Each year in the mid-2000s, throughout the world:
The figures are approximate (especially for research, much of which is not recorded at all), but it is clear that a vast mountain of animals is used every year in the interests of humans. Rather than “used,” many people—and the number is increasing—would say “exploited” or “sacrificed.” For many regard the use of animals for food and research to be morally indefensible and a violation of the animals’ basic rights.
“The day may come, when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny.”
Jeremy Bentham, 1788
The basis of animal rights What grounds are there for saying that animals have rights? One common argument, essentially utilitarian in character, runs as follows:
The first premise has been subject to much recent debate (see Do animals feel pain?). It seems highly implausible to suppose that animals such as apes and monkeys, which resemble us in many relevant respects, do not have the capacity to feel something very similar to the pain that we feel. However, it seems just as unlikely that animals such as sponges and jellyfish, which have very simple nervous systems, feel anything remotely like human pain. The difficulty then becomes where to draw the line, and—as is often the case when it comes to drawing lines (see Slippery slopes)—it is hard to avoid a strong whiff of arbitrariness. We may settle for a qualified “Some animals can feel pain,” but a troubling question mark hangs over the actual scope.
The second premise may seem largely unimpeachable (pace the odd masochist), but again there is a danger that it becomes qualified to the point of vacuity. Some have tried to undermine the claim by drawing a distinction between pain and suffering. The latter, it is alleged, is a complex emotion involving both recollection of past pain and anticipation of pain to come, while pain in itself is no more than a fleeting sensation of the present; it is suffering that counts when it comes to moral consideration, but animals (or some animals) are only capable of feeling pain. Even if we allow such a distinction, however, it seems unreasonable to claim that pain is still not a bad thing, even if suffering is worse.
Much more problematic is the “unnecessarily” part of the second premise. For there is nothing to stop an opponent arguing that some degree of animal pain is a price worth paying for human benefits in terms of improved health, enhanced product safety, and so on. Being utilitarian, the argument apparently calls for some kind of calculus of pain, trading animal pain against human benefit; but the required calculation—difficult enough even if only human pain were involved—looks utterly intractable when animal pain is added to the equation.
This assault on the premises inevitably damages the conclusion. Uncharitably, we might say that it comes to no more than the claim that we should not cause pain to some (perhaps very few) animals unless doing so brings some (perhaps minimal) benefit to humans. On this view, “animal rights” boil down to (arguably) the right of a small number of animals not to have pain inflicted on them unless doing so brings a small benefit to humans.
Intensive debate on animal welfare and rights focuses on two questions: should animals be used in experiments at all and (if they are) how should they be treated in practice? As a result three general principles, the “three Rs,” are now widely accepted as guidelines for humane experimental technique:
Are rights right? This is not a conclusion that any serious advocate of animal rights could be happy with. More robust and sophisticated justifications than the version outlined above have been offered, all aiming to deliver a less enervated conception of what kind of rights animals might enjoy. While the Australian philosopher Peter Singer has been the champion of a utilitarian approach to the issue, a deontological line advocated by the American Tom Regan has also been highly influential. According to Regan, animals—or at least animals above a certain level of complexity—are “subjects of a life”; it is this fact that confers on them certain basic rights, which are violated when an animal is treated as a source of meat or a human proxy in experimentation or product-testing. In this way animal rights are spared the kind of cost-benefit analysis that can be so damaging to a utilitarian view.
Most people don’t keep other people in filthy cramped conditions and then eat them; or test chemicals with unknown properties on children; or genetically modify humans in order to study their biology. Are there grounds for treating animals in these ways? There must (proponents of animal rights argue) be some morally relevant justification for refusing to give animals’ interests equal consideration to those of humans. Otherwise it is a matter of mere prejudice or bigotry—discrimination on the basis of species, or “speciesism”: a basic lack of respect for the dignity and needs of animals other than humans, no more defensible than discrimination on the basis of gender or race.
Is it obviously wrong to favor our own species? Lions, for instance, are generally more considerate toward other lions than they are toward warthogs; so why shouldn’t humans show a similar partiality? Many reasons have been suggested why they should:
It is easy to counter these justifications and, in general, it is difficult to frame criteria that neatly encompass all humans and exclude all animals. For instance, if we decide it is superior intellect that counts, would we use this criterion to justify using a child or mentally retarded person with a level of intelligence below that of a chimpanzee in a scientific experiment? Or if we decide it is “nature’s way,” we soon find there are many things that animals (including humans) naturally do that we might not wish to encourage: sometimes male lions follow their nature in killing a rival’s offspring, but such behavior would generally be frowned upon in humans.
The difficulties in sustaining a conception of animal rights on a par with human rights are considerable, and some philosophers have questioned whether it is appropriate or helpful to introduce the notion of rights at all. It is usually supposed that rights impose duties or obligations on their bearers; that talk of rights presupposes some kind of reciprocity—the kind that could never actually exist between humans and animals. There is a real issue at stake, it is argued—the proper and humane treatment of animals—which is obscured by being provocatively dressed up in the language of rights.
the condensed idea
Human wrongs?
| Timeline | |
|---|---|
| c.250BC | Do animals feel pain? |
| AD1739 | Hume’s guillotine |
| 1785 | Ends and means |
| 1788 | Do animals have rights? |
| 1954 | Slippery slopes |