis. A Political Theory of Animal Rights''. Oxford University Press.
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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

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Bibliography

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

Further reading

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