Sparks-The Moral Status of Non-Human Animals and Animal Rights

The Moral Status of Non-Human Animals and Animal Rights
Kody Sparks
Philosophy Honors Thesis
Thesis Advisor- Professor Churchill
2 December 2013

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I. An Introduction to the Animal Rights Debate
Human rights have been a prominent topic of interest for hundreds of years. The
discourse on human rights intensified during the enlightenment and even more so during
the American and French Revolutions of the 18th
century. The discussion of human rights
reached a new peak with the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in
1948, as a direct result of the atrocities of World War Two. This has been viewed, thus
far, as a fairly thorough, complete, and universal doctrine regarding the rights of human
beings, but it has not ended the discussion of rights by any means.
The issue of the moral status of non-human animals, human duties and obligations
toward non-human animals, and animal rights emerged in the 1960s and 1970s as a part
of our world’s growing environmental concern. As we have become more aware of the
environmental, social, and moral impact of our treatment of animals, the issue of animal
moral status and rights has grown and developed exponentially. The common use of
animals in factory farming, scientific research, zoos, recreational hunting, and other non-
essential areas have made the moral status of non-human animals a popularly theorized
and researched issue, with many philosophers, anthropologists, neuroscientists,
biologists, and other academics conducting various types of research over the past fifty
years. Contrary to the traditional viewpoint, which held that non-human animals were
fundamentally different from and inferior to humans, recent scientific evidence has led
many to support the idea that animals should be seen as having moral status and possibly
even some fundamental rights.1
The human capacities used to deny animals moral status,
including reason, moral agency, language, self-awareness, cognition, and consciousness,
1 Taylor, Angus, John W. Burbidge, and Angus Taylor. Animals & Ethics: An Overview of the
Philosophical Debate. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2009. Print. p 15.

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are still being thoroughly researched.2
Moreover, emerging evidence on the issue
indicates that the perceived differences between human reason and non-human reason,
including moral agency, language, self-awareness, cognition, and consciousness, are
perhaps not as significant as was previously thought.3
This means that non-human
animals are being arbitrarily denied the basic rights that they deserve, specifically their
rights to life, liberty, and physical integrity.
The following sections will provide an idea of how we can view animals as moral
agents deserving of certain rights — rights that are today seen as strictly human rights
according to the Universal Declaration. Firstly, the concept of moral agency needs to be
explained. Many traditional theorists hold that the discourse on moral agency is only
relevant when it regards human societies and ideals. I believe that, to the contrary,
arguments can be made to substantiate the idea that animals also possess some degree of
relevant moral worth, albeit different than humans. Secondly, the concept of what rights
are, what they imply, how animals can be understood to be rights holders, and what
particular rights they can be said to holding need to be explained. Next, I will discuss
some commonly held theories of why animals are not moral agents nor deserving of
rights, including that:
1. They are not conscious or rational like humans
2. They do not use reason nor have the cognitive abilities that humans have
3. They lack the kind empathy and emotions that humans possess
4. They lack developed interests in the way that humans have
2 Taylor, 15.
3 See Suggested Readings section to find a few examples of research and evidence of cognition,
consciousness, empathy, and emotion in non-human animals.

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My aim is to show that each of these theories suffers from one or more fatal problems. In
general, each one of these proposed morally significant criterion used to deny shared
moral status and rights between humans and non-human animals is either too demanding,
or not demanding enough.4
Lastly I will take the information and arguments made within
the various sections of this paper and summarize them into a basic outline of my theory
of the moral status of animals and animal rights.
II. Animals as Moral Agents
In order to determine whether it is possible for non-human animals to be moral
agents or to have moral status of some sort, it is necessary to acquire a basic
understanding of what moral status entails. Traditional theories, including many
contemporary theories, generally agree that all and only humans are capable of
possessing moral agency and having moral worth. This view is very basic, though, and it
fails to take into consideration many of the intricacies of moral status and its obligations
and duties. Some philosophers in the traditionalist camp tend to argue that all and only
humans have moral status due to the view that human beings are the only species that live
in moral social contexts and that they alone are able to make and respond to moral claims
because of this.5
With further inspection, though, this idea, like the many of the other
proposed morally significant criterion for human rights, is both too demanding, and not
demanding enough.
4 Jamieson, Dale. Ethics and the Environment: An Introduction. Cambridge, UK:Cambridge UP, 2008.
Print. p. 105-106.
5 Gruen, Lori. "The Moral Status of Animals." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University,
01 July 2003. Web. 18 Oct. 2013. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-animal/>.

