Animal rights

Abstract

Some thinkers brush aside the question of animal rights as a non-issue. Those who deny animal rights should note that the denial of rights to non-human animals does no more than place animals in the same moral category as human infants. Some people argue that only rational autonomous and self-conscious beings deserve full and equal moral status. However, lacking rights does not entail lacking direct moral status, although rights entails duties it does not follow that duties entail rights. Although animals may have no rights we still have duties towards them.