THIS HOUSE BELIEVES THAT ANIMALS

HAVE RIGHTS.
The claim that animals have 'rights' was first put forward by the Australian philosopher Peter Singer in
the 1970s and has been the subject of heated and emotional debates ever since. Often the same
organisations that campaign on environmental issues (e.g. Greenpeace) are also concerned for the
welfare of animals: both sets of concerns derive from a commitment to the value of Nature and the
Earth. The question of animal rights might well come up in a debate on biodiversity, and is one with
so many political and social implications that it is also worth having in its own right. This debate is
about the ethical principles at issue; the separate debates on biodiversity, vegetarianism, zoos, blood
sports, and animal experimentation deal with more of the concrete details.
Since the notion of rights was developed, society has slowly moved to include more and more groups
under the protection of those rights. It seems absurd now to suggest that women, the poor, and
people who are not Caucasian should not have rights. Some argue that it is equally absurd to exclude
animals. Will we someday regard the status quo as equally unethical as the time of slavery and
female oppression? Or do rights only extend as far as the human race? Can we treat animals in a
more ethical fashion without giving them rights? What would change if we did give animals rights?
A note on strategy: many harms can be identified by the proposition in this debate. We frequently
harm animals when we eat meat, wear leather or fur, engage in battery/factory farming, engage in
horseracing, scientific testing, hunting, trapping, and culling or keep animals in zoos, circuses and
rodeos. We even harm our own pets when we put them down, refuse to provide expensive medical
treatment, over or under feed them, neglect to pay them attention, keep them in small enclosures,
keep them in our handbags or cars or force them to perform in shows, wear clothes etc. We need to
protect animals with rights. The proposition will have to make some decisions as to which of these
activities they want to protect animals against. They need also to decide which rights they will grant
animals. Will it be all rights that human beings have? Will it be only the right to life? Gary Francione
argues that the only right animals need is the right not to be considered property.
The opposition does not have to argue that we can do whatever we want to animals. They may argue
that we have only indirect duties to animals or that we should still avoid cruelty to animals but should
not give them rights.
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POINTS FOR

POINTS AGAINST
We are at the top of the animal hierarchy and should treat other animals
accordingly in order to further our own species.

POINT
We have always been superior to animals. Just as a lion can kill antelope and a frog can kill insects,
so too human beings have struggled their way to the top of the food chain. Why then can we not
exercise the power we have earned? Animals exercise their power and we should do the same. It is
our natural obligation to do so.
The reason we have always killed animals is because we need them. We need meat to be healthy and
we need to test medicines on animals to protect our own race. We use animals to further our own
race. This too is surely a natural obligation.

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COUNTERPOINT
We are morally responsible creatures and we can survive perfectly well without being cruel to
animals. Animals are different because they need to hunt to survive and are not morally responsible.
The interests they satisfy by being cruel to other animals (namely the need to eat) are momentous
whereas the human need to wear a fur coat or have a tasty burger instead of a vegetarian pasta dish
is trivial. We even use animals for entertainment, something that by definition is unnecessary.

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Animals are not moral agents

POINT
It makes no sense to give animals rights because they cannot makes decisions about what is right
and wrong and will not try to treat us in an ethical manner in return. Why make them a moral agent
by giving them rights?

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COUNTERPOINT
There is a different between being morally responsible and being morally considerable. Human beings
are both. Moral responsibility implies a duty and therefore a capability to act in an ethical manner.
Animals can not of course be morally responsible as they do not have the intellectual capacity to
ascertain what is right and wrong, only instincts as to how to survive. We cannot expect animals to
be morally responsible but this does not mean that human beings do not have a duty to be morally
responsible. It would be ideal for all beings to act in an ethical manner but only humans are capable
of considering ethics and therefore we are the only morally responsible beings. Moral considerability
refers to whether or not a being deserves to be treated in an ethical manner. There is a burden on
the proposition to show why moral considerability relies on being morally responsible. Profoundly

retarded human beings and babies are unable to be morally responsible and yet we consider them to
be morally considerable.

