Animal Rights

Animal Rights

Are animals just things? Or do they inherently deserve to be treated differently than inanimate objects? Steven M. Wise, one of the founders of the movement to establish basic legal rights for animals, explores the issues in Encyclopaedia Britannica’s new article on animal rights, which follows below. A practicing attorney in animal protection law and a past president of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Wise has taught courses in animal rights law at Harvard Law School, Vermont Law School, St. Thomas University School of Law, and John Marshall Law School. His other publications on animal rights topics include two books, Rattling the Cage and Drawing the Line, and numerous scholarly articles.

Animal rights, moral or legal entitlements attributed to nonhuman animals, usually because of the complexity of their cognitive, emotional, and social lives or their capacity to experience physical or emotional pain or pleasure. Historically, different views of the scope of animal rights have reflected philosophical and legal developments, scientific conceptions of animal and human nature, and religious and ethical conceptions of the proper relationship between animals and human beings.

Philosophical background

The proper treatment of animals is a very old question in the West. Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers debated the place of animals in human morality. The Pythagoreans (6th—4th century BC) and the Neoplatonists (3rd—6th century AD) urged respect for animals’ interests, primarily because they believed in the transmigration of souls between human and animal bodies. In his biological writings, Aristotle (384—322 BC) repeatedly suggested that animals lived for their own sake, but his claim in the Politics that nature made all animals for the sake of humans was unfortunately destined to become his most influential statement on the subject.

Aristotle, and later the Stoics, believed the world was populated by an infinity of beings arranged hierarchically according to their complexity and perfection, from the barely living to the merely sentient, the rational, and the wholly spiritual. In this Great Chain of Being, as it came to be known, all forms of life were represented as existing for the sake of those forms higher in the chain. Among corporeal beings, humans, by dint of their rationality, occupied the highest position. The Great Chain of Being became one of the most persistent and powerful, if utterly erroneous, ways of conceiving the universe, dominating scientific, philosophical, and religious thinking until the middle of the 19th century.

The Stoics, insisting on the irrationality of all nonhuman animals, regarded them as slaves and accordingly treated them as contemptible and beneath notice. Aggressively advocated by St. Augustine (354—430), these Stoic ideas became embedded in Christian theology. They were absorbed wholesale into Roman law—as reflected in the treatises and codifications of Gaius (fl. 130—180) and Justinian (483—565)—taken up by the legal glossators of Europe in the 11th century, and eventually pressed into English (and, much later, American) common law. Meanwhile, arguments that urged respect for the interests of animals nearly disappeared, and animal welfare remained a relative backwater of philosophical inquiry and legal regulation until the final decades of the 20th century.

Animals and the law

In the 3rd or 4th century AD, the Roman jurist Hermogenianus wrote, “Hominum causa omne jus constitum” (“All law was established for men’s sake”). Repeating the phrase, P.A. Fitzgerald’s 1966 treatise Salmond on Jurisprudence declared, “The law is made for men and allows no fellowship or bonds of obligation between them and the lower animals.” The most important consequence of this view is that animals have long been categorized as “legal things,” not as “legal persons.” Whereas legal persons have rights of their own, legal things do not. They exist in the law solely as the objects of the rights of legal persons—e.g., as things over which legal persons may exercise property rights. This status, however, often affords animals the indirect protection of laws intended to preserve social morality or the rights of animal owners, such as criminal anticruelty statutes or civil statutes that permit owners to obtain compensation for damages inflicted on their animals. Indeed, this sort of law presently defines the field of “animal law,” which is much broader than animal rights because it encompasses all law that addresses the interests of nonhuman animals—or, more commonly, the interests of the people who own them.

A legal thing can become a legal person; this happened whenever human slaves were freed. The former legal thing then possesses his own legal rights and remedies. Parallels have frequently been drawn between the legal status of animals and that of human slaves. “The truly striking fact about slavery,” the American historian David Brion Davis has written, is the

antiquity and almost universal acceptance of the concept of the slave as a human being who is legally owned, used, sold, or otherwise disposed of as if he or she were a domestic animal. This parallel persisted in the similarity of naming slaves, branding them, and even pricing them according to their equivalent in cows, camels, pigs, and chickens.

The American jurist Roscoe Pound wrote that in ancient Rome a slave “was a thing, and as such, like animals could be the object of rights of property,” and the British historian of Roman law Barry Nicholas has pointed out that in Rome “the slave was a thingâ€¦he himself had no rights: he was merely an object of rights, like an animal.”

