Not all people involved in "the animal movement" believe in animal rights. Many are motivated to work for animal causes for other reasons. Historically, the most common motivator has been concern for animal welfare, or welfarism.
Welfarism
Welfarism is defined as the beliefs associated with the social system known as the welfare state. "Welfare state" is a term first used during the 1940s to refer to a society in which the government has the primary responsibility for the individual and social welfare of its citizens. When applied to animals, welfarism assumes that humans have the primary responsibility for the welfare of animals. Welfarists acknowledge that society uses animals for various purposes. Their goal is to reduce the amount of pain and suffering that animals endure. Welfarism centers on compassionate and humane care and treatment.
The best-known welfarist organization in the United States is the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). The ASPCA has existed since 1866 and by 2005 had about a million members. Its mission is "to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States" (http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about, accessed May 30, 2005). The ASPCA defines itself not as an animal rights organization but as an animal welfare or animal protection organization. Its main programs include sheltering and providing medical and behavioral care to stray animals; placing stray and unwanted animals in adoptive homes; raising funds to care for animals affected by natural and human disasters, such as the terrorist attacks on New York City on September 11, 2001, and the December 2004 tsunamis in Southeast Asia; tracking and investigating cruelty cases through its Humane Law Enforcement Division, which works in conjunction with the New York Police Department; and offering affordable spay/neuter and vaccination services to low-income pet owners, as well as public services such as education on humane issues. While the ASPCA does advocate for stronger anticruelty laws, it does not actively promote issues such as vegetarianism or banning the use of animals in medical research.
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is another organization that fits into the welfarist category, although its agenda is more sweeping than that of the ASPCA, encompassing protection of wild and marine animals as well as companion animals. Founded in 1954, the HSUS had more than eight million members as of 2005. Although it defines itself as an animal protection organization (the largest in the world), critics charge that the HSUS quietly supports an animal rights agenda because it is openly against the use of animals in research, inhumane farming practices, and the fur industry.
Animal welfarists believe that humans have a responsibility to assure the well-being of animals and reduce their suffering. This responsibility is upheld by society in the form of anticruelty laws. However, these laws do not prevent farm animals from being slaughtered for food or laboratory animals from being experimented on, usually without anesthetic to numb their pain. In these situations, welfarists work for humane slaughtering methods and prevention of "unnecessary" or excessive suffering during experimentation.
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is a philosophy popularized by Jeremy Bentham during the late 1700s. The basic premise of the philosophy is that right actions are those that maximize utility. Bentham defined utility as either the presence of positive consequences—"benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness"—or the absence of negative consequences—"mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness" (Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1789). In other words, right actions are those that maximize the best consequences or minimize the worst consequences. An important aspect of utilitarianism is that the interests of all parties involved in a particular situation must be considered. Likewise, the consequences to all parties involved must be taken into account. This is a difficult enough task when only humans are involved; it becomes much more complicated if one also considers animals.
Peter Singer used a form of utilitarian logic in Animal Liberation. Singer argued that the suffering endured by animals on farms and during slaughtering far outweighs the pleasure and nutrition that the meat gives to humans. Likewise, Singer contended that laboratory animals suffer so much that this outweighs their usefulness to humans as test subjects. Singer concluded that the moral consequences of these practices (and other practices in which animals suffer) are so severe that they must be abolished. As a result, advocates of Singer's theory are often called liberationists or abolitionists. Although his book is frequently called the Bible of the animal rights movement, Singer did not specifically call for animal rights in the book. He has stated, however, that he believes that the term is politically useful for drawing attention to animal suffering.
Many philosophers reject the notion that utilitarianism can be applied to human-animal situations because, historically, animals have not been considered to have interests at all, or their interests have not been considered equal to human interests. In 1992 philosopher Peter Carruthers wrote The Animals Issue: Moral Theory in Practice (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992), in which he argued that utilitarianism is not an acceptable moral theory for examining animal issues because it equates animal lives and suffering with human lives and suffering, an idea Carruthers called "intuitively abhorrent" and a violation of "common-sense beliefs." R. G. Frey also discounted the utilitarian theory as a model of morality for dealing with animals, saying that animals do not have interests because they do not experience wants, desires, expectations, or remembrances.
Contractarianism
Another philosophy used to examine morality is called contractarianism. According to this theory, society establishes right actions (or moral norms) through an arrangement in which individuals (called agents) voluntarily agree to abide by certain rules of morality. Following these rules is beneficial to both individuals and society in general. Although there are many different models of contractarianism, the most common are based on the writings of Immanuel Kant and the contemporary philosopher John Rawls (1921–2002). Kant believed that the moral code arising out of contractarianism reflects what rational agents would choose under ideal circumstances. Rawls expanded this view by saying that the right actions are those that rational agents would choose if they were unaware of their own personal ambitions or prejudices.