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A favored method of arguing for animals’ rights is the use of “marginal cases”.
These cases, which include infants, the insane, and the mentally disabled, are a good
point of comparison with non-human animals. While traditionalists argue that all and
only humans are capable of making and responding to moral claims, these marginal cases
show that, in fact, not all humans can make and respond to moral claims, but we treat
them as if they can anyway. This becomes a direct contradiction and a major point of
contention for animal rights advocates. This opens the traditionalist argument up to the
critique: If not all humans are capable of making moral claims, why are humans the only
subjects of moral status? If we treat infants, the insane, and the mentally disabled (all of
whom are not, by the requirement of the ability to make and respond to moral claims,
moral agents) as such, why should we not treat other sentient beings, including many
non-human animals, as if they were moral agents as well?6
The fact that some humans are unable to receive and act upon moral claims within
their moral community is not the only argument, though. Many authors and researchers
are citing evidence that humans are not the only beings with morality. Evidence is
beginning to show that non-human animals may also be able to act prudentially within
their own moral communities.7
Frans De Waal is one such researcher making these
claims. He has started compiling his own research on apes and monkeys as well as other
outside research in order to show that the basic pillars of morality are present within non-
6 Singer, Peter. "Speciesism And Moral Status." Metaphilosophy 40.3-4 (2009): 567-81. Print. 569-
570.
7 Singer, Peter. "Speciesism And Moral Status."; De Waal, Frans. Good Natured: The Origins of Right
and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1996. Print.; DeGrazia, David.
Animal Rights: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Print. Chapter 3.; De Waal, Frans.
Moral Behavior in Animals. Perf. Frans De Waal. TED Talks, Nov. 2011. Web. 4 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.ted.com/talks/frans_de_waal_do_animals_have_morals.html>.; I Am. Dir. Tom Shadyac.
Perf. Tom Shadyac, Desmond Tutu, Noam Chomsky. Shady Acres, 2010. Online.

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human animal species and communities.8
This will be addressed in more detail in the
following section.
Due to the fatal rebuttal that marginal cases pose to the necessity of the ability to
make and receive moral claims for the status of moral agency, many modern theorists
have discarded the “all-or-nothing” view of moral status for the position that moral status
can admit degrees. In his essay “Moral Status as a Matter of Degree?” David DeGrazia
states, “Some people contend that fetuses have moral status but less than that of paradigm
persons. Many people hold views that sentient animals do have moral status, but less than
that of persons. These positions suggest that moral status admits of degrees.”9
Before addressing how moral status can admit of degrees, we must address what
exactly it means to have moral status. David DeGrazia states, presenting a very basic
notion of moral status, that a being has moral status if moral agents’ treatment of that
being is considered morally relevant and important.10
This moral importance must be
direct and independent of any usefulness that the being provides. So, a being will have
moral status if they can be viewed as having inherent moral importance of some sort. Put
formally, “To say that X has moral status is to say that (1) moral agents have obligations
regarding X, (2) X has interests, and (3) the obligations are based (at least partly) on X’s
interests.”11
The inherent moral importance necessary for moral status, DeGrazia argues,
8 De Waal, Frans. Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1996. Print; De Waal, Frans. Moral Behavior in Animals. Perf. Frans De
Waal. TED Talks, Nov. 2011. Web. 4 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.ted.com/talks/frans_de_waal_do_animals_have_morals.html>.
9 DeGrazia, David. "Moral Status as a Matter of Degree?" The Southern Journal of Philosophy 46
(2008): 181-98. Print. p. 181.
10 DeGrazia, "Moral Status as a Matter of Degree?", 183.
11 Ibid.

