The modern animal rights movement

The fundamental principle of the modern animal rights movement is that many nonhuman animals have basic interests that deserve recognition, consideration, and protection. In the view of animal rights advocates, these basic interests give the animals that have them both moral and legal rights.

It has been said that the modern animal rights movement is the first social reform movement initiated by philosophers. The Australian philosopher Peter Singer and the American philosopher Tom Regan deserve special mention, not just because their work has been influential but because they represent two major currents of philosophical thought regarding the moral rights of animals. Singer, whose book Animal Liberation (1975) is considered one of the movement’s foundational documents, argues that the interests of humans and the interests of animals should be given equal consideration. A utilitarian, Singer holds that actions are morally right to the extent that they maximize pleasure or minimize pain; the key consideration is whether an animal is sentient and can therefore suffer pain or experience pleasure. This point was emphasized by the founder of modern utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham, who wrote of animals, “The question is not, Can they reason?, nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” Given that animals can suffer, Singer argues that humans have a moral obligation to minimize or avoid causing such suffering, just as they have an obligation to minimize or avoid causing the suffering of other humans. Regan, who is not a utilitarian, argues that at least some animals have basic moral rights because they possess the same advanced cognitive abilities that justify the attribution of basic moral rights to humans. By virtue of these abilities, these animals have not just instrumental but inherent value. In Regan’s words, they are “the subject of a life.”

Regan, Singer, and other philosophical proponents of animal rights have encountered resistance. Some religious authors argue that animals are not as deserving of moral consideration as humans are because only humans possess an immortal soul. Others claim, as did the Stoics, that because animals are irrational, humans have no duties toward them. Still others locate the morally relevant difference between humans and animals in the ability to talk, the possession of free will, or membership in a moral community (a community whose members are capable of acting morally or immorally). The problem with these counterarguments is that, with the exception of the theological argument—which cannot be demonstrated—none differentiates all humans from all animals.

While philosophers catalyzed the modern animal rights movement, they were soon joined by physicians, writers, scientists, academics, lawyers, theologians, psychologists, nurses, veterinarians, and other professionals, who worked within their own fields to promote animal rights. Many professional organizations were established to educate colleagues and the general public regarding the exploitation of animals.

At the beginning of the 21st century, lawsuits in the interests of nonhuman animals, sometimes with nonhuman animals named as plaintiffs, became common. Given the key positions that lawyers hold in the creation of public policy and the protection of rights, their increasing interest in animal rights and animal-protection issues was significant. Dozens of law schools in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere offered courses in animal law and animal rights; the Animal Legal Defense Fund had created an even greater number of law-student chapters in the United States; and at least three legal journals—Animal Law, Journal of Animal Law, and Journal of Animal Law and Ethics—had been established. Legal scholars were devising and evaluating theories by which nonhuman animals would possess basic legal rights, often for the same reasons as humans do and on the basis of the same legal principles and values. These arguments were powerfully assisted by increasingly sophisticated scientific investigations into the cognitive, emotional, and social capacities of animals and by advances in genetics, neuroscience, physiology, linguistics, psychology, evolution, and ethology, many of which have demonstrated that humans and animals share a broad range of behaviours, capacities, and genetic material.

Meanwhile, the increasingly systemic and brutal abuses of animals in modern society—by the billions on factory farms and by the tens of millions in biomedical-research laboratories—spawned thousands of animal rights groups. Some consisted of a mere handful of people interested in local, and more traditional, animal-protection issues, such as animal shelters that care for stray dogs and cats. Others became large national and international organizations, such as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and the Humane Society of the United States, which in the early 21st century had millions of members and a multimillion-dollar annual budget. In all their manifestations, animal rights groups began to inundate legislatures with demands for regulation and reform.

Slaves, human and nonhuman, may be indirectly protected through laws intended to protect others. But they remain invisible to civil law, for they have no rights to protect directly until their legal personhood is recognized. This recognition can occur in a variety of ways. British slavery was abolished by judicial decision in the 18th century, and slavery in the British colonies was ended by statute early in the 19th century. By constitutional amendment, the United States ended slavery three decades later. Legal personhood for some animals may be obtained through any of these routes.

In 2013 the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) filed petitions in three trial courts in the state of New York demanding that common law writs of habeas corpus be issued on behalf of four captive chimpanzees—Tommy, Kiko, Hercules, and Leo. The petitions implicitly asked that the courts recognize that chimpanzees are legal persons who possess the fundamental legal right to bodily liberty. After all three petitions were denied, the cases moved to the New York state appellate courts, where two of the petitions (on behalf of Tommy and Kiko) were rejected on differing grounds and the third (on behalf of Hercules and Leo) was thrown out for lack of the right to appeal. The NhRP then indicated its intention to appeal Tommy’s and Kiko’s cases to New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, and to refile Hercules and Leo’s petition in another jurisdiction. Meanwhile, the organization prepared to file additional lawsuits on behalf of other chimpanzees and elephants.