Do Animals Have Rights?

             

Preamble

Animals do not have any legal rights. They cannot be prosecuted in a court of law, or be called to give evidence, they cannot sue or be sued, and it is very doubtful whether they can inherit money or property. So what is usually meant when we talk about "animal rights?

It has been pointed out that pain, and the fear of suffering future pain, are important tools in aiding survival. For instance, because we know that burning is painful, we are therefore afraid of being burnt, and we know to treat fire with caution. Without pain and fear, we wouldn’t survive long!

Psychological pains, like shame, jealousy and loneliness, stem from our being animals who live in herds. Herds always have hierarchies, and we want to find our place in them. At the same time, virtues such as generosity and courage, which involve placing the wellbeing of others above our personal benefit, also stem from the herd-instinct.

Descartes thought animals were mere machines; what we might nowadays called programmed robots; but this is plainly incorrect. We all know that the animals that are close to us, like cats, dogs, horses etc, certainly feel physical pain in a similar way to us, and seem to feel some psychological pains as well. But these creatures are mammals; genetically similar to us. Does the same apply to reptiles and fishes? And what about invertebrates, such as snails? They presumably feel physical pain, but what about fear? E.g. humans endure psychological pain if they know they could be tortured or executed, or will suffer an unpleasant disease. Can animals anticipate suffering in this way? We know that in the end we shall all die. Do animals know this?

To take an even more extreme example: Plants are certainly sensitive to light and in some cases to touch. But they have no brains and no central nervous systems, so we can be certain that they cannot experience fear, but what about pain?

Similarly, we know that domesticated and farmed mammals can communicate to some extent. But does this communication merit being called a “language”?  Is it capable of transmitting abstract ideas that can be understood by a listener? We have no way of knowing.

If animals can be considered to have "rights", these cannot be the same rights as we have as humans. Since the first Cruelty to Animals law was passed at the start of the 19^th century, they have had some legal protection (though the laws only apply to vertebrates). It is much debated how far this applies to hunting and shooting, and to the extermination of “vermin”. Should we always try to draw a clear distinction between hunting for “fun” and hunting for food (including some,though not all, fishing)?

Is it wrong to kill rats, which eat stored grain and spread disease? What about the Masai who kill lions which eat their cattle? Or from the opposite extreme, can it be wrong to kill mosquitoes in order to eradicate malaria?

Animals for farming

It has been argued that ever since farming began in the Neolithic period, there has been a “social contract” between man and his animals: not so much with the individual beasts as with the species. The animals and their offspring would be looked after, fed and sheltered in winter and protected against diseases and wild beasts; and in return they would provide milk, wool etc. In the end the animals could be killed for meat, but they would have led a more comfortable life than in the wild, and the species would survive. One downside of farming is that, after generations of domestication, if farm animals and pets were suddenly released into the wild without any support from humans, the great majority would soon die.

(If veganism became general, farm animals would quickly become extinct, bar a few who might be kept as pets. Are vegans happy about this prospect?)   

Medical experiments, etc

We can all accept that it is surely wrong to inflict unnecessary pain on animals. The key word here is obviously the adjective! If we concede this, how do we decide what is “necessary”?

I think we would all agree that there is a big difference between testing cosmetics and testing potentially lifesaving drugs or medical techniques (e.g. transplant surgery). It is obviously necessary to test whether these work (for which must be tested on mammals resembling us), and whether they have unpleasant side-effects. It is surely not envisaged to test them on humans! (Except possibly in very mild cases, and only on volunteers. Or perhaps not even then: in a dictatorship, is "volunteering" a meaningful and acceptable concept?)

Ultimately, it must be conceded that animals are less important than humans. Or are some animals more important than some humans? That seems to me to be an extremely slippery slope. I would not feel safe living in a society in which someone else could decide that my life was less important than that of an animal!