When contractarianism is used to discuss human society, the rational agents are assumed to have direct duties. In other words, the rational agents know they are bound by a moral contract and are responsible for acting accordingly. The rational agents also have direct rights under the contract and have duties to those that lack the rationality to enter into the contract, such as babies, small children, and the mentally challenged.
Some philosophers have used the contractarian model to explain the moral relationship between humans and animals. In The Animals Issue: Moral Theory in Practice Carruthers argued that contractarianism is the best moral model for describing the human-animal relationship, but he concluded that animals do not have moral standing under the contract because they do not qualify as rational agents. Carruthers noted that humans have only indirect duties toward animals, one of which is to treat them humanely out of respect for the feelings of the rational agents (other humans) that care about them. He did, however, extend direct rights to human beings who are not rational agents (such as babies), noting that this is necessary to maintain social stability.
In the contractarian model, humans are moral agents, meaning that they make decisions and take actions based on morality. Many philosophers believe that animals are amoral—neither moral nor immoral. For example, a lion that kills a baby zebra to feed her cubs is acting out of instinct. The action is neither morally good nor morally bad. Some opponents of animal rights argue that because animals do not make decisions based on morality, they are not part of the moral contract and do not have moral rights. Philosopher Tibor Machan is an outspoken critic of the notion of animal rights. In Putting Humans First: Why We Are Nature's Favorites (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), Machan argued that animals cannot have rights because they are not capable of making moral decisions.
In practice, the moral code of contractarianism seems to provide some protections for selected species of animals. For example, in American society there is widespread moral repugnance to the idea of eating dogs and cats or killing animals with sentimental or patriotic significance (such as bald eagles). These views might be argued to be rooted in their moral and philosophical impact on humans and could therefore be extensions of the contractarian model.
Rights View
The rights view was defined and defended by philosopher Tom Regan in The Case for Animal Rights and many subsequent books. Regan maintains that all beings who are "subjects-of-a-life with an experiential welfare" have inherent value that qualifies them to be treated with respect and gives them a right to that treatment. In other words, living beings with conscious awareness and self-identity deserve moral rights. Regan does not define exactly which animals fall into this category, but higher species, such as vertebrates (animals with a spinal cord) fit Regan's criteria.
This philosophy is fundamentally different from welfarism and utilitarianism. The rights view holds that animals have moral rights to certain privileges and freedoms, just as humans do. It does not mean that animals have exactly the same rights as humans. Most animal rights advocates believe that animals at least have the right to life and the right to freedom from bodily interference.
The philosopher best known for criticizing the animal rights view is Carl Cohen. In 2001 Cohen and Regan coauthored a book titled The Animal Rights Debate (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001), which presents a point/counterpoint examination of the issue. Cohen summed up his argument against animal rights: "Animals cannot be the bearers of rights, because the concept of rights is essentially human; it is rooted in the human moral world and has force and applicability only within that world." Cohen admitted that animals are sentient (conscious of sensory impressions), feel pain, and can experience suffering, but insisted that sharing these traits with humans does not make animals morally equal to humans.
Cohen wrote that some people confuse rights with obligations and assume that because humans have obligations to animals, it means that animals have rights. This assumption is called symmetrical reciprocity, and Cohen believes that it is based on false logic. The difference, Cohen explained, is that an obligation is what "we ought to do" while a right is "what others can justly demand that we do."
Cohen stated that humans are moral agents who are restrained by moral principles from treating animals inhumanely. This means that humans should not inflict "gratuitous" pain and suffering on animals. However, it does not mean that humans must stop every activity that could or does harm animals in some way. Medical research on animals is an example. Cohen believes that scientists have moral obligations to humanity to use animals in their experiments if that is the best way for them to achieve their goals. According to Cohen, "our duties to human subjects are of a different moral order from our duties to the rodents we use."
Cohen's overall conclusion—that rights do not apply to animals because rights are essentially human—is a point commonly made by those who oppose the animal rights movement. Many of them find it ludicrous to even debate the issue. Adrian Morrison is a scientist engaged in animal research and a very vocal critic of the animal rights movement. In a speech he presented to the Association for Research in Otolaryngology on January 27, 2002, Morrison noted that few philosophers besides Cohen and almost no scientists bother to dispute in detail the philosophy behind the animal rights view. Morrison suggested that most scientists and philosophers "think the subject to be too far from reality to be worth the trouble."
User Comments Add a comment…