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We only have indirect duties to animals

POINT
Philosophers such as Immanuel Kant argue that we only have indirect duties towards animals. This
means that we may not treat animals in such a manner that our actions are in conflict with our duties
towards human beings. A human has no duty towards a dog not to kick it but a human has a duty
towards the dog's owner not to damage his property. Pigs and cows are not loved by any human
being so we cause no harm when we kill and eat them. Though the farmer may have owned the cow
before, the beef becomes our possession when we purchase it. Wild animals are not owned by any
human being so we may do to them what we wish.
Some people argue that cruelty towards animals can lead to cruelty towards humans but there is no
evidence that people who work in slaughterhouses are more violent towards other people. In fact,
there seems little connection at all between how people treat animals and humans. A slave driver
may adore and pamper his dog but beat and kill his slaves.
If we have no direct duties to animals how can we grant them legal protection in the form of rights?
The law should only prevent us harming animals when that clearly harms other people. For example,
by killing a dog we infringe another person's human right to property.

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COUNTERPOINT
We clearly have direct duties to animals if we condemn the clubbing of baby seals and like activities.
Furthermore, it is not enough simply to state what duties we do and don't have. There needs to be a
reason why we do not have direct duties to animals. What distinguishes them from human beings
that might answer this question? We would argue that there is nothing. Animals unlike other
'property' can suffer and feel pain and have an interest in living.

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Animals have no interests or rationality

POINT

Some philosophers argue that only beings that are able to make rational choices can have moral
rights because the function of rights is to protect choice. Animals are not able to make rational
choices because they can only follow instinct, they cannot follow logic.
Some philosophers believe that the function of rights is to protect interests. An argument from R.G.
Frey argues that animals do not have interests because they do not have language. In order to desire
something one must believe that one does not currently have that something and therefore believe
that the statement I have x is false. One cannot have such a belief unless one knows how language
connects to the world. Animals cant talk so they certainly are unable to know what it is that the
sentence I have x means in the real world. Therefore animals cannot have desires. Without desires
animals cannot have interests. If the function of rights is to protect interests then animal rights serve
no purpose.[1]
[1] Frey, R,G. "Rights, Interests, Desires and Beliefs." Ethics for Everyday. (Benatar, D Ed.) McGraw
Hill: New York. 2002

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COUNTERPOINT
If only rational beings should be protected by rights then we should not protect babies or profoundly
retarded people; but this is absurd. Animals do make choices according to their preferences e.g. lions
choose a mate and dogs choose a spot to lie in the sun One is able to have interests without
language because it is easily possible to be aware of a desire and understand that desire even if one
does not think of that desire in words. Furthermore, there is some evidence that animals have
languages of their own e.g. dolphins, birds.The challenger can also reject either theory of rights in
favour of the other.

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Most rights have no bearing for animals

POINT
The right to dignity would mean nothing to an animal. Animals are incapable of being humiliated and
are not harmed by being reduced to human servitude. A dog is not ashamed of its nudity or having to
eat out of a bowl and wear a leash. Animals happily copulate and defecate in front of humans and
other animals. What exactly an undignified action might be for an animal it is difficult to say.
The right to education, to vote, to fair trial, to be innocent until proven guilty, to privacy, marriage,
nationality, religion, property, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, workers rights and shelter all
seem impossible to apply to animals.

If we specially tailor rights to animals then how is that different to the status quo where we have
certain laws protecting animals?

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COUNTERPOINT
There is no reason why the rights we grant animals need be the same rights that we grant human
beings. There may be laws that protect animals but these will be taken more seriously as rights
because of the status we give to rights. Furthermore there are several rights that do apply to
animals: the right to life, freedom of movement and the right not to be subjected to torture.

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POINTS FOR

POINTS AGAINST
Animals are intrinsically worthy of rights because they are sentient

POINT
Sentience is the property of being conscious. Sentience brings with it the ability to experience. There
is a massive difference in the way that we treat sentient and non-sentient beings instinctively. We see
nothing wrong with forming relationships with ones pets but we tend to deem people with emotional
relationships to objects mentally ill. Here we are talking about something more than sentimentality
but rather the kind of relationship in which one is concerned with the other partys emotional
wellbeing. We even feel concerned about the wellbeing of sentient beings which whom we do not
have a personal connection. For example we may feel upset when we see a dog run over on the
road. This would be a very difficult reaction to how we might feel if we see an object crushed by a
car. We feel moral outrage at the clubbing of seals.
The instinctive way which we differentiate between these two categories relates to the type of value
they have. Whilst objects have value because of how they affect us - e.g. they are useful or remind
us of a good time or person we believe that animals have intrinsic value.
This means that a sentient being must never be treated as a means rather than an end in and of
itself. Animals are sentient. Therefore, animals must not be treated as a means to an end but as
intrinsically valuable.

