Abstract

The common view that animals cannot have rights is mainly based on the claim that they lack of rational capacity peculiar to humans. Because it is this capacity that makes humans to be moral personhood, to have a sense of right and wrong, be part of a moral community, to be able to recognise the rights of themselves and to be able, in return, to undertake obligations that arise from otheher’s legitimate interests and rights. Such features peculiar to humans, we argue, can only expand the scope and degree of rights for them. But this does not mean that some animals cannot have any rights. Those animals capable of experiencing pain have a right not to be exposed to pain caused by humans; and have a right to maintain a life that does not involve confinemet caused by humans. Hence, practical consequences of recognisnig these rights would require us to abolish all forms of factory farming; many kinds of experiments performed on animals; and many other human practices on animals, which violete these rights