Why animals don't need 'rights'

Why animals don't need 'rights'

Some people believe that animals don't have rights or that even if they do, those rights should count for less than human wishes.

But that doesn't give human beings a moral OK to treat animals badly: Even if animals don't have rights, human beings may still have a moral duty not to mistreat them.

Animals don't need rights to be protected

The argument that animals should be treated properly can be based entirely on the need for human beings to behave morally, rather than on the rights of animals:

• Human beings have an awareness of moral ideas and understand the difference between right and wrong.
• Human beings accept that certain things are morally wrong and should not be done - regardless of whether the victim has any rights or not.
• Causing pain and suffering is morally wrong, whether the victim is a human animal or a non-human animal.
  • This is not because it violates the rights of the victim, but because causing pain and suffering is inherently wrong.
  • Causing pain and suffering therefore diminishes the moral standing of the human being that causes it.
• Therefore human beings should not be cruel to animals.

But this argument can't be pushed too far: the absence of cruelty does not make an act morally good, even if it does remove one ingredient that would make the act morally wrong.

And acts that are not cruel - even acts that are kind - can be morally wrong.

Here's an example: It would be kind to give a relative a false alibi to stop them going to jail for a crime... but it would also be wrong.