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COUNTERPOINT
First off, you are appealing to instincts which not everyone has. People who work on farms are happy
to slaughter animals. A lot of people do not own pets simply because they do not feel any affection
towards animals and care more for material objects. Many people do not care about the clubbing of
seals. It is human beings of course who perform these clubbing, murder sharks, poach etc.
Furthermore, it is irrational that people care about their pets because cows are equally as sentient as
animals yet people are happy to eat veal and battery farmed beef and clearly do not care about the
cow.
People treat pets as property. They buy and sell them, put them down when they contract illnesses
that are too expensive to treat, give them away when they move houses etc. These are things that
they certainly wouldnt do to human beings. If you want to argue according to what humans do
instinctively then we instinctively value humans more than animals and are happy to eat and kill
animals.
Furthermore, we do not think that using a descriptive claim- what humans feel instinctively- means
that you can then make a prescriptive claim that all sentient beings deserve equal consideration.
In many ways we treat other human beings as only extrinsically valuable. Neo-Malthusians believe we
should allow the poor to die of hunger to ensure that the current population does not suffer from the
scarcity that arises from overpopulation. Many wars have involved killing lots of people to achieve
political aims. Therefore, we often treat humans as extrinsically valuable.

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Speciesism is wrong

POINT
Just as racism is wrongful discrimination against beings of a different race and sexism is wrongful
discrimination against a being of a different gender, speciesism is wrongful discrimination against a
being of a different species. Wrongful discrimination occurs when there is no other reason for the
discrimination except the mere fact that the being is of the race, sex, or species that they are. For
example, if an employer refuses to employ a black woman over a white woman because she has an
inferior qualification this is justified discrimination whereas if he refuses to employ the black woman
simply because she is black then this is wrongful discrimination. Human beings are speciesist towards
animals because we sacrifice their most important needs for our trivial desires: their life for our
enjoyment of a burger.
You might think that we are allowed to have special relationships to people that are similar to us but
there is a difference between special relationships and being active cruel and discriminatory. Our
evolutionary instinct to protect our own species may not be ethically correct in contemporary society.
Similarly, we ought not to 'put down' animals who are too expensive to care for. We do not allow
human beings to kill off their children when they experience financial difficulty because we believe

that human beings value their lives. It would be justifiable to kill off something that has no interest in
living, such as a plant, but since we believe that animals do have an interest in living it would be
speciesist to kill off a puppy simply because it is not human. We know that society believes animals
have an interest in living sometimes because there is outcry when baby seals are clubbed or when
elephants are poached for their ivory. Yet at other times we are happy to eat animal flesh and wear
leather. This is a contradictory stance. We ought to be consistent in our views and to condemn
speciesists.
Refusing animals rights is speciesist. Speciesism is wrong. Therefore, it is wrong to deny animals
rights.

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COUNTERPOINT
We agree that speciesism is wrong but we do not think that refusing animals rights is speciesist
because there are relevant moral differences between animals and humans.
Or: There is nothing wrong with speciesism. It is natural to value the lives of one's own species more
than those of another species because we are programmed that way by evolution. We are expected
to care more about our own families than about strangers and similarly to value the lives of our own
species more than those of animals. It is only natural and right that if we had to choose between a
human baby and a dog being killed we should choose the baby.

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Animals are equal to human beings.

POINT
It is true that animals and human beings are different. It is also true that men are different from
women and children from adults. Equality does not require beings to be identical. It is true that whilst
many people argue women should have the right to abortion, no one argues the same for men
because men are unable to have an abortion. It is similarly true that whilst most people believe all
human beings have a right to vote, no one argues that animals deserve a right to vote even those
who support animal rights.
Equality does not mean that beings all deserve the exact same treatment. It means rather that we
consider equally the equal interests of animals and humans. If we deem amount A to be the
maximum amount of suffering a person be allowed to endure, then that should apply equally to an
animal, though humans and animals may suffer different amounts under different circumstances.

The principle of equality advocates equal consideration, so it still allows for different treatment and
different rights. Equality is a prescriptive rather than a descriptive concept. Whats important is that
beings should ONLY be treated differently where there is a morally relevant difference between them.
For example, we can justifiably deny dogs the right to vote because there is a relevant difference in
intelligence between dogs and humans. However, there is no justification for battery-farming chickens
who have a capacity to suffer. There is evidence that they experience fear, pain and discomfort.
Although chickens may be less intelligent and unable to speak , these differences are not morally
relevant to whether or not they should be placed in these conditions.
We ought to consider animals equally to the way we consider humans. If we were to do so we would
give animals rights. We ought therefore to give animals rights.