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, humanitarian reformers in Britain and the United States campaigned on behalf of the weak and defenseless, protesting against child labour, debtors’ prisons, abusive punishment in public schools, and, inevitably, the cruel treatment of animals. In 1800 the most renowned abolitionist of the period, William Wilberforce, supported a bill to abolish bullbaiting, which was defeated in the House of Commons. In 1809 Baron Erskine, former lord chancellor of England, who had long been troubled by cruelty to animals, introduced a bill to prohibit cruelty to all domestic animals. Erskine declared that the bill was intended to “consecrate, perhaps, in all nations, and in all ages, that just and eternal principle which binds the whole living world in one harmonious chain, under the dominion of enlightened man, the lord and governor of all.” Although the bill passed the House of Lords, it failed in the House of Commons. Then, in 1821, a bill “to prevent cruel and improper treatment of Cattle” was introduced in the House of Commons, sponsored by Wilberforce and Thomas Fowell Buxton and championed by Irish member of Parliament Richard Martin. The version enacted in 1822, known as Martin’s Act, made it a crime to treat a handful of domesticated animals—cattle, oxen, horses, and sheep—cruelly or to inflict unnecessary suffering upon them. However, it did not protect the general welfare of even these animals, much less give them legal rights, and the worst punishment available for any breach was a modest fine. Similar statutes were enacted in all the states of the United States, where there now exists a patchwork of anticruelty and animal-welfare laws. Most states today make at least some abuses of animals a felony. Laws such as the federal Animal Welfare Act (1966), for example, regulate what humans may do to animals in agriculture, biomedical research, entertainment, and other areas. But neither Martin’s Act nor any subsequent animal-protection statute has altered the traditional legal status of animals as legal things.

The modern animal rights movement

The fundamental principle of the modern animal rights movement is that many nonhuman animals have basic interests that deserve recognition, consideration, and protection. In the view of animal rights advocates, these basic interests give the animals that have them both moral and legal rights.

It has been said that the modern animal rights movement is the first social reform movement initiated by philosophers. The Australian philosopher Peter Singer and the American philosopher Tom Regan deserve special mention, not just because their work has been influential but because they represent two major currents of philosophical thought regarding the moral rights of animals. Singer, whose book Animal Liberation (1972) is considered one of the movement’s foundational documents, argues that the interests of humans and the interests of animals should be given equal consideration. A utilitarian, Singer holds that actions are morally right to the extent that they maximize pleasure or minimize pain; the key consideration is whether an animal is sentient and can therefore suffer pain or experience pleasure. This point was emphasized by the founder of modern utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham, who wrote of animals, “The question is not, Can they reason?, nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” Given that animals can suffer, Singer argues that humans have a moral obligation to minimize or avoid causing such suffering, just as they have an obligation to minimize or avoid causing the suffering of other humans. Regan, who is not a utilitarian, argues that at least some animals have basic moral rights because they possess the same advanced cognitive abilities that justify the attribution of basic moral rights to humans. By virtue of these abilities, these animals have not just instrumental but inherent value. In Regan’s words, they are “the subject of a life.”

Regan, Singer, and other philosophical proponents of animal rights have encountered resistance. Some religious authors argue that animals are not as deserving of moral consideration as humans are because only humans possess an immortal soul. Others claim, as did the Stoics, that because animals are irrational, humans have no duties toward them. Still others locate the morally relevant difference between humans and animals in the ability to talk, the possession of free will, or membership in a moral community (a community whose members are capable of acting morally or immorally). The problem with these counterarguments is that, with the exception of the theological argument—which cannot be demonstrated—none differentiates all humans from all animals.

While philosophers catalyzed the modern animal rights movement, they were soon joined by physicians, writers, scientists, academics, lawyers, theologians, psychologists, nurses, veterinarians, and other professionals, who worked within their own fields to promote animal rights. Many professional organizations were established to educate colleagues and the general public regarding the exploitation of animals.

At the beginning of the 21st century, lawsuits in the interests of nonhuman animals, sometimes with nonhuman animals named as plaintiffs, became common. Given the key positions that lawyers hold in the creation of public policy and the protection of rights, their increasing interest in animal rights and animal-protection issues was significant. Dozens of law schools in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere offered courses in animal law and animal rights; the Animal Legal Defense Fund had created an even greater number of law-student chapters in the United States; and at least three legal journals—Animal Law Review, Journal of Animal Law, and Journal of Animal Law and Ethics—had been established. Legal scholars were devising and evaluating theories by which nonhuman animals would possess basic legal rights, often for the same reasons as humans do and on the basis of the same legal principles and values. These arguments were powerfully assisted by increasingly sophisticated scientific investigations into the cognitive, emotional, and social capacities of animals and by advances in genetics, neuroscience, physiology, linguistics, psychology, evolution, and ethology, many of which have demonstrated that humans and animals share a broad range of behaviours, capacities, and genetic material.

