Do animals have the same moral rights as people?
In my previous two arguments, I made the case that both legal and moral rights protect interests and that the only characteristic morally relevant to possessing at least some basic rights is sentience (i.e., the right not to be deprived of one’s existence, to not be caused pain, etc.). Insofar as humans possess these basic rights and nonhumans share these basic rights, it can be said that animals have the same moral rights as people. Like humans, nonhumans have a demonstrable interest in continued existence, in not being caused pain, and so on. If we believe that humans possess the moral right to exist and not to be caused pain or suffering, then it would be arbitrary to claim that nonhumans do not, because they have the exact same interests in these particular cases. However, as similar as we are in certain fundamental, morally relevant respects, we are different in many other morally relevant ways, and this means that there are moral rights that some beings have that others do not po
