Should Animals Have the Same Rights as People?

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While the topic is called "Should Animals Have the Same Rights as People?", the poll question asks, "Do Animals Have the Same Rights as People?" These are two rather different questions. The first question is prescriptive, i.e., asks us what ought to be done. The second question is descriptive, i.e., it asks us to make an empirical assessment. Of course, both questions suffer from the lack of distinction between moral and legal rights, a distinction that would make more clear how this really ought to work, so I will answer each of them in terms of both kinds of rights.

Do Animals Have the Same Rights as People?

Let's start with empirical observations by phrasing the question more specifically as, "Do Animals Have the Same Legal Rights as People?" Because animals are legally classified as property, and only legal persons (e.g., humans, corporations) have legal rights, then we must observe quite simply that animals do not have the same  legal  rights as people. That settled, let's turn now to moral rights.

Do animals have the same moral rights as people?

In my previous two arguments, I made the case that both legal and moral rights protect interests and that the only characteristic morally relevant to possessing at least some basic rights is sentience (i.e., the right not to be deprived of one's existence, to not be caused pain, etc.). Insofar as humans possess these basic rights and nonhumans share these basic rights, it can be said that animals have the same moral rights as people.

Like humans, nonhumans have a demonstrable interest in continued existence, in not being caused pain, and so on. If we believe that humans possess the moral right to exist and not to be caused pain or suffering, then it would be arbitrary to claim that nonhumans do not, because they have the exact same interests in these particular cases.

However, as similar as we are in certain fundamental, morally relevant respects, we are different in many other morally relevant ways, and this means that there are moral rights that some beings have that others do not possess. Humans have moral rights that may not be shared by nonhumans, and some nonhumans may have rights that are not shared by humans, so it would be untrue to say that nonhuman animals have all the same moral rights as humans.

Should Animals Have the Same Rights as People?

If we determine that animals have any moral rights, as defined in Argument 1, then the question "Should Animals Have the Same Moral Rights as People?" makes no sense, because we have already found that they do have moral rights. Instead, we'd be compelled to say that we should protect animals with legal rights that mirror their moral rights. 

So, let's look at the question phrased as "Should Animals Have the Same Legal Rights as People?" The question is still not entirely intuitive, because animals and people do not have all the same moral rights (as discussed above, they do not all have the same morally significant interests that merit legal rights protection).

If, as suggested, nonhuman animals do possess some moral rights, it stands to reason that, like us, they should have those like interests protected with legal rights. This does not mean that nonhumans should have  all  the same legal rights as humans. As mentioned earlier, nonhuman beings simply do not share all the same interests as humans. 

For example, nonhuman animals have no comprehension of--and therefore no interest in--voting in human elections. Therefore, they do not have an interest to protect in the case of voting--No interest to protect, no right. A right to vote would be meaningless to a toad.

All of this leads us to answer the topic question with a firm "no," despite the popular notion, perpetuated here at O.V., that animal rights advocates (ARAs) would want to say "yes." Thoughtful animal rights advocates recognize that it makes no sense for nonhuman animals to have all the same legal rights as humans, of course, but it is a testament to the widespread confusion over rights that so many people think this is their goal.