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COUNTERPOINT
Equality requires that two beings are actually equal on some fundamental level. Human beings have
certain essential similarities that make them equal. These do not stretch to animals. Human beings
are able to distinguish right from wrong while animals have no notion of ethics. We are thus able to
consider what kind of a society we want to live in and we are affected when we feel that there is
social degradation. Animals, however, do not have this sense. We have fundamental dignity which
animals do not. This is clear in the fact that animals do not experience shame or embarrassment,
desire respect, or have a notion of self. Furthermore, human beings can consider their future and
have particular desires about how they want their life to play out. These are different for every
individual. This is why we are concerned with choice and protecting individualism and religion.
Animals on the other hand are concerned only with immediate survival. They have only instincts, not
individual desires and wants.
For these reasons, we can't consider animals to be equally morally considerable. As for the
propositions standard of relevance for the criteria which distinguish animals from humans in any
given case, we would argue that the fundamental individuality and humanity of our species is relevant
in every case because it makes animal life fundamentally less valuable.

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Even if it matters whether or not humans and animals are similar,

humans and animals are in fact similar enough that both should be
granted rights.

POINT
We have already noted that beings do not need to be similar in order to be equally morally
considerable. Assuming but not conceding that this is false, we will prove that animals are in fact
incredibly similar to human beings, so much so that we should grant them rights.

First of all, animals have an equal capacity to experience pain. While we are unable to know exactly
what other humans or animals are experiencing, we can make inference from what we observe.
According to Peter Singer: Nearly all the signs that lead us to infer pain in other humans can be seen
in other species...The behavioural signs include writhing, facial contortions, moaning, yelping or other
forms of calling, attempts to avoid the source of pain, appearance of fear at the prospect of its
repetition, and so on.[1]
In addition we know that animals have nervous systems very like ours, which respond physiologically
as ours do when the animal is in a circumstance in which we would feel painan initial rise of blood
pressure, dilated pupils, perspiration, an increased pulse rate, and, if the stimulus continues, a fall in
blood pressure. Although human beings have a more developed cerebral cortex than other animals,
this part of the brain is concerned with thinking functions rather than basic impulses, emotions, and
feelings. These impulses, emotions, and feelings are located in the diencephalon, which is well
developed in many other species of animals, especially mammals and birds. Animals therefore have
the capacity for physical and emotional suffering, and so should be granted rights.
[1] Singer, Peter. "All Animals are Equal." Ethics for Everyday. (Benatar, D Ed.) McGraw Hill: New
York. 2002

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COUNTERPOINT
Even if animals are able categorize images in photographs and learn sign language, they are still
phenomenally less intelligent than human beings. They will never study philosophy or perform brain
surgery or even invent a wheel. Furthermore, intelligence does not prove the ability to self-actualise.
Mourning others does not prove that animals value their own lives. Perhaps it implies that animals
enjoy company but whether they consider the value of their companion's life and their future
potential is questionable. Without the ability to value one's own life, life itself ceases to be intrinsically
valuable.
The farming of animals does involve death but it is difficult to prove that death is intrinsically a
harmful thing. Pain is certainly a harm for the living but animals are farmed are killed very quickly and
they are stunned beforehand. Animals on farms do not know that they will be killed so there is no
emotional harm caused by the anticipation of death.
There is no evidence that the painless killing of animals should carry any moral weight.

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Even if we did think that animals were less intelligent than humans
beings they should be protected by rights

POINT
Babies and individuals with learning disabilities may lack intelligence, a sense of justice and the ability
to conceive of their future. We ensure that babies and the learning disabled are protected by rights
and therefore these factors cannot be criteria by which to exclude a being from the rights system.
Therefore, even if animals are not as advanced as human beings they should be protected by rights.
An inability to know what's going on might make being experimented on etc even more frightening
and damaging for an animal that it may be for a human being.

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COUNTERPOINT
We do not analyse human beings on a case by case basis but rather by what distinguishes human
beings as a whole, as a species. Infants have the potential to become rational and autonomous etc.
The profoundly retarded represent flawed human beings. Retardation is not a human characteristic
just as being 3-legged is not a characteristic of a dog though there are both retarded humans and 3legged dogs.

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