Animal rights, also referred to as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings.[3] Advocates approach the issue from different philosophical positions, but agree that animals should be viewed as non-human persons and members of the moral community.[2] They argue that human beings should stop seeing other sentient beings Sentience is the ability to feel or perceive. The term is used in science and philosophy, and in the study of artificial intelligence. Sentience is used in the study of consciousness to describe the ability to have sensations or experiences, known to Western philosophers as "qualia". In eastern philosophy, sentience is a metaphysical as property—not even as property to be treated kindly.[4]
The idea of awarding rights to animals has the support of legal scholars such as Alan Dershowitz Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Dershowitz is known for his career as an attorney in several high-profile law cases and as a commentator on the Arab–Israeli conflict. He has spent most of his career at Harvard University, where, and Laurence Tribe Laurence Henry Tribe is a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. He also serves as a consultant for the law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld of Harvard Law School Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. HLS is highly prestigious and perennially tops various law school rankings, including Judging,[5] while Toronto lawyer Clayton Ruby argued in 2008 that the movement had reached the stage the gay rights movement Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender social movements share inter-related goals of social acceptance of sexual and gender minorities. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies have a long history of campaigning for what is generally called LGBT rights, also called gay rights and gay and lesbian rights. Various communities was at 25 years earlier.[6] Animal law Animal law is a combination of statutory and case law in which the nature – legal, social or biological – of nonhuman animals is an important factor. Animal law encompasses companion animals, wildlife, animals used in entertainment and animals raised for food and research. The emerging field of animal law is often analogized to the is taught in 119 out of 180 law schools in the United States, in eight law schools in Canada, and is routinely covered in universities in philosophy or applied ethics courses.[7]
Critics argue that animals are unable to enter into a social contract Social contract describes a broad class of theories that try to explain the ways in which people form states to maintain social order. The notion of the social contract implies that the people give up sovereignty to a government or other authority in order to receive or maintain social order through the rule of law. It can also be thought of as an or make moral choices, and for that reason cannot be regarded as possessors of rights, a position summed up by the philosopher Roger Scruton Roger Vernon Scruton is an English philosopher, writer, and composer. He is currently a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the Visiting Professor of aesthetics at the philosophy faculty of the University of Oxford, who writes that only humans have duties and therefore only humans have rights.[8] A parallel argument is that there is nothing inherently wrong with using animals as resources so long there is no unnecessary suffering, a view known as the animal welfare Animal welfare is the physical and psychological well-being of non-human animals. The term animal welfare can also mean human concern for animal welfare or a position in a debate on animal ethics and animal rights position.[9] There has also been criticism, including from within the animal rights movement The animal liberation movement, sometimes called the animal rights movement, animal personhood, or animal advocacy movement, is a global movement with roughly three components: philosophical debate, legal development, and direct action. The movement seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human beings, an itself, of certain forms of animal rights activism, in particular the destruction of fur farms and animal laboratories by the Animal Liberation Front The Animal Liberation Front is an international, underground leaderless resistance that engages in illegal direct action in pursuit of animal liberation. Activists see themselves as a modern-day Underground Railroad, removing animals from laboratories and farms, destroying facilities, arranging safe houses and veterinary care, and operating.
Development of the idea
Moral status of animals in the ancient world
Main articles: Moral status of animals in the ancient world The idea that the use of animals by humans—for food, clothing, entertainment, and as research subjects—is morally acceptable, springs mainly from two sources. First, there is the idea of a divine hierarchy based on the theological concept of "dominion," from Genesis , where Adam is given "dominion over the fish of the sea, and and Human exceptionalism Human exceptionalism refers to a belief that human beings have special status in nature based on their unique capacities. This belief is the grounding for some naturalistic concepts of human rights Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal's The Creation of Adam The Creation of Adam is a fresco painted by Michelangelo circa 1511 that appears on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It illustrates the Biblical story from the Book of Genesis in which God the Father breathes life into Adam, the first man. Chronologically the fourth in the series of panels depicting episodes from Genesis on the Sistine ceiling,. The Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew Bible, and the first of five books of the Torah, called the Pentateuch in the Christian Old Testament said God God is the English name given to the singular omnipotent being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism gave humankind "dominion" over non-humans.[10]The 21st-century debates about how humans should treat animals can be traced to the ancient world. The idea that the use of animals by humans—for food, clothing, entertainment, and as research subjects—is morally acceptable, springs mainly from two sources. First, there is the idea of a divine hierarchy based on the theological concept of "dominion", from Genesis The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew Bible, and the first of five books of the Torah, called the Pentateuch in the Christian Old Testament (1:20-28), where Adam Adam is a prominent figure in Abrahamic Religions. He is the first man created by God in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He appears in the Hebrew Bible, in the Old Testament, and in the Qur'an. His wife was Eve is given "dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." Although the concept of dominion need not entail property rights, it has been interpreted over the centuries to imply ownership.[8][10]
There is also the idea that animals are inferior because they lack rationality and language, and as such are worthy of less consideration than humans, or even none.[10] Springing from this is the idea that individual animals have no separate moral identity: a pig is simply an example of the class of pigs, and it is to the class, not to the individual, that human responsibility or stewardship applies. This leads to the argument that the use of individual animals is acceptable so long as the species is not threatened with extinction.[8]
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use in University of Michigan ... AnnArbor.com Animal rights advocates say a University of Michigan Survival Flight course that trains nurses in human life-saving techniques is cruel to animals, ... PETA slams UM's use of cats, pigs in medical training program The Detroit News
