Animal Rights
You are getting this page because I think you've written a paper that begins to touch on the question of animal rights, or because you're choosing to write about animal rights.
I would now like you to consider the question of whether those animals that are not persons, nevertheless have some rights.
The first thing to do is consider why humans have rights. (If they do.) Then, once you have worked out a non-arbitrary set of reasons, work out which of those reasons, and to what degree, also apply to certain non-human animals.
As you are thinking about this topic, it is important to remember that your reason for assigning rights to humans be non-arbitrary. That is, it has to be something that reasonably can be thought to create moral rights, and not something that was chosen just because non-human animals don't appear to have it. That would be just as arbitrary as assigning rights based on skin color, gender or sexual orientation.
It may help you to look at some of the following links:
"Pro" links to sites supporting animal rights:
Philosophy of Animal Rights - Culture & Animals Foundation
Arguments for Animal Rights - The Works of Saikat Guha
10 Stupid Arguments - Animal Liberation Front
"Con" links to sites opposing animal rights:
The Problem of Animal Rights - The Atlas Society
ANIMALS DON'T HAVE RIGHTS: - Libertarian Alliance
Winning the Animal Rights Debate - David Sztybel Home
(This writer claims to be for animal rights, but he puts a lot of efort into criticizing animal rights arguments, and declaring them to be faulty, so I'm putting his work in the "con" side here.
Remember to always do your own thinking. I don't want to see any papers in which the writer simply repeats the opinions of one or another writer. Get arguments on both sides, and think critically about both those arguments. If you don't, you might get zero on this assignment.
Advanced analysis. (Only do this one if you really want to do something complicated.)
Carl Cohen's 'Kind' Arguments For Animal Rights and ...
Carl Cohen's 'kind' arguments for animal rights and against ...
Copyright © 2015 by Martin C. Young
