[00:03.09]1997

[00:05.91]Do animals have rights?

[00:08.23]This is how the question is usually put.

[00:11.05]It sounds like a useful, ground-clearing way to start.

[00:14.68](1)

[00:17.10]that there is an agreed account of human rights,

[00:20.02]which is something the world does not have.>

[00:22.64]On one view of rights, to be sure,

[00:24.80]it necessarily follows that animals have none.

[00:27.83](2)

[00:29.58]that rights exist only within a social contract,

[00:32.90]as part of an exchange of duties and entitlements.>

[00:36.34]Therefore, animals cannot have rights.

[00:39.15]The idea of punishing a tiger

[00:41.07]that kills somebody is absurd,

[00:43.29]for exactly the same reason,

[00:45.11]so is the idea that tigers have rights.

[00:48.23]However, this is only one account,

[00:50.35]and by no means an uncontested one.

[00:53.17]It denies rights not only to animals

[00:55.28]but also to some people

[00:57.30]--for instance to infants,

[00:59.12]the mentally incapable and future generations.

[01:02.45]In addition, it is unclear

[01:04.07]what force a contract can have for people

[01:06.59]who never consented to it,

[01:08.56]how do you reply to somebody who says

[01:11.09]"I don't like this contract"?

[01:13.51]The point is this:

[01:14.83]without agreement on the rights of people,

[01:16.94]arguing about the rights of animals is fruitless.

[01:20.57](3)

[01:23.69]it invites you to think that animals

[01:25.54]should be treated either with the consideration humans

[01:28.37]extend to other humans,

[01:30.09]or with no consideration at all.>

[01:32.60]This is a false choice.

[01:34.61]Better to start with another, more fundamental, question:

[01:38.05]is the way we treat animals a moral issue at all?

[01:41.68]Many deny it.

[01:43.41](4)

[01:45.06]are different from animals in every relevant respect,

[01:48.07]extremists of this kind think that animals lie

[01:50.90]outside the area of moral choice.>

[01:53.92]Any regard for the suffering of animals

[01:56.04]is seen as a mistake

[01:57.75]--a sentimental displacement of feeling

[01:59.97]that should properly be directed to other humans.

[02:03.29]This view, which holds that torturing a monkey

[02:06.02]is morally equivalent to chopping wood,

[02:08.64]may seem bravely "logical".

[02:10.86]In fact it is simply shallow:

[02:13.37]the confused center is right to reject it.

[02:16.61]The most elementary form of moral reasoning

[02:19.12]--the ethical equivalent of learning to crawl

[02:21.86]--is to weigh others' interests against one's own.

[02:25.19]This in turn requires sympathy and imagination:

[02:28.63]without which there is no capacity for moral thought.

[02:32.15]To see an animal in pain is enough, for most,

[02:35.09]to engage sympathy.

[02:36.81](5)

[02:39.23]it is mankind's instinct for moral reasoning in action,

[02:42.86]an instinct that should be encouraged

[02:45.39]rather than laughed at.>