What is the ethical justification of animal rights?

Question

I came to think about the animal rights, seeing that the post on the cats handing out in the school community became controversial.

The content of the article was that someone had rescued the kitten, and was looking for someone to care for her, and was gonna receive a deposit of 100$.

Someone commented, "It's not so cute, tho." and people came to attack the person who posted the comment. There were many blame comments, but the reason was simple : it is inappropriate of you to comment on the appearance of a poor cat.

I began to wonder about the philosophy of people who blamed the comment. I soon noticed that the following premises were set in their mind:

• 'Cat = human'
• The dignity of a cat is like the dignity of a person.
• animal rights are just like human rights.

But assuming that the animal rights have the same status as human rights, there are two problems (only a few things happen at first glance).

Firstly, why are only cats (dogs) important? Common companions, such as dogs and cats, fall into the categorization of animal rights, but I wonder why there is no mention of the rights of insects, reptiles, and arthropods that have such 'life'. The same with cattle and pigs. Then, there is an additional problem that it is possible to eat meat when one recognizes the animal rights.

Secondly, is human care on cats really for the right of cats? How can you prove that everything, including human feed, artificial cat houses, cat snacks, and time with humans, is consistent with the promotion of cats' rights?

I look forward to a calm and refined answer. Thank you.

Answer 1

Firstly, why are only cats (dogs) important? Common companions, such as dogs and cats, fall into the categorization of animal rights, but I wonder why there is no mention of the rights of insects, reptiles, and arthropods that have such 'life'. The same with cattle and pigs. Then, there is an additional problem that it is possible to eat meat when one recognizes the animal rights.

From my experience, people who believe in "animal rights" vary a lot on what animals they think deserve rights. Generally, they include pets and cute wildlife mammals and birds; some do include cattle and farm animals in general (pigs, horses, goats, etc.) Insects and invertebrates in general are usually excluded, as well as fish, amphybians, and reptiles. Disagreeable mammals and birds - rats, vultures - are usually excluded to. Internal parasites are always excluded. In short, I don't know any such people who doesn't discriminate among animals. Generally speaking, such discrimination divides animals that are more human-like from those who are less so, useful (to humans) animals from those that are noxious (again, to humans), and idealised wildlife animals from non-domestic animals that people actually know.

Secondly, is human care on cats really for the right of cats? How can you prove that everything, including human feed, artificial cat houses, cat snacks, and time with humans, is consistent with the promotion of cats' rights?

Cats (or any other non-human animals) cannot be actual bearers of "rights" in the sence we understand "rights" as applied to humans, because rights are necessarily social rights, and non-human animals do not participate in human society, and the non-human societies they eventually participate in are not predicated on the notion of "rights".

In fact, no one that I am informed thinks that a non-human animal has the right to vote, the right to free expression or free assembly, any right of property. Indeed, the only "rights" that I see assigned to them are those of living and of not being subjected to pain.

Evidently, whatever we do afford to cats (or any other pet) is based on either projections of our own desires, or on our own necessities (does a cat have the right to roam away from its owner home? Does it have a right to not be neutered?). In such, I fear the concept of "rights" is degraded, into something very different and much more limited than what we were used to think as "rights".