Do the animals we rely on for food, clothing and medicine deserve legal protections from human action? Conversely, are animals simply property whose sole purpose is to serve humans? These questions are ones that philosophers, spiritual leaders, legal scholars and legislators struggle to answer, and they represent the core issue at the heart of the debate over animal rights.

The animal rights debate

How humans view and socially construct animals has been a centuries-old debate. In the seventeenth century, philosopher René Descartes argued that animals are machine-like things operating solely on instinct: they have no capacity to suffer. It was therefore preposterous to suggest that animals deserved protections from harm. Today, most people recognize that animals are not mere machines but instead have consciousness, self-awareness and the capacity to experience pleasure and pain. Given that humans now recognize animals can experience suffering, philosophers and activists alike insist that humans have a moral obligation to treat animals in a manner that respects their interests not to suffer (see Singer, 2002; Taylor, 2009).

More specifically, they argue that animals are deserving of protections from unnecessary harm via rights. Rights are legal provisions that acknowledge and protect the interests of others. The precise extent to which humans ought to protect animals is hotly debated, even within the animal rights movement.

The ‘animal welfare movement’ believes humans have an obligation to minimize animal suffering whenever possible; however, humans are free to use animals for food, clothing and entertainment. The ‘animal liberation movement’ argues that any unnecessary infliction of pain or suffering on animals is immoral, and that animals are not for humans to eat, wear or use for entertainment purposes since these uses are wants, not necessities. Clearly, how we choose to conceptualize and legally construct animals has far reaching implications, especially for the world’s rural and farming communities where the use of animals is a way of life. In some cases, the recognition of animal rights can even criminalize previously legal and culturally accepted behaviours, such as certain farming practices or the hunting of legally protected species.