THE CONSEQUENCES OF ANIMAL RIGHTS, PART 2

Animals aren’t ‘moral’

Some of the arguments against animal rights centre on whether animals behave morally.

Rights are unique to human beings

  • rights only have meaning within a moral community
  • only human beings live in a moral community
  • adult mammals don’t understand or practice living according to a moral code
  • the differences in the way human beings and adult mammals experience the world are morally relevant
  • therefore rights is a uniquely human concept and only applies to human beings

Animals don’t behave morally

Some argue that since animals don’t behave in a moral way they don’t deserve moral treatment from other beings.

Animals, it’s argued, usually behave selfishly, and look after their own interests, while human beings will often help other people, even if doing so is to their own disadvantage.

Not all scientists agree: Jane Goodall, an expert on chimpanzees has reported that they sometimes show truly altruistic behaviour.

Animals don’t have rights against other animals

Another reason for thinking that animals don’t behave morally is that even the most enthusiastic supporters of animal rights only argue that animals have rights against human beings, not against other animals.Why this might be relevant to the question of whether animals should have rights becomes clearer if you rephrase it in terms of duties or obligations instead of rights and ask – why should human beings have obligations towards animals, if animals don’t have obligations to other animals or to human beings?

Why this might be relevant to the question of whether animals should have rights becomes clearer if you rephrase it in terms of duties or obligations instead of rights and ask – why should human beings have obligations towards animals, if animals don’t have obligations to other animals or to human beings?

Moral community

This argument states that animals are not members of the ‘moral community’.

  • A moral community is
    • a group of beings who live in relationship with each other and use and understand moral concepts and rules
    • the members of this community can respect each other as moral persons
    • the members of this community respect each other’s autonomy
  • human beings do display these characteristics and are therefore members of the ‘moral community’
  • animals do not display these characteristics and are therefore not members of the ‘moral community’
    • most people would agree with this: after all we don’t regard a dog as having done something morally wrong when it bites someone – if the dog is put to death because of the bite, that is to protect people, not to punish the dog
  • only members of a ‘moral community’ can have rights, therefore animals don’t have rights
  • members of the ‘moral community’ are more ‘valuable’ than beings that are not members of the moral community
  • it is not wrong for valuable beings to ‘use’ less valuable beings
  • therefore it is not wrong for human beings to use animals

Animals lack the capacity for free moral judgements

  • If an individual lacks the capacity for free moral judgment, then they do not have moral rights.
  • All non-human animals lack the capacity for free moral judgment.
  • Therefore, non-human animals do not have moral rights.