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Animal Rights

The concept of animal rights, also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the basic interests of non-human animals, such as the interest in avoiding suffering, should be afforded the same consideration as the basic interests of human beings. Although animal rights advocates approach the issue from different philosophical positions, they argue, broadly speaking, that animals should no longer be regarded as property, or used as food, clothing, research subjects, or entertainment, but should instead be regarded as legal persons and members of the moral community. The idea of awarding rights of some kind to animals has the support of legal scholars such as Alan Dershowitz and Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School, and animal law courses are now taught in 92 out of 180 law schools in the United States. Steven Wise, also of Harvard Law School, argues that the first serious judicial challenges to what he calls the "legal thinghood" of animals may only be a few years away. Critics argue that animals are unable to enter into a social contract or make moral choices, and therefore cannot be regarded as possessors of rights, a position summed up by the philosopher Roger Scruton, who writes that only human beings have duties and that "the corollary is inescapable: we alone have rights."An argument that often runs parallel to this is that there is nothing inherently wrong with using animals as resources for human purposes, though there is an obligation to ensure they do not suffer unnecessarily, a view known as the animal welfare position.



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