Animal Rights

Introduction

The modern animal rights movement seeks a deconstruction of the human/ animal dualism, transforming society to a nonspeciesist worldview that conceives of other animals as inherently valuable beings with interests that deserve respect, just as humans claim to respect each other as subjects, not objects. While animal rights incorporate concerns about animal welfare based on sentience, there are important differences in how the two viewpoints view humans in relation to other animals. Animal rights can be defined as a deontological ethic that grants nonhuman animals the right to privacy and freedom from human intrusion, seeking an end to the domestication, enslavement, exploitation, and property status of nonhuman animals.

Animal welfare can be defined as a mainstream Western philosophy that regulates animal exploitation to reduce the suffering of nonhuman animals under human control. Animal welfare: (a) recognizes animal sentience but believes nonhuman animals are not as worthy of moral respect as are humans, (b) recognizes nonhuman animals' property status while wanting to limit the rights of property owners, and (c) accepts trading nonhuman animals' interests in favor of human interests only if the latter are deemed significant and necessary.

Discussion & Analyses

Welfare has been the popular philosophy throughout history, likely because it does not threaten humanist claims to superiority and justifies the humane use of other animals for profit or human gain. Post humanist scholars have recently challenged the rights-based approach to animal liberation based on its reliance upon expanding human rights principles that are inherently humanist and that therefore, ironically reinforce the human/animal dualism the movement seeks to dismantle (Canfield). While these critiques have legitimacy, I advocate at this stage for a rights-based approach because it pragmatically resonates with Americans yet is less overtly humanist than a welfare-based approach.

To diminish the humanism inherent in the rights approach, I propose that animal rights organizations' rhetoric should increase humans' connection with their own animality and nature by ensuring that moral messages avoid humanist appeals to a purely humane or anthropocentric notion of civilization and ethics. I also believe that animal rights organizations must acknowledge that social nonhuman animal cultures have their own ethical systems, often following nature's tendencies toward moderation and necessary harm and avoiding human tendencies toward excessive harm and consumption.

In promoting human-animal kinship and deconstruction of the human/animal dualism, animal rights organizations should also embrace diversity by appreciating species' variety and individuality to avoid a humanist insinuation that nonhuman animals must resemble humans to deserve respect (Harold). Some animal rights scholars and activists argue that animal rights organizations should be align ideology with strategy for increased authenticity and candor, retaining control of the discourse by defining the problem as exploitation and slavery not husbandry and cruelty.

As the main problem frame, injustice would be transformational, asking Americans to reconceptualize the accepted practices of animal agriculture, fishing, and meat-eating as unacceptable practices on the basis that they are, in most cases, unjust, exploitative, and unsustainable (Patterson). This frame transformation alignment process could be complemented by promoting popular values of respect for life, freedom, and ...