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is connected with and derived from the interests and welfare of the being.12
Now, based on this very basic definition of moral status, one must prove that non-
human animals are capable of having interests and welfare in order to argue that they are
deserving of moral status. Traditional theories hold that animals are not capable of having
interests or welfare in anything similar to the way humans are, but recent scientific
evidence, which will be elucidated in section IV, seems to imply that this is incorrect.
Degrazia concludes, “Nearly all the leading work in animal ethics and, I suggest, the only
plausible account of the wrongness of cruelty to animals support the thesis that sentient
animals, who by definition have an experiential welfare and therefore interests, have (at
least some) moral status.”13
It is necessary to point out that a being with moral status does
not necessarily equate to a rights-holding individual, at least based on a very commonly
held idea of rights, but this will be addressed further in section III.
So, given that moral status implies some inherent moral importance derived from
the interests and welfare of the being, one can begin to see how moral status is not
necessarily an all or nothing concept, as was previously thought. Many modern theorists
now hold, given the developments in theory and evidence in research, that both humans
and sentient non-human animals have interests and welfare and therefore moral status.
But the research also shows that humans do not necessarily have the same interests nor
the same amount of consideration of those interests, implying that we do not necessarily
have the same moral status as non-human animals. Instead, it is held that while non-
human animals and humans do, in fact, share moral status, humans have a greater degree
13 Ibid.

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of moral status than do non-human animals.14
There are two ways in which it is generally held that moral status comes in
degrees:
1. The Unequal Consideration Model of Degrees of Moral Status15
2. Unequal Interests Model of Degrees of Moral Status16
Under the Unequal Consideration model of Degrees of moral status, it is worse, or more
morally reprehensible, to kill human persons because they are due full moral
consideration17
, whereas non-human animals, while still given some moral consideration,
are due less. To present an example, it is argued that, though two individuals, one human
and one non-human, have comparable interests in not suffering, the human person’s
interest has greater moral importance than the animal’s interest.18
But not all interests
across species, even those similarly named, are comparable. Under the Unequal Interests
Model of Degrees of Moral Status not all moral agents have the same or even similar
interests and equal moral consideration need only be given to equal interests between
humans and non-human animals.19
I personally find that the Unequal Interests Model of
Degrees of Moral Status is fairly obvious and commonsensical, and tend toward a version
of this model in my own theory of the moral status of animals.
III. Rights and Non-human Animals
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid,188.
17 Moral consideration is the moral weight or interest that we grant to a particular being’s prudential
interests. DeGrazia, "Moral Status as a Matter of Degree?", 186-187
19 Ibid.

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It is not entirely clear and has not been explored thoroughly, at least in my
research, what the exact difference is between moral status and rights. Many of those
opposing an animal rights position may allow that non-human animals have, at least
some, moral status, but would deny that they have rights in anything similar to the way
humans do. This may be because they take the idea of moral status to come in degrees,
but see rights as an all-or-nothing concept. I disagree with those completely opposed to
animal rights and, as an extension of my position regarding the Unequal Interests Model
of Degrees of Moral Status, would argue that rights come in degrees as well. I would
confer some of the basic human rights upon sentient non-human animals. I believe that
the holding of static, uniform requirements for rights, in form and degree, is an archaic
remnant of the traditional idea that moral status and rights are an all or nothing idea. I
believe that different rights have different requirements due to their degree of importance
or how fundamental they are.
As explained in the previous section, to say that a being has moral status means
that the being has interests and that other moral agents have obligations toward that being
based, as least partially, on his or her interests.20
These obligations are not based on any
societal norms, laws, or contracts, but are conferred upon a being simply based on
common interests and moral consideration. Joel Feinberg argues that rights are very
closely related to this definition of moral status. Invoking the argument from marginal
cases, he argues that all that is required in order to be a rights-bearing individual is, “that

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the being be capable of being represented as legitimately pursuing the furtherance of its
interests.”21
It has been argued that this definition is too inclusive, though.
Leif Wenar, the chair of Ethics at King’s College London, defines rights as,
“entitlements (not) to perform certain actions, or (not) to be in certain states; or
entitlements that others (not) perform certain actions or (not) be in certain states.”22
Rights are often classed together by common attributes due to the sheer number and
variety that are claimed in modern society. Rights-assertions can be categorized
according to who is alleged to have the right, what actions, states or objects the right
pertains to, or why the right holder allegedly has the right. While many argue for a
fundamental difference between rights and moral status, this definition of rights also
seems fairly similar to DeGrazia’s definition of moral status.
Though these definitions are very similar, many would argue that the difference
between rights and moral status is not in the definition or function, but in the
requirements in attaining them. Moral status, at least according to DeGrazia’s definition,
only requires that a moral agent have prudential interests. Many traditionalists would
argue that rights require more than this, though. Rights, it is often held, require prudential
interests as well as that the agent can not only receive the benefits of, but also perform the
correlative obligations and duties, of the rights. Steve Sapontzis terms this the
‘Reciprocity Requirement’ and defines it as, “Only those who respect the moral rights of
21 Wilson, Scott D. "Animals and Ethics." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. IEP, 23 Oct. 2001. Web.
18 Sept. 2013. <http://www.iep.utm.edu/anim-eth/>.; Feinberg, Joel. "The Rights of Animals and
Unborn Generations." Philosophy and Environmental Crisis. By William T. Blackstone. Athens, GA:
University of Georgia, 1974. 43-68. Print.
22 Wenar, Lief, "Rights." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University, 19 Dec. 2005. Web.
28 Oct. 2013. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights/>.

