What is a right? And do animals have them?

Question

A civil war was fought in North America over the 'right' of a man to be free. Many years later Martin Luther King led a movement, against sometimes fierce resistance, to establish those rights.

This is a clear case to me of rights being denied, fought for, and eventually accepted.

I would guess that most people in the world are now against slavery.

In this context do animals have rights? If so who fought for them? Who granted them?

Please keep you answers fairly short.

I am sorry not to have made myself clear,

In Britain, for example, people have the right to vote once they reach the age of 18. This is a right which we all understand, although we may not agree.

That right is withheld from a few categories, like the Lords of the Realm and the criminally insane, so they do not have the right to vote.

I accept that we have a duty towards our animals but do they have rights?

It is not enough to say they are like us in everything but form.

We put down dogs that bite, bulls that gore, we exterminate rats, or try to.

I ask again what is an 'Animal Right'?

Answer 1

Well it's kind of hard to answer all that you asked and keep it short at the same time.

What is a right?

There has been an increasing tendency on the part of people to speak of rights as if they were principles, that is, starting points of moral and political argument. This is a serious problem, because rights are not principles, but conclusions.

If a person makes claim to certain rights, he must be able to carefully demonstrate his claim, and the only way to do this is to ground them in duties. The reason is that rights and duties are the same reality. They are correlative to one another.

For example, my right to life is nothing other than your duty not to kill me. As a moral theologian Germain Grisez is wont to point out, rights presuppose duties. He writes: "We can clarify and defend statements about rights only by identifying the duties underlying them and showing where they come from ... there are as many kinds of rights as there are duties towards others".

Not all rights are on an equal footing, because not all rights are of the same kind. Some moral norms are absolute, while some are not. My right to have fulfilled those promises made to me is not absolute, because your duty to keep your promises is not absolute. Should you receive news of the sudden passing of a sibling or parent, you may break your promise to me to play golf on the weekend. You are not violating any moral principles in doing so, and I'd be acting unfairly should I require you to keep it.

But your duty not to kill me is absolute. Thus my right to life is inalienable; for it is not possible to choose to kill me without violating a very important moral principle, namely, that one should not attack a basic human good for the sake of some end.

(see the following link)
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-2385435_ITM
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And do animals have them?

'Animal Rights' is the movement to protect non human animals from being used or regarded as property by humans. It is a radical social movement insofar as it aims not only to attain more humane treatment for animals, which is the sole focus of animal welfare, but also to include species other than human beings within the moral community by giving their basic interests — for example, the interest in avoiding suffering — the same consideration as those of human beings. The claim is that animals should no longer be regarded legally or morally as property, or treated as resources for human purposes, but should instead be regarded as persons.

Animal law courses are now taught in 69 out of 180 United States law schools, and the idea of extending personhood to animals has the support of some senior legal scholars. There also is campaigning for the United Nations to adopt a Declaration on Great Apes, which would see gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees and bonobos included in a "community of equals" with human beings, extending to them the protection of three basic interests: the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture. This is seen by an increasing number of animal rights lawyers as a first step toward granting rights to other animals.

(See the following link)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_rights

Answer 2

Not yet, but they should. Children & animals are unfortunatety still killed with the perpetrators getting off with a slap on the wrist. Every time someone is arrested for animal abuse, the news says if convicted, they could face 5 years in jail, etc, but they never do. They get a fine at best. I have been doing animal rescues & have been a foster home all of my adult life. I've seen some things no decent person should see. And, no animal should have to endure. I have a one-eyed Ger-Shep mix & a pit bull now. I'm walking the walk, not just talking the talk.

Answer 3

Animals do have limited legal rights in this country. How ever, millions of people are fighting over this issue every day. There are thousands of groups set up out there to protect animals. There are animal cops in most cities, that only go after people abusing their pets or other animals. Essentially, we are all animals. We are all sharing the same planet, us as humans wouldn't be here without our furry friends, so it is up to us to protect them and respect their right to live.

Answer 4

Animals have rights in as far that they deserve human-right style animal rights if they live in a domestic setting. They have the right to roam free in their own environment and should not be hunted for the sake of keeping cottage industries going. They should not be used for experimental medicine.

Answer 5

My answer has nothing to do with civil rights, or legal rights, but everthing to do with living right:

All living things have rights, since all living things are connected, what we do to one, we do to the whole, and like the wheel, with spokes, I see God as the hub, the centre of the wheel.

Since God connects us all to all other living things, and we are all related, and like the rim of any wheel, He envelops and holds us all in place, be we animal or vegetable, and since all living things are spiritual, it stands to reason that, when we hurt one, we hurt the whole, and weaken the wheel of life.

Caring, loving, sharing and nurturing, all other living things, can only strengthen this wheel of life, and afford us all, the eternal love of the Father, Creator, Diety, who made us.

And only in this fashion, can we fulfill the Creator's intentions from the outset.

Look at the world and global warming, at the damage to our planet from our greed, and selfishness, and cruelty, toward other peoples and toward other living things upon this planet... how we've raped it, then see how the earth cries out in pain and how life begins to fade and die, all because... we consider we are above all life forms, and can treat them with contempt.

The food chain is meant for all to share, all the way down its links, meant to cherish and to preserve, by taking 'just enough' for our daily needs, no more, no less, and there is and always was, plenty for all in abundance... and it multiplied and gave us life and cherished us for millions of years. If we'd only cared enough, we so called intellectuals, the highest form of life, to make laws to protect our 'living planet' and its life forces, and not only man, we would not all be terrified of the consequences we are facing now!

Answer 6

every life has a right to live. The superior animal who may feel threatened by that life has the right to defend itself. Whether that be spur of the moment or done well in advance, that is, kill. Other superior animals also have the right to fight for the rights of inferior lifeforms. So who gives a ****. At the end of the day, we all have the right to die.

Answer 7

Yes animals do have rights. Many animals are protected from hunting, mainly endangered species, and a person can't harm animals. There are many people out there fight form animal rights. There is PETA and other organizations out there for this cause.

Answer 8

Rights are an invention of human beings (as in Human Rights), and they are fundamentally derived from the human emotion of compassion. This is the ultimate distinguishing feature between us and other animals

Answer 9

Animals have more rights than children.
I agree we shouldn`t mis treat animals but its ridiculous that you can get a heavier prison sentence for cruelty to animals than you do for cruelity to children.
As for who fought for animal right, the do gooders as usual and the government as usual caved in and granted them

Answer 10

Animals have the same basic rights to life that humans do.