A Primer on Animal Rights

Many of the issues and emotions associated with animal rights are complex, but the fundamental tenets are simple: nonviolence, compassion, the avoidance of unnecessary harm, and a belief that nonhuman animals are not inferior to humans, but simply different from humans, with their own unique characteristics and abilities and, like humans, with the desire and right to live natural lives.

Daily Injustices

In farms and slaughterhouses, animals are raised and killed—most often brutally—for meat, dairy, eggs, and fur. The ones confined in factory farms suffer particularly barbaric horrors. Wildlife are killed for sport, their hides and heads used for decoration. Wild animals' habitats are destroyed for human development. Animals are exhibited and pushed to their limits for human entertainment at circuses, racetracks, zoos, and other arenas where their physical, emotional, and medical needs are not met. In labs, animals are subjected to excruciating experiments in the name of product testing and medical research. Oceanic animals' environments are polluted and made untenable with human waste, and commercial fishing is decimating populations while causing large-scale suffering and death among many marine species. And this is only an incomplete list of the horrors that humans inflict on animals around the world.

Animals as Sentient Individuals vs. Animals as Property

One basis for these forms of cruelty and exploitation is the long-held view of animals as property, existing only as resources for humans. Indeed, for centuries nonhuman animals often have been assumed to be, and have been treated like, senseless machines. But today, we know that they are not machines—we know that many nonhuman animals have emotions, unique modes of communication, and an interest in their own lives. They are capable of feeling, suffering, and forming deep, affectionate, lasting bonds. In a word, they are sentient.

Animal Rights vs. Animal Welfare

Whereas animal welfare seeks to reduce animal suffering, while holding that human use and consumption of animals is acceptable in the absence of cruelty and unnecessary suffering, the animal rights position maintains that cruelty is inherent in essentially all animal use and that no use or conscious harm of animals is acceptable, whether the animal is a dog or a chicken, and that humans choose, rather than need, to use animals. There are philosophical differences within the animal rights movement as well, including in approaches to activism: for example, some groups are well-known because of highly publicized actions, but many other animal advocacy groups operate in less visible fashion and with different tactics.

Animal rights advocates seek to reduce and ultimately end animals' exploitation, suffering, and status as property; to advance alternatives to animal use; to educate humans about animals, their sentience, and their lived experiences; and to help humans see animals not as commodities or resources, but as individuals deserving of life, compassion, and freedom. People from all walks of life and backgrounds, from urban professionals to former cattle ranchers, are changing how they think about and treat animals, and with every change of heart, we get closer to the peaceable, harmonious world for which animal rights advocates are working, a world that will be better for humans and nonhumans alike.