We explain what animal rights are and what their advantages and disadvantages are. In addition, we explain their characteristics, criticisms and more.
Animal rights propose an ethical treatment between humans and animals.
What are Animal Rights?
When we talk about animal rights we refer to certain currents of thought inscribed in the so-called Animal Liberation Movementaccording to which non-human animals, regardless of their species, are subjects of law and must be protected from cruel treatment or from being considered as objects of consumption.
Traditionally, Man has reserved this legal status for natural and legal persons.although it has even been denied to certain discriminated human groups. Animals, on the other hand, have been held in greater or lesser esteem depending on their usefulness, their degree of domestication (pets, such as dogs and cats) or their beauty, although none of this has saved them from serving as food, transport vehicles, cargo or even as experimental subjects.
Animal rights would be more or less opposed to all of the latter, Committed to animal welfare and the ethical treatment between humans and animals.
See also: Children’s Rights.
History of animal rights
The capacity for animal suffering is similar to that of humans.
The first animal protection laws were passed in Ireland in 1635.and limited the cruel treatment of beasts of burden, forbidding the tying of ploughs to horses’ tails, for example. Other Anglo-Saxon Puritan communities did the same, going so far as to list the “rights” of domestic animals in their moral and legal codes.
Much more recently, thinkers such as Jeremy Bentham and Peter Singer have led movements to claim animal rights and They defend their capacity for suffering as similar to that of humans.so they must be protected by human ethics.
There have even been more or less radical groups protesting against animal abuse, exercising “subversive” actions such as releasing animals from zoos and boycotts of pharmaceutical or cosmetic companies that use animals in product testing. Currently, many laws consider animal abuse to be a punishable offence.
Background of animal rights
In ancient times and even today, animals are used in religious rituals.
Traditionally, man has used animals for his own benefit: to obtain food, skins for covering, protection, mobilityhelp with physical chores and even company in his loneliness. And he hasn’t always done it in friendly ways.
Texts as old as the Bible are already appearing the idea that man is called by God to “rule” over animals and rule them at will, and even sacrifice them in their religious rites. This idea is also based on the apparent inability of animals to reason and communicate verbally as humans do, which led him to believe that animals could not have any kind of rights.
Other philosophers such as René Descartes (1596-1650) They even suggested that animals could not even perceive pain.since they lacked a soul. This tradition is why animals were traditionally outside of man’s moral considerations, at least until more recent times.
Why do animals have rights?
Animal abuse reflects man’s lack of respect for life.
There are many ways to answer this question. Some philosophers such as John Locke (1632-1704), opposing Descartes, argued that The brutality in the treatment of animals was a terrible example for children.who would take it as their own and then replicate it not only with animals, but with other people as well.
Similar reasoning sees man’s mistreatment of animals as a reflection of the cruelties of which he is capableand his respect for life in general, even for that which cannot oppose or resist him, as a measure of his moral character. “A civilization can be judged by the way it treats its animals,” is a famous phrase by Mahatma Gandhi.
Advantages of animal rights
Animal rights help educate future generations.
The virtues of animal rights legislation respond not only to Provide a better quality of life to the species that accompany us and in many cases even share our homes, but also constitutes an example to follow for the education of future generations in spiritual values that transcend civilized life, such as compassion, protection of the weak, responsibility in consumption and the defense of life at all costs.
Disadvantages of animal rights
There are no real disadvantages to better animal rights legislation. In some cases, there may be Certain ancestral practices and traditional forms of production must be reconsideredor even suspended, which may lead to a certain amount of conflict.
Animal liberation movement
There are organizations that oppose animal abuse of any kind.
Also called the abolitionist animal liberation movement or animal rights movement, it is a formal and informal organization of global activists of all kindsfrom academics, artists and lawyers, dedicated to research, reporting, awareness and rescue, in cases of domestic, pharmacological and industrial animal abuse.
They oppose the consumption of products made from animal skins or tested on animals in captivity, as well as to a certain extent circuses, zoos and shows that are based on animal abuse or their treatment as mere objects of consumption. They accuse official culture of being anthropocentric and speciesist, that is, discriminatory towards other species.
Animal Law
For animal rights, animals have the same benefits as humans.
Also known as animal law, it is a segment of jurisprudence and positive law that It covers the legal subject matter of animals, both domestic and in captivity as well as wildIt is linked to environmental law, since it is based on the assumption that greater respect for animals would lead to respect for biodiversity and the necessary natural balances of the ecosystem.
This right assumes animals as subjects of lawdeserving of the same benefits as human beings on earth, since they occupied it before we appeared.
In this right veterinary malpractice cases are settleddomestic animal custody conflicts, cases of animal cruelty and policies that result in the death of wildlife or ecocides.
Criticism of animal rights
There are also critical voices regarding the entire animal rights movement. Norbert Brieskom, a legal philosopher and Jesuit, warns that Granting rights to creatures that can never exercise them of their own free will is meaningless.since their protection is already contemplated in human ethics; it also raises the question of whether these should be an extension of human rights (since animals are not) or rather extra-human rights, that is, rights that do not concern man.
International Animal Rights Day
International Animal Rights Day is celebrated around the world every December 10thsince it was established in 1997.
List of animal rights
All wild animals have the right to live in nature.
Animal rights are included in the Universal Declaration of Animal Rights (1978), approved by the UN and UNESCO. Some of its articles are:
- All animals are born equal in life and enjoy the same rights to exist.
- No animal will be subjected to mistreatment or cruel acts.
- If the death of an animal is necessary, it should be instantaneous, painless and not cause distress.
- Every animal belonging to a wild species has the right to live in nature and reproduce naturally.
- Any deprivation of freedom of a wild animal, even for educational purposes, constitutes a violation of animal rights.
- Every animal has the right to respect.