Meanwhile, the increasingly systemic and brutal abuses of animals in modern society—by the billions on factory farms and by the tens of millions in biomedical-research laboratories—spawned thousands of animal rights groups. Some consisted of a mere handful of people interested in local, and more traditional, animal-protection issues, such as animal shelters that care for stray dogs and cats. Others became large national and international organizations, such as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and the Humane Society of the United States, which in the early 21st century had millions of members and a multimillion-dollar annual budget. In all their manifestations, animal rights groups began to inundate legislatures with demands for regulation and reform.

Slaves, human and nonhuman, may be indirectly protected through laws intended to protect others. But they remain invisible to civil law, for they have no rights to protect directly until their legal personhood is recognized. This recognition can occur in a variety of ways. British slavery was abolished by judicial decision in the 18th century, and slavery in the British colonies was ended by statute early in the 19th century. By constitutional amendment, the United States ended slavery three decades later. Legal personhood for some animals may be obtained through any of these routes. The first serious direct judicial challenges to the legal thinghood of nonhuman animals may be just a few years away.

Image: Steven M. Wise; courtesy of the author.

For historical perspective from Encyclopaedia Britannica’s 4th Edition (1801-1809), see the article “Brute.”

To Learn More:

How Can I Help?

Books We Like

Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals

Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals
Steven M. Wise (2000)

Rattling the Cage makes a compelling case for recognizing basic legal rights for chimpanzees and bonobos (the two species of the genus Pan), the closest cousins of human beings in evolutionary terms. Wise, an animal rights lawyer, argues that these animals are entitled to, at a minimum, the rights to “bodily integrity” and “bodily liberty,” because they possess intellectual characteristics and abilities that traditional common law regards as justifying such rights in humans. Basic principles of fairness and equity, Wise insists, demand that chimpanzees and bonobos be recognized as “legal persons” (with rights and interests that the law must respect) rather than merely as “legal things.”

The book includes an enlightening history of the status of animals in the law and a fascinating survey of scientific research on chimpanzee and bonobo minds, indicating that these animals are the intellectual equals of young human children. The most affecting aspect of Wise’s argument, however, consists of the stories of individual chimpanzees, bonobos, and other animals whose legal “thinghood” allowed humans to torture and abuse them with impunity. The victims include Lucy, a chimpanzee who was taught American Sign Language and delighted in brewing tea for her human guests; after being sold by her owners at 12, she was shot, skinned, and hacked apart for trophies.

Wise does not think that only the members of genus Pan are entitled to legal personhood; other animals, depending on their abilities, should have some or all of the same rights. (He mentions the case of Alex, an African gray parrot, who “not only understands shapes, colors, and materials, but can tell you—in English—how objects that he has never seen differ in shape, color, or material and whether they are made of cork, wood, paper, or rawhide.”) But the argument for extending legal personhood to beings outside our species is now strongest for chimpanzees and bonobos, and the decision to accord personhood to them would pave the way for cases on behalf of other animals.



15 Replies to “Animal Rights”


  2. Hi. I am sure all of you have already seen in the news that the “Animal Control Department” in San Juan, Puerto Rico threw several dozen cats and dogs off a 50′ bridge alive and aware, to their deaths. I understand that homeless animals running around town are a nuissance, but that is no way to handle the problem. It didn’t sound to me that they even tried to find them good homes. They collected them, then threw them over. And instead of properly buying them, they put a white powder substance on them to keep the smell down when they decay. My heart broke into over this. These people are the “professionals” that are supposed to care. That is their job. I also wrote to the Govenor of Puerto Rico, as well as our President. I’m sure nothing will be done to these murderers or to prevent it from happening again. But everything we can do is worth trying. Thank you.

  3. hi there just about 3 weeks my brother shot a deer he did all the proper techiques in order to eat the deer but he just let it sit out and the meat went bad. could that be consider invasion of animal rights

  4. Animals were the first and most reliable friends of human being throughout the civilization. Every one is in search of pleasure. Everyone fights against pains. Pleasure is the quintessence of each and every being either animals or human beings. All animals deserve for libery and life by birth. Reason is another aspect. First thing is life. Then pleasure. Man posses reason so he alwayas claims for superiority. But apart from reason, man is equivalent to other beings. Thus he can not claim for life and liberty of other beings.

