| Rejection of the claim that non-human animals do not have rights. We hear it said several times that while we have the duty not to be cruel to non-human animals, they nonetheless cannot have rights. The holders of this opinion claim this is so because non-human animals do not recognise the concept of rights. This argument is flawed for the following reasons: First of all, if we have a duty not to be cruel to other animals, it so follows that these animals have the right not to suffer cruel treatment from us. So to say that non-human animals have no rights but at the same time we have a duty not to make them suffer is a contradiction in terms. Either all non-human animals have rights, or else we have no duties towards them. Holders of the opinion that non-human animals cannot have rights, to be consistent, must have the courage to say that we have no moral obligation not to be cruel to them, and that we may treat them anyway we please. People who believe that we should not be cruel to non-human animals must necessarily believe that they have rights. Otherwise, their claim that non-human animals do not have rights does not follow from reason, but through self-interested prejudice, in this case, speciesism. But some might say that we do not have a direct duty towards non-human animals but an indirect one - that to be cruel to other animals would give a bad example which could lead to cruelty to people. While this statement is half correct (cruelty to non-human animals does lead to cruelty to humans) it does not take into consideration the fact that the cruelty may be performed in secret. I doubt that the same person would sanction cruelty on a non-human animal in an abandoned and secret place. In this case, the cruelty would be wrong for the individual animal's own sake, since there is no way that this cruelty would give a bad example to anyone. Secondly, the fact that non-human animals do not recognise rights as such, is no justification for the claim that they do not have rights. Children don't recognise rights. But the fact that one does not know one's rights does not necessarily mean that one's rights do not exist. To cite some examples, slaves always had the right to freedom, prior to legislation to liberate them. Women always had the right to education prior to legislation to allow them the opportunity. Laws are made to confirm and enforce recognised rights, and not vice-versa. The fact that no legislation is presently in place to protect non-human animals does not mean that they do not have rights. It simply means that legislators have not yet recognised that all sentient individuals do have rights. To allow rights to humans and not to other animals who are also sentient, would be to engage in speciesist discrimination, unless we are prepared to deny rights to humans similar to non-humans in the relevant respects, like very young children and the mentally disabled, who similarly do not grasp the full meaning of rights and similarly cannot fight for their own rights. In fact, like we do with the menatally disabled and children, we do not only accord rights to them despite their inability to grasp the concept of rights or defend their own welfare, but also give them greater protection and provide them with guardians in legal matters. The same should apply to non-human animals. To do otherwise would be speciesist. |
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