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others are entitled to moral rights.”23
This clearly seems to be a major issue for animal
rights proponents.
Animals are clearly unable to perform the correlative duties of rights in the same
way that humans are, but why should they? I would argue that this requirement is blatant
anthropocentrism and speciesism.24
Although animals are not able to participate in the
moral community required of human rights, there is evidence that they do, in fact
participate in moral activity within their own communities.25
Frans de Waal argues, in his
work Good Natured, that human morality could not have developed without the empathy
and emotions that our species shares with other animals. De Waal cites his own research
with apes and monkeys as well as others’ ongoing research with other non-human
animals in order to show that the foundational characteristics of morality are natural and
that they can be seen in the behavior of other non-human species. According to De Waal,
the pillars of morality are reciprocity and empathy.26
As I have stated already, reciprocity
is a characteristic that many use to deny rights to non-human animals. Empathy, as I will
address in the next section, is another such characteristic that is used to deny rights to
non-human animals.
In a speech that Frans De Waal gave for TED Talk, he specifically cites
23 Sapontzis, Steve F. "Moral Community and Animal Rights." American Philosophical Quarterly 22.3
(July 1985). Print. p 251.
24 Speciesism is the assignment of different values, rights, or special consideration to individuals
solely on the basis of their species membership. According to Speciesism, certain characteristics,
typically seen as solely attributable to the human species, such as conciousness, cognition, emotion,
autonomy, etc., are morally relevant and give humans higher moral status than non-human animals.
Current research shows, though, that these morally relevant criterion are, in fact, arbitrary and that
the characteristics are found in many non-human animals and are not found in many humans. Singer,
"Speciesism And Moral Status."
25 De Waal, Frans. Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals.
26 De Waal, Frans. Moral Behavior in Animals. Perf. Frans De Waal. TED Talks, Nov. 2011. Web. 4 Nov.
2013. <http://www.ted.com/talks/frans_de_waal_do_animals_have_morals.html>.

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experimentation done with chimpanzees and elephants in which both species engaged in
reciprocal and cooperative behavior.27
He also demonstrates evidence of simple body
channel empathy, specifically in the forms of yawn contagion and consolation, in many
animals as well as the more complex, often considered solely human, cognitive channel
empathy in chimpanzees, capuchin monkeys, dogs, and birds, among other animals.28
De
Waal shows, in his book and speech, how many different types of animals respond to
social rules, help each other, share food, resolve conflict, and even develop their own
rudimentary sense of justice and fairness, further undermining the argument that humans
are the only creatures with moral agency.29
The fact that animals are capable of moral actions in their own community is not
the only reason that animals should be given moral consideration in regards to rights,
though. Some authors have begun arguing that not all rights necessarily require
reciprocity. If this is the case, then animals can hold certain rights, specifically those to
life, liberty, and bodily integrity, which impart correlative obligations on humans.
Humans have systematically derogated these rights and ignored these correlative
obligations, especially since the modernization of the 19th
century. Steven M. Wise is one
such author who argues that the basic rights of life, liberty, and bodily integrity do not
necessarily require entrance into a contract or reciprocation.30
Wise, a legal scholar
specializing in animal protection, primatology, animal intelligence, animal rights
27 De Waal, Frans. Moral Behavior in Animals. 3:30-8:00.
29 De Waal, Frans. Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals.; De
Waal, Frans. Moral Behavior in Animals.
30 Wise, Steven M. "The Basic Rights of Some Non-human Animals under the Common Law." The
Nonhuman Rights Project RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.nonhumanrightsproject.org/publications/>.

