How Should Animals Be Treated?

Abstract

Tom Regan's four explanations of animal rights are examined and rejected as inadequate. A superior interest based account of animal rights is proposed. This derives an animal's right to freedom from harm from interests that are implicit in the conscious life of the animal.

According to Tom Regan, there are four possible accounts for dealing with the issue of how animals should be treated: (1) the ‘Kantian account’; (2) the ‘cruelty account’; (3) the ‘utilitarian account’; and (4) the ‘animal rights account’ (Regan, 2001, pp. 41–55). In this paper I propose to briefly survey these four accounts and argue for a fifth view, the ‘interests account’, which I believe is the most reasonable of the five accounts.

Notes

Notes

1 William Godfrey-Smith uses ‘non-instrumental value’ to characterize this value. For a thorough discussion of ‘non-instrumental value’, see Godfrey-Smith (1979, pp. 309–319).

2 In claiming that Regan's animal rights account is defective, I do not deny the existence of animal rights. Indeed, I believe that animals may have some kinds of rights.

3 This view is supported by both Feinberg and Goodpaster. Indeed, Feinberg observes: … plants … are not ‘mere things’; they are vital objects with inherited biological propensities determining their natural growth. Moreover we do say that certain conditions are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for plants, thereby suggesting that plants, unlike rocks, are capable of having a ‘good’. (Feinberg, 1974, p. 51, my emphasis) Goodpaster says also: … living organisms like plants [or animals] do have interests that can be represented. There is no absurdity in imagining the presentation of the needs of a tree for sun and water in the face of a proposal to cut it down or pave its immediate radius for a parking lot. We might of course, on reflection, decide to go ahead and cut it down or do the paving, but there is hardly an intelligibility problem about representing the tree's interest in our deciding not to. In the face of their obvious tendencies to maintain and heal themselves, it is very difficult to reject the idea of interests on the part of trees (and plants generally) in remaining alive. (Goodpaster, 2005, p. 136, my emphasis)

4 Precisely speaking, I claim that most animals are capable of suffering pain (or experiencing pleasure). However, for the sake of convenient discussion, I claim merely that animals are capable of suffering pain.

5 ‘Harm’ can be defined as the impairment of ‘interest’. For a thorough discussion of the relation between ‘interest’ and ‘harm’, see Li (2002, pp. 67–74).