Animal rights: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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'''Animal rights''', also referred to as '''animal liberation''', is the idea that the [[rights|most basic interests]] of [[animal]]snon-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings.<ref name=EB3>"[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9007642/animal-rights Animal Rights]." ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. 2007.</ref> Advocates approach the issue from different philosophical positions, but agree that animals should be viewed as non-human [[person]]s and members of the moral community, and should not be used as food, clothing, research subjects, or entertainment.<ref name=lead>[http://www.aamc.org/newsroom/reporter/oct03/animalrights.htm "'Personhood' Redefined: Animal Rights Strategy Gets at the Essence of Being Human"], Association of American Medical Colleges, retrieved July 12, 2006; Taylor, Angus. [http://books.google.com/books?id=5oCdPwAACAAJ ''Animals and Ethics: An Overview of the Philosophical Debate''], Broadview Press, 2009.</ref> They argue that human beings should stop seeing other [[Sentience|sentient beings]] as property, rather than as property to be treated kindly.<ref>For example, Steiner, Gary. In Gary Francione (ed.). ''Animals as persons: essays on the abolition of animal exploitation''. Columbia University Press, 2008, p. ix ff.</ref>

They argue that animals be regarded as [[sentience|sentient]] [[being]]s, and that human beings should stop seeing other sentient beings as property, rather than as property to be treated kindly.<ref>For example, Steiner, Gary. In Gary Francione (ed.). ''Animals as persons: essays on the abolition of animal exploitation''. Columbia University Press, 2008, p. ix ff.</ref>

The idea of awarding rights to animals has the support of legal scholars such as [[Alan Dershowitz]] and [[Laurence Tribe]] of [[Harvard Law School]],<ref>See Dershowitz, Alan. ''Rights from Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights'', 2004, pp. 198–99; "Darwin, Meet Dershowitz," ''The Animals' Advocate'', Winter 2002, volume 21; [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-257091/animal-rights "Animal Rights: The Modern Animal Rights Movement"], ''Encyclopaedia Britannica Online''. 2007; and [http://www.aamc.org/newsroom/reporter/oct03/animalrights.htm "'Personhood' Redefined: Animal Rights Strategy Gets at the Essence of Being Human"], Association of American Medical Colleges, retrieved July 12, 2006.</ref> while Toronto lawyer [[Clayton Ruby]] argued in 2008 that the movement had reached the stage the [[LGBT social movements|gay rights movement]] was at 25 years earlier.<ref name=Dube>Dube, Rebecca. [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080715.wxlpetting15/BNStory/lifeMain/home The new legal hot topic: animal law], ''The Globe and Mail'', July 15, 2008.</ref> [[Animal law]] is taught in 117 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.<ref>Dube, Rebecca. [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080715.wxlpetting15/BNStory/lifeMain/home The new legal hot topic: animal law], ''The Globe and Mail'', July 15, 2008; [http://aldf.org/article.php?id=445 "Animal law courses"], [[Animal Legal Defense Fund]]; Garner, Robert. ''Animals, politics and morality''. Manchester University Press, 2004, p. 4 ff.</ref>