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jurisprudence, and animal rights law has argued in numerous books and articles that non-
humans animals are due the basic “human rights” of life, liberty, and bodily integrity.
Wise uses Hohfeld’s widely embraced theory of rights and states that a right is, by
definition, “an advantage conferred by legal rules upon one legal person against another
who bears the corresponding legal detriment.”31
He then goes on to list and explain the
four types of rights: liberties, claims, powers, and immunities.32
Wise claims that
immunities, rights that legally disable one person from interfering with another, are the
most basic human rights as well as rights to which at least some nonhuman animals are
most strongly entitled.33
Wise argues that our fundamental immunities arise from the
principles of liberty and equality. Liberty entitles a being to be treated a certain way
because of what they are and equality demands that likes be treated alike.
One of the most important but most misunderstood aspects of liberty is autonomy
— a characteristic that only moral persons have.34
Many opponents of animal rights
follow a Kantian theory of full autonomy, but Wise tends to think that autonomy is not an
all-or-nothing concept, but that, “lesser autonomies exist and that a being can be
autonomous if she has preferences and the ability to act to satisfy them, if she can cope
with changed circumstances, make choices, even ones she can't evaluate well, or has
desires and beliefs and can make appropriate inferences from them.”35
He calls this type
of lesser autonomy ‘Practical Autonomy’ and claims that having this type of autonomy is
31 Wise, "The Basic Rights of Some Non-human Animals under the Common Law."
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.

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sufficient for basic rights.36
Having basic, fundamental rights is not a matter of entering
into a contract or reciprocation, according to Wise, but is simply derivative of an ability
to have interests, desires and beliefs, and to be able to make decisions in order to satisfy
those interests, desires, and beliefs.
Steve F. Sapontzis, prominent animal rights advocate and professor emeritus of
philosophy at California State University, East Bay, specializing in animal ethics and
environmental ethics, similarly argues that reciprocity is not a requirement of our basic
rights to life, liberty and bodily integrity.37
Sapontzis argues that the basic principle
behind the reciprocity requirement and the reason why is has intuitive appeal is because it
addresses the fairness that we all seem to want in moral relationships.38
Sapontzis,
avoiding an argument from marginal cases39
, states that the Achilles heel of the
reciprocity requirement is that, “it cannot provide a basis for the obligations of the
powerful to the powerless…Thus if reciprocity were a necessary condition for having
moral rights, the weak would be excluded from having moral rights against the strong.”40
This is extremely counterintuitive to our common moral goals, though. One of the
fundamental reasons for rights is to protect the weak against the strong in order that they
are able to fulfill their interests.41
This is the case in regards to humans and should be the
case in regards to non-human animals as well. If one accepts the reciprocity requirement,
it seems that they undermine one of the fundamental purposes of moral rights in the first
37 Sapontzis, Steve F. "Moral Community and Animal Rights." American Philosophical Quarterly 22.3
(July 1985): 251-57. Print.
38 Sapontzis, "Moral Community and Animal Rights." P. 252.
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid.

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place.
Regardless of whether or not non-human animals are capable of having moral
status or the ability to bear rights, it seems that the burden of proof in this debate is being
placed on the wrong side. The anthropocentric point of view is taken for granted and it is,
without question, assumed that humans have an entitlement that non-human animals do
not. It is also taken for granted that, because of this entitlement, humans are allowed to
utilize non-human animals to further their own interests, even though this is detrimental
to the animals’ interests. The burden of proof regarding the moral status of non-human
animals has always been placed on those in favor of regarding non-human animals as
moral agents or rights bearing individuals, but this seems wrong. Why should one have to
prove that they should treat another living organism with moral consideration and
respect? It seems more logical that those who wish to treat non-human with moral
disregard should bear the burden of proving that these creatures are not, in fact, morally
relevant.
It is clear that the arguments for animal rights and moral status in animals are
currently, and may remain, indeterminate. It is also very clear, though, that that the
arguments against moral status in non-human animals are mostly, if not completely,
flawed. This may work in favor of the animal rights proponents, though. According to a
common understanding of morality, if an animal’s consciousness, cognitive abilities, and
emotions, and therefore their moral status, is indeterminate, the morally correct way to
treat them is as a moral agent until proven otherwise. In the case of indeterminacy, the
burden of proof should lie with those arguing in favor of acts and practices that would be
considered torture, murder, and slavery if performed on another moral agent. If we are to

