Animal Rights

The issue of animal rights has theoretical and practical dimensions relating to the treatment of animals by humans. On the theoretical side, animal rights refers to the idea that animals ought to be ascribed rights to protect them from being abused and/or treated in particular ways.

Animals are held to possess the capacities (such as sentience or consciousness) which make them deserving of rights in the same way that humans have rights on account of these capacities or properties. On the practical side, the animal rights movement in Britain is most usually associated with the more radical end of the ‘animal welfare’ movement.

Those agitating for animal rights include hunt saboteurs and those seeking to end hunting foxes and deer with dogs, and others (such as the Animal Liberation Front) who oppose the use of animals for food, clothing, entertainment and medical experimentation.