Philosophical justification for giving certain animals rights of a person?

Question

There is a growing movement for the bestowing certain non-human species with legal rights of a person. What might be some of the most significant or important philosophical arguments in favor of such a policy?

My understanding of the problem is that the growing body of scientific evidence about non-human intelligence and social development of animals is pushing the scales towards granting some animals some rights until now reserved only to humans (for example, banning the catching, confining or hunting of cetaceans). Moreover, these bans would not be put in place for ethical reasons only (for the cetaceans' welfare) but because of the cetaceans' status (== cetaceans are kind of like us, so we can't do to them what we wouldn't do to humans). One could say that it's still an ethical problem, but at least an already solved ethical problem (we have almost universally decided that human slavery is wrong some time ago).

I think this is a more narrow version of the argument ("they're like us, so we have to treat them like us") as opposed to the more broader one ("they can feel pain, so we can't hurt them").

Answer 1

There is a large debate about the moral status of animals that is enlarged by the way philosophers have positioned the dialogue. Generally, the debate may be reorganized along the following lines: is there something unique or distinctive about humans that allows humans to have moral rights that are denied to nonhumans based on that distinction?

As several comments have already pointed out, the literature on this is vast, as it encompasses not merely arguments on the moral rights of animals, but arguments on the moral rights of nonhumans in general (does 'the world' have rights? will A.I. have rights? etc.), as well as arguments on consciousness (with this question in mind), and what makes a human moral (again, with this question in mind). Each of these approaches has different pertinent arguments for and against the moral status of animals.

Consequently, no complete answer may be given to your question at the moment. What I'd prefer to do is to recommend starting here. A concise and intelligent summary (much better than I could do) of several current positions is provided for you, at the bottom of which a bibliography taunts you to investigate further.

In brief, one well known position (Peter Singer's) for animal rights states that all beings capable of suffering within a utilitarian view of ethical conduct ought to be given equal ethical consideration based on that fact. To not do so is "speciesism", a form of discrimination no more justifiable than discrimination based on skin color. In this position, the relative intelligence of a species is unimportant; the capacity to suffer is an overriding feature for ethical consideration.

This position has its difficulties, critiques, and expansions which has produced a large body of literature. The main feature philosophers have found contention with is the assumption that the utilitarian view point is the best or right one to use - so the debate can regress to a foundational debate on ethics in general.

Answer 2

Rights are reciprocal, so although I may give a lion or a shark the right not to be eaten I do not get the same right in return - to suggest that animals have rights is really just a form of politeness or wanting to feel good in that one is being moral. That is we bestow human characteristics on the animals (much like Disney) because it helps us to identify with them, but it is just something we do and not anything intrinsically inherent in the animal. Simba the lion would most certainly have eaten Puumba and Timon.

Yes the natural world is brutish and savage, but to give the warthog the right not to be eaten is to deny the lion the right to eat and this is different to giving someone the right to speak freely because although the audience might not like the speakers message it does not, in itself, take away any of their rights. They are free to leave and stop listening if they don't like the topic, the warthog however is not allowed to leave or stop participating in the shared event.