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treat non-human animals with moral disregard, those arguing in favor of this position
need to sufficiently prove:
1. Why non-human animals are not deserving of or do not meet the requirements of
moral status or rights?
2. Even if non-human animals are not moral agents, why humans should be allowed
to use non-human animals in ways that are destructive to the interests of the
animals, as we currently do in factory farms, zoos, and animal research?
Steve Sapontzis also argues that the burden of proof has been misplaced throughout the
animal rights debate. He argues, citing the moral goal of protecting the weak and giving
all a fair chance in pursuing and fulfilling their interests, that, “encouraging moral agents
to regard non-moral agents as resources exacerbates rather than corrects the disparities of
power in our world.”42
He states that we should view our “moral entitlement”, if we
really do have a higher moral status than other creatures, less as a power like a feudal lord
over his serfs and more like the power of Plato’s Philosopher-kings.43
Rather than simply
using our ‘superior’ moral status selfishly for ourselves, we should use it to help others of
lesser moral standing.
IV. Models Against Animals’ Moral Status and Rights (sapontzis)
Many, if not all, of the arguments against moral status in non-human animals and
animal rights focus on characteristics that humans seem to have by nature, making
respect for certain rights morally appropriate. Many suggestions as to which
42 Sapontzis, "Moral Community and Animal Rights." P. 254.
43 Ibid.

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characteristics are relevant to moral status and rights have been put forth throughout the
animal rights debate, but none seem to be effective in denying basic rights to animals.
Rationality, cognition, autonomy, agency, a conception of the ‘good life’, reciprocal
moral communities, and consciousness are only a few of the characteristics used to justify
the human use of non-human animals as ‘things’ and the reasons proposed as to why it
cannot be meaningfully said that non-human animals have moral status, let alone rights.
Recent studies have been finding more and more evidence of these characteristics being
present in non-human animals, though.44
Two of the broadest and most cited
characteristics used to deny animal rights are emotions and consciousness, with the last of
these being one of the most controversial.
It has been argued that non-human animals lack empathy with other creatures as
well as emotions generally and therefore cannot experience pleasure or pain, the feeling
of success or failure, happiness or sadness. This lack of emotion and empathy leads many
to argue that they cannot be moral agents possessing moral rights.
Empathy is the fellow feeling with other beings; it is understanding and sharing
the emotions, feelings, and desires of another being. The fact that non-human animals are
seen as not possessing empathy has been used as further proof that they are completely
unable to reciprocate moral actions and feelings. As we saw previously, though, some
rights, moral immunities in particular, do not necessarily require reciprocation or
involvement in a moral community at all. They simply require having interests and the
ability to act to satisfy them in changing circumstances, which most people would grant

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to non-human animals.45
Even so, the arguments that non-human animals do not feel
empathy are basely incorrect, given recent research. Evidence stemming from late 20th
and early 21st
century research points to a degree of empathy in many other primates,
including chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas, as well as in dogs, mice, chickens, and
elephants.46
Emotions have been used in a different way to deny animals moral status and
rights. Those who claim that animals do not have anything remotely resembling human
emotions are able to argue that, while animals may, in fact, have interests and an ability
to satisfy them, the fact that they do not have emotions means that their interests being
impeded and rights being derogated does nothing harmful to them. The term ‘sentience’,
at least as used in the animal rights debate, is used to denote, “the capacity to experience
some events as good or bad for oneself…[and to experience] mental states of suffering
(either painful sensations or emotional distress) and pleasure (or happiness), whether or
not these are the direct product of sensory input.”47
Therefore, if non-human animals are
incapable of feeling emotions or emotional distress or pleasure, they are not sentient and
do not deserve moral consideration. This argument is based on a flawed initial claim: that
animals do not feel emotions (pain and pleasure) in a similar way to humans.
Emotions in non-human animals have been documented since Darwin’s 1872
work The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Twentieth century research
has been extremely important to the recognition of emotion in non-human animal
behavior. In particular, Jaak Panksepp, Baily Endowed Chair of Animal Well-Being
46 "Empathy." OneKind. N.p., 2010. Web. 09 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.onekind.org/be_inspired/animal_sentience/empathy/>.
47 Taylor, 19.

