Do Animals Have Rights?

[BidenPresident]

This year, Peter Singer published Animal Liberation Now, a significantly updated version of his 1975 animal rights classic. Both the original and revised text argue that humans should refrain from inflicting unnecessary suffering on non-human animals.

Unfortunately, the philosophically weakest part of Singer’s influential argument is his claim that ‘the capacity for suffering and enjoyment is a prerequisite for having interests, a condition that must be satisfied before we can properly speak of interests at all’.

https://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2023/11/is-animal-liberation-speciesist/

Why do animals matter more that trees or carrots?

 

[NiftyNiblick]

Why do animals matter more that trees or carrots?

To me, animals matter more than trees or carrots
because I'm an animal,
not some form of vegetation,
which is admittedly also a living thing.

Homo Sapiens is just one of many species in the animal kingdom,
so if animals have no rights,
how can we claim any for ourselves?

I would recognize more legitimate rights for my avatar
than for most of the devolved mutants on this forum,
and while I'm at, even the humans as well.
We're talking about MY dog, after all.

I would probably seek the fewest rights for those
who believe that the human being is some spiritual creature
made in the image of an almighty deity.

I'm sure than some will disagree,
but I admit to being extremely comfortable with my position.

The caveat being, do we really have rights? Any of us?

After serious observation over eight decades,
I see mostly indications that life just happens to us.

How do rights fit into that paradigm?