Should Animals Have the Same Rights as People?

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Originally published in Santa Clara Magazine Online Edition. Downloaded by Opposing Views on November 6th, 2008.

The conversation about the relative moral status of animals is a vast and complex one. There are many stakeholders in, and much passion about, the dignity and worth of non-human animals. The film "28 Days Later," an otherwise forgettable thriller about plague victims-cum-zombies, opens with a horrifically memorable scene in which animal rights activists break into a research lab and free chimpanzees who are being used as experimental hosts in disease research; the disease jumps species and the storyline begins. While PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) condemns violence of any sort and distances itself from such violent groups as the ALF (Animal Liberation Front), PETA does hold that "animals deserve the most basic rights—consideration of their own best interests regardless of whether they are useful to humans." This stance is based on the notion that animals are "capable of suffering and have an interest in leading their own lives" and therefore cannot be used for "food, clothing, entertainment, experimentation, or any other reason."

Some would find the philosophical foundation of PETA’s claims somewhat troubling. It is a fact that animals experience pain and suffering. It is certainly true that animals have instinctual behavior patterns; some species learn about their environments and then use tools to alter their environments for their own better survival. It is a leap, however, to say that animals have "an interest in leading their own lives." The word "interest" comes from the Latin inter (between) and esse (to be) and connotes, in legal thought, participation in advantage and responsibility. In other words, to be able to enjoy certain concrete rights within a social system, a moral agent also has certain duties towards others within that same system. For example, one can claim the right to free speech, yet one is thereby duty bound to protect the freedom of speech for all others. Animals kill and consume living beings (other animals and/or plants) in order to survive, and it is in their "interest" to survive and multiply according to the rule of the "survival of the fittest." In this latter sense, "interest" means simply self-interest, as in an individual advantage or benefit without regard to any accompanying obligations towards all others.