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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]
Edward Nicholson (1849–1912), head of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, argued in Rights of an Animal (1879) that animals have the same natural right to life and liberty that human beings do, disregarding Descartes' mechanistic view—or what he called the "Neo-Cartesian snake"—that they lack consciousness. [66]
Proponents of rights of nature argue that, just as human rights have been recognized increasingly in law, so should nature's rights be recognized and incorporated into human ethics and laws. [3] This claim is underpinned by two lines of reasoning: that the same ethics that justify human rights, also justify nature's rights, and, that humans ...
Animal ethics is a branch of ethics which examines human-animal relationships, the moral consideration of animals and how nonhuman animals ought to be treated. The subject matter includes animal rights, animal welfare, animal law, speciesism, animal cognition, wildlife conservation, wild animal suffering, [1] the moral status of nonhuman animals, the concept of nonhuman personhood, human ...
Human Rights Day commemorates the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In a recent column in the Los Angeles Times, philosopher Martha Nussbaum maintains that animals “should ...
English writer and animal rights advocate Henry S. Salt, in his 1892 book Animals' Rights, argued that for humans to do justice to other animals, they must look beyond the conception of a "great gulf" between them, claiming instead that we should recognize the "common bond of humanity that unites all living beings in one universal brotherhood ...
I don't hold animals superior or even equal to humans. The whole case for behaving decently to animals rests on the fact that we are the superior species. We are the species uniquely capable of imagination, rationality and moral choice – and that is precisely why we are under the obligation to recognise and respect the rights of animals. [2]
He urged respect for animals, because he believed that humans and non-humans had the same kind of soul, one spirit that pervades the universe and makes us one with animals. [4] The souls were indestructible, made of fire and air, and were reincarnated from human to animal, or vice versa, the so-called transmigration of the soul. He was a ...