What gives us the right to use animals at all?
The question of rights is really a philosophical one. There is no natural law that imparts “rights”, as such, to any species. All are driven by one essential instinct; the drive to survive. For many, survival means preying on, and consuming, other species as food. Humans differ from animals in their ability to make choices, to foretell the consequences of their actions, and to formulate abstract concepts such as “rights.” In the final analysis, individuals or groups have only those rights that a particular society chooses to grant them, and this can differ significantly from one human society to another. Furthermore, although animals do have an instinctive aversion to death, they have no concepts of mortality and no religious or philosophical systems. Humans, however, have capacity for abstract thought and have created writing and documentation of history and thought, mathematics and science, and artistic creations such as music, art, literature and architecture. The use of animals in
