Many people believe that humans are the only creatures that have rights.

However because rights are a human construct, it is our choice as to who or what has rights.  It can't be claimed that animals inherently don't (or do) have rights.  From the perspective of our interactions with animals, animal rights come from exactly the same place that human rights do: from us.  We can choose to give animals rights (or not) in exactly the same way that we choose to give ourselves and each other rights, by agreeing on them and creating them.  

We can't excuse our mistreatment of animals by saying animals don't have rights; we are always at liberty, either as individuals or as a society, to give rights to animals, and if we don't, that's our choice, and it's part of our world view.  In the end, it's our choice about our own morality and about the society and culture that we want to create.

This page is linked from:

misusing the concept of rights

Agree? Disagree? Make a comment!  (Comments are moderated)