An interesting topic Saucie. Clearly animals do in fact enjoy limited rights as every state has laws prohibiting animal cruelty but just as clearly they don’t enjoy personal rights to the degree that we as human beings do. The idea that the use of animals by human beings for food, clothing, entertainment, and as medical research subjects is morally acceptable springs mainly from two sources. First, there is the idea of a divine hierarchy based on the biblical concept of “dominion.” While the concept of dominion need not entail property rights, it has, over the centuries, been interpreted to imply some form of ownership. Second, is the idea that animals are inferior, because they lack language, souls, the ability to reason or perhaps even consciousness, and as such are worthy of less consideration than human beings. Except among those who hold very extremist views with respect to the rights of animals, society in general accepts that animals can be used for the benefit of mankind as long as they are not treated with wanton cruelty and a species is not threatened with extinction.

One reason that this topic resonates with me is because one of my most cherished interests is backpacking. In a very few places that I sometimes go (Yellowstone NP and parts of New Mexico and Alaska) bears still exist in the wild. Occasionally when humans and bears happen to come into contact with one another in the wild, humans are injured and more infrequently killed as a result. I have heard many espouse the opinion that the bears should be eradicated to insure that no human is ever injured or killed by one. Thankfully the National Park Service does not agree. Here is an example of competing rights. I believe that bears have a right to exist in their natural habit with minimal interference and disturbance from me. I have the right to visit and enjoy the beautiful wilderness areas as long as I do so in an ethical manner. Yet when I choose to venture into the wilderness then I have to accept that there even as a human being, I am no longer at the top of the food chain and my rights are not superior to those of the bears.

Clearly I do think some people overly personify animals (attribute to them human qualities). I have been guilty of that myself on occasion. But just as clearly to me at least, there is much more to an animal that meets the eye. Consider this excerpt from the writings of Voltaire;

“Hold then the same view of the dog which has lost his master, which has sought him in all the thoroughfares with cries of sorrow, which comes into the house troubled and restless, goes downstairs, goes upstairs; goes from room to room, finds at last in his study the master he loves, and betokens his gladness by soft whimpers, frisks, and caresses.
There are barbarians who seize this dog, who so greatly surpasses man in fidelity and friendship, and nail him down to a table and dissect him alive, to show you the mesaraic veins! You discover in him all the same organs of feeling as in yourself. Answer me, mechanist, has Nature arranged all the springs of feeling in this animal to the end that he might not feel?”