Animal rights

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
captive monkey in Shanghai
factory farm
Parshvanatha, the 23rd Tirthankara, revived Jainism and ahimsa in the 9th century BCE, which led to a radical animal-rights movement in South Asia.[1]
non-killing, summing them up with the definition of veganism
.

Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth independent of their utility to humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the same consideration as similar interests of human beings.[2] The argument from marginal cases is often used to reach this conclusion. This argument holds that if marginal human beings such as infants, senile people, and the cognitively disabled are granted moral status and negative rights, then nonhuman animals must be granted the same moral consideration, since animals do not lack any known morally relevant characteristic that marginal-case humans have.

Broadly speaking, and particularly in popular discourse, the term "animal rights" is often used synonymously with "animal protection" or "animal liberation". More narrowly, "animal rights" refers to the idea that many animals have fundamental rights to be treated with respect as individuals—

liberty, and freedom from torture—that may not be overridden by considerations of aggregate welfare.[3]

Many animal rights advocates oppose assigning moral value and fundamental protections on the basis of species membership alone.

beasts of burden merely because they are not human.[6] Cultural traditions such as Jainism, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, and animism
also espouse varying forms of animal rights.

In parallel to the debate about moral rights, North American law schools now often teach

primates, animal-rights discussions most often address the status of mammals (compare charismatic megafauna). Other animals (considered less sentient) have gained less attention—insects relatively little[10] (outside Jainism) and animal-like bacteria hardly any.[11] The vast majority of animals have no legally recognised rights.[12]

Critics of animal rights argue that nonhuman animals are unable to enter into a

U.S. Congress to enact laws, including the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, allowing the prosecution of this sort of activity as terrorism.[17]

History