    (Edited by moderator to change from all-capitals to upper- and lower-case. Please do not type in ALL CAPITALS.)

  5. The Victoria SPCA claims they only euthanize very sick dogs or dogs that are deemed dangerous and have been looked at by behaviour specialists. They killed my daughters and her husband three year old healthy shepard cross immediately without looking at him they took him out of the back of my car and drove him off in a van and killed him at the Elk Lake Vet within less than an hour, without informing my daughter, the bylaw officer was shocked he was not a dangerous dog, he was gentle and now the head of B.C. SPCA just block our emails. This is murder and they do not have to answer to anyone because they are non profit.

  6. Tonight, I took my adopted Staffordshire to Walgreens to pick up a RX. As I was paying for my transaction, a Walgreens employee screaming and hollering to kick Bob (my dog) out of her store. I ask for the manager and said I am the manager. She was so cruel,verbally abusive to Bob that when we got back home, two police unit and two police officer knock at my door. She charge me with Terroristic Threat and issued a Criminal Trespassing warning. Now, any member of my family is not allowed to set foot in Walgreens. Walgreens certainly fill RX for dogs and others but when they come to their stablishment they immediately kick them out. Why should we all continue to support them? What right does Bob Have? What give this woman the right to verbally abusive him? NO ONE should continue to fill any RX or purchase any thing at Walgreens. I encourage any one who loves their pets (a member of the family) to discontinue all Walgreens. I recently rescue Bob from Happy Endings in Cedar Park Texas. I Love Bob he is our family.

  7. I was also thinking of citing this article in my paper, and I would like to know who the author is, and whether or not this article is from a book/magazine/etc.

  8. A true to life case study: Would it make any difference if the sentient animals were human?

    My female canine was unlawfully drugged, trapped and seized on January 23, 2011 because she allegedly got out of her yard and she “could have gotten injured, shot or killed” (she “could have been a victim of an imaginary anticipated crime”) based on speculation and conjecture of the prosecution. On January 25, 2011, she gave birth to four puppies. The puppies’ father and I have been emotionally sick for months as I have been fighting with the courts to release our sentient non human children and bring them home. (I fired my expensive attorney who pleaded me guilty to seven dog running at large citations for the return of my dogs. Four of the tickets were cited for a German shepherd running at large that I do not/did not own and three of the tickets were cited without evidence, ie, no one in court could state that on the dates and times listed on the tickets that my dogs were running at large. The animal control reports for the three corresponding tickets stated that Akitas and a “possible husky mix” were running at large. Due to a combination of the “home cookin’ small town justice” and my former lawyer’s ineffective representation and/or incompetence, this strategy failed. Additional Facts of this manifest injustice will be provided upon request.)
    What are the effects of such inhumane, cruel and unusual punishment, ie, allowing innocent sentient beings to exist in 3′ X 4′ cages for 23+ hours per day for months? Can they develop irreparable muscle atrophy, neurosis, depression?
    The wardens in the animal jail have refused to release any information regarding my sentient non human children’s health conditions in six months. One of the “directors” told me, “You’re dogs are mine now, I’ll do what I want with them.”
    Commonwealth of Virginia attorneys who I know and trust have advised that dogs cannot be seized save cruelty, abuse or neglect; and the Law is on my side. Based on this Fact, I Know I will prevail in a Court of Justice. Unfortunately, in the meantime, my sentient non human children are suffering.
    Will you please help us?! Time is of the essence.
    The irony of this tragedy is that I represent a staunch animal rights advocate (of the abolitionist position based on sentience alone) as evidenced by love and treatment of my sentient non human children, advocacy of animal rights laws and legislation as well as faithful practice of veganism.
    Legal offenders:
    Warren County “Humane” Society-540-635-4734
    animal control deputies who are trained to clean up dead possum in the road-540-635-4128

  9. My cousin ran over my dog last evening. He called taunting me that it happened afterward. He has been cruel to her for 4 years. He has bullied her so that she knows when he is coming down our dirt road and chases him. She is an English Shepherd and has a natural instinct to protect her herd/family. She only chases him. I recently had a hysterectomy and was not suppose to lift her last night. I am now getting ready to lift her again and take her to the Animal ER in Hattiesburg, MS. What are my dog’s rights? My cousin has not only threatened my dog but also me and my children. I don’t have the money to pay a vet bill. I have talked to the sheriff’s office numerous times about him driving fast and his threats. In the past, it has seemed my cousin has more rights than us – his victims. My dog has only done what her instincts has told her – to guard her herd.

Leave a Reply