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Science and Professor, Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience (IPN), Washington State
University, has conducted thorough research and concluded that emotions are not, in fact,
strictly human, but Panskepp argues that emotions have their origins in the evolutionarily
ancient parts of the brain shared by all mammals.48
The problem, historically, seems to be
that emotions are a very subjective quality and because humans are the only creatures
capable of expression, it was believed that only they were capable of emotions. In reality,
though, this merely proves that humans are the only creatures capable of verbalizing and
describing their emotions. If non-human animals share the same brain features that
produce emotions in humans, i.e. the amygdala and hypothalamus according to Panksepp,
then there is no reason to suspect that emotions do not also exist in non-human animals as
well.49
David DeGrazia also cites a lot of evidence leading to the conclusion that animals
do, in fact, feel emotions.50
He argues that we are not interested in whether animals feel
pain per say, given that pain can be defined as merely, “an unpleasant or aversive sensory
experience typically associated with actual or potential tissue damage.”51
This is because
all of the behavioral, physiological, and functional-evolutionary evidence supports the
fact that many non-human animals, including almost all vertebrates, are capable of
experiencing sensations of pain.52
What we should be interested in, in regards to the
moral status of non-human animals, is suffering, which he defines as, “a highly
48 Panksepp, Jaak, and Pamela Weintraub. "Jaak Panksepp Pinned Down Humanity's 7 Primal
Emotions." Discover Magazine. N.p., May 2012. Web. 09 Nov. 2013.
<http://discovermagazine.com/2012/may/11-jaak-panksepp-rat-tickler-found-humans-7-primal-
emotions>.
49 Panksepp, "Jaak Panksepp Pinned Down Humanity's 7 Primal Emotions."
50 DeGrazia, David. Animal Rights: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.
51 Ibid, 42.
52 Ibid, 42-44.

Sparks 20
unpleasant emotional state associated with more-than-minimal pain or distress.”53
Suffering is an emotional reaction to physical or psychological pain that includes distress,
“an unpleasant emotional response to the perception of environmental challenges or to
equilibrium disrupting internal stimuli,” fear, “a typically unpleasant emotional response
to a perceived danger,” and anxiety, “a typically unpleasant emotional response to a
perceived threat to one’s personal or psychological well-being.”54
While many argue that
non-human animals do not have the emotional capacity for suffering, and thus are not due
moral consideration, DeGrazia disagrees. He claims that the typical behavioral and
physiological responses to fear and anxiety found in humans, including autonomic
hyperactivity, motor tension, and hyper-attentiveness, are also found in non-human
animals.55
He also shows that fear and anxiety would play the same functional-
evolutionary role in animals as it does in humans, stating that, “it permits a creature to
inhibit action and attend carefully to the environment in preparation for protective
action.”56
Given that this fairly conclusive evidence in support of emotions, pain, and
suffering in animals is only the beginning of the research, it seems that there is no reason
to suspect that animals do not experience emotions or even that they experience emotions
in a way that make them impervious to pain or suffering. Regarding animal suffering,
Peter Singer states, “we must not think that the suffering or the pleasure experienced by
animals counts any less from a moral point of view than a like amount of suffering of
53 DeGrazia, Animal Rights: A Very Short Introduction. P. 45.
54 Ibid, 45-46.
55 Ibid, 46.
56 Ibid, 46-47.

Sparks 21
pleasure experienced by humans.”57
The second, and more complex, argument against moral status and rights in non-
human animals hold that non-human animals do not possess consciousness, at least not in
any morally relevant way. Consciousness is one of the most mysterious natural
phenomena and identifying the causes, attributes, and effects of human consciousness
remains one of the most difficult and controversial problems for philosophers and
theologians. We tend to assume that all other humans (‘normal’ humans, at least) are
endowed with a consciousness similar to each other, but the question of whether minds
and consciousness exist in non-human animals is not so easily answered or assumed
away. Still, recent scientific evidence is beginning to show similarities between human
and some non-humans in such characteristics as cognition, rationality, self-awareness,
and even language assessment, all of which have been deemed necessary components to
consciousness.58
Consciousness itself is an extremely mysterious and misunderstood idea. It has
been argued that human consciousness can be split up into a number of different sub-
types of consciousness, including sleep/wake consciousness, perceptive or awareness
consciousness, access consciousness, phenomenal consciousness, and self-
consciousness.59
The first two sub-types of consciousness, sleep/wake and perceptive
consciousness, are almost unanimously believed to be a feature of both humans as well as
57 Taylor, 16.
59 Allen, Colin. "Animal Consciousness." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University, 23
Dec. 1995. Web. 18 Oct. 2013. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-animal/>.

