Animal Rights

Ethics in Progress, 2014

Review of: Dorota Probucka (2013). Filozoficzne podstawy idei praw zwierząt [Philosophical foundations of the animal rights concept], pp. 352, Cracow: Universitas

Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, 2020

University of North Bengal, 2020

Animals have always played a great role in our life but the literature on social justice, and social justice movements themselves, routinely ignore animals as legitimate subject of social justice. The reason is very clear that the place of animals in human morality was absent and often they consider them as the property and use it however they want. Prior there were no laws; Aristotle and Aquinas believed animals exist to serve human requirement and the ethical treatment of animals were appears to be optional. But after the rise of utilitarianism with the idea of pleasure and pain, including animal pain promotes the humane treatment of animals and the era of animal welfare movement started. Against this background, the author will highlight how the level of enlightenment within our society has increased in the last several years and will examine various philosophical theories pertaining to animal rights that have evolved over a period of time that made the emergence of animal right as a separate legal discipline.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2002

Do animals have rights? Almost everyone believes in animal rights, at least in some minimal sense; the real question is what that phrase actually means. By exploring that question, it is possible to give a clear sense of the lay of the land-to show the range of possible positions, and to explore what issues, of theory or fact, separate reasonable people. On reflection, the spotlight should be placed squarely on the issue of suffering and well-being. This position requires rejection of some of the most radical claims by animal rights advocates, especially those that stress the "autonomy" of animals, or that object to any human control and use of animals. But this position has radical implications of its own. It strongly suggests, for example, that there should be extensive regulation of the use of animals in entertainment, in scientific experiments, and in agriculture. It also suggests that there is a strong argument, in principle, for bans on many current uses of animals.

Animal Frontiers, 2020

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1986

This dissertation defends the following thesis: the legal status of non-human animals as property is politically illegitimate. Instead, I argue that humans should be legally understood as guardians over those animals under their tenure. This guardianship relation involves limits on what humans may do to animals, limits which do not currently exist in our society. Most notably, guardians are required to act in the interest of their wards, and so guardians cannot kill or transfer the animals under their tenure unless doing so would be best (or at least good) for the animal. My position broadly fits with, but importantly differs from, much of the recent political philosophy literature focused on animals. I agree that ownership is inappropriate, but argue that considerations of political legitimacy lead us to the guardianship relation rather than full legal personhood. This position falls out of taking seriously the public reason challenge to justice for animals, which appeals to public reason liberalism to argue that the pursuit of justice for animals would be illegitimate. Thus, I examine important debates in public reason liberalism to develop an attractive model of that theory of legitimacy and then apply it to the question of the legal status of animals.

Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 2020

With legal animal rights on the horizon, there is a need for a more systematic theorisation of animal rights as legal rights. This article addresses conceptual , doctrinal and normative issues relating to the nature and foundations of legal animal rights by examining three key questions: can, do and should animals have legal rights? It will show that animals are conceptually possible candidates for rights ascriptions. Moreover, certain 'animal welfare rights' could arguably be extracted from existing animal welfare laws, even though these are currently imperfect and weak legal rights at best. Finally, this article introduces the new conceptual vocabulary of simple and fundamental animal rights, in order to distinguish the weak legal rights that animals may be said to have as a matter of positive law from the kind of strong legal rights that animals ought to have as a matter of future law.