by Ryan Mcreynolds

Created on: July 19, 2008

Animals have rights.

To be more specific, animals certainly lack legal rights in the present. They are legally treated as property, which means that ultimately they are merely means to human ends of food, clothing, entertainment, or other forms of pleasure. There are laws governing animal welfare, but they are relatively ineffective, and do nothing to change the basic status of animals as property that can be bought, sold, or even destroyed as seen fit - provided all is done according to a bare minimum standard of treatment, and even then only in certain cases.

However, legal rights are merely codified protections of certain interests. We can also speak of moral rights that certain beings have by virtue of their inherent characteristics. Even if we reject divine origins for rights, we tend to believe intuitively that there are certain things that we just don't do to other humans, at least not in extreme and trying circumstances, fundamental to our belief that humans have an inherent value. We recognize that murder is wrong, even if we recognize there may be justifiable reasons to kill. We would not use humans in medical tests without their consent, even if we recognize there may be justifiable reasons to ignore people's consent to protect them from, for example, accidental death.

Animals presently lack legal rights, but they unequivocally have moral rights.

As a human you are a sentient being with interests. Some of these interests are complex, others are simple. Some of them are so simple that they are prerequisites for even pursuing the more complex desires. You must have freedom and well-being to live the sort of life you'd like to live, even if you never obtain all else you desire. Personal freedom and well-being are not merely good, but necessary, and you hold that others must not interfere in your well-being and freedom. A valid claim that others must not interfere in a necessary good is, morally, a right to that good. You have basic rights to freedom and well-being.

The only quality you possess that grounds your basic rights is the fact that you are a sentient being with interests. If this is sufficient to establish your basic rights, then it is sufficient to establish the same basic rights all other sentient beings with interests. To think otherwise is to admit inconsistency and gross hypocrisy.

At least some animals are sentient beings, capable of feeling pain, with an interest in avoiding suffering. Since this is sufficient to establish the basic rights to freedom and well-being, at least some animals have basic rights. Exactly where this line is drawn will always be debated; it is best to err on the side of caution and grant all animals basic rights.

These basic rights that all animals have ought to be codified by law into legal rights as well.

Learn more about this author, Ryan Mcreynolds.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.