Sparks 22
non-human animals.60
It has also been argued that access consciousness, having mental
representations for use in rational control of action or speech, is a feature of many non-
human species, including most mammals.61
The last two sub-types of consciousness are
highly debated in non-human animals, though, and have traditionally been held to be
strictly human characteristics.
Phenomenal consciousness is, “the qualitative, subjective, experiential or
phenomenological aspects of conscious experience.”62
As Thomas Nagel presents it,
phenomenal consciousness is what it is like to be something.63
Many have held that only
humans have phenomenal consciousness, but this seems to be a product of a traditional
anthropocentric point of view. We find it easy to accept the claim that there is the
subjective sense of being in each and every human, because we assume similarity
between ourselves and other human beings. There is no more proof of this subjective,
phenomenal consciousness in other humans than there is in animals, though. There is no
way of actually, objectively knowing whether another creature has phenomenal
consciousness due to the basic, subjective definition of the term. If animal consciousness
is indeterminate, the burden of proof should not be on those who want to treat them
morally, though.
Consciousness is being used as evidence that we may treat animals as morally
irrelevant. As I argued previously, the burden of proof is being placed in the wrong place.
60 Allen, "Animal Consciousness."
61 Block, Ned. "On A Confusion About A Function Of Consciousness." Journal of Behavioral and Brain
Sciences 18.2 (1995): 227-87. Harvard.edu. Web. 9 Nov. 2013.
<http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic720164.files/Block.BBS-
1995.Onaconfusionaboutafunctionofconsciousness.pdf>.; Allen, "Animal Consciousness."
63 Nagel, Thomas. "What It Is like to Be a Bat?" The Philosophical Review 83.4 (October 1974): 435-50.
UTEP.edu. Web. 9 Nov. 2013. <http://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf>.

Sparks 23
Since phenomenal consciousness is inherently subjective, we cannot objectively prove
that other humans have phenomenal consciousness, let alone non-human animals. But
this would lead to the conclusion that, since we cannot prove that other humans are
conscious and consciousness is the morally relevant criterion for rights, that we do not
need to treat other humans morally either. Isaiah Berlin stated, “Unless men are held to
possess some attribute over and above those which they have in common with other
natural objects—animals, plants, things, etc.—the moral command not to treat men as
animals or things has no rational foundation.”64
Self-consciousness refers to, “an organism's capacity for second-order
representation of it’s own mental states.”65
The question of self-consciousness includes
questions of theory of mind in non-human animals and whether animals are able to
attribute mental states to others.66
Questions about self-consciousness and theory of mind
in animals are a matter of active scientific controversy, with the most attention focused
on chimpanzees and the great apes. Self-consciousness is one sub-type of consciousness
that can, and has, been proven to exist in humans and some non-human animals by
empirical means. Citing evidence from popular mirror studies as well as other research,
Richard Watson states in his work Self-Consciousness and the Rights of Nonhuman
Animals and Nature, “there are some animals besides humans - e.g., especially
chimpanzees, gorillas, dolphins, and dogs - which, in accordance with good behavioral
evidence, are moral entities, and sometimes moral agents. On the grounds of reciprocity,
64 Berlin, Isaiah. Four Essays on Liberty. London: Oxford University P., 1969. Print.
66 Ibid

Sparks 24
they merit, at minimum, intrinsic or primary rights to life and to relief from unnecessary
suffering.”67
Many different characteristics have been cited as the morally relevant criterion
that make humans moral agents and rights bearing individuals, but not non-human
animals. Scientific evidence has always come to show that these characteristics are
neither universally, nor strictly, human characteristics. This does not mean that non-
human animals necessarily have these characteristics to the same degree as humans do,
though. Nonetheless, the mere possession of these characteristics alongside humans
should put humans and non-humans animals on the same moral standing at least in
regards to fundamental rights to life, liberty, and bodily integrity.
V. Summary: My Idea of Animals’ Moral Status and Rights
The first few sections of this paper, while vital to a general understanding of the
debate on the moral status of non-human animals and animal rights, have have merely
worked to establish the background information and basic descriptions surround the
debate thus far. Thus, in this section, I will synthesize the background information,
theories, and the terminology discussed this far in order to outline and present my idea of
the moral status of non-human animals and animal rights. This will include a description
of which rights I am discussing, how and why animals can be seen as possessing moral
rights, and an answer to which animals I am referring.
To start, we must ask, which rights can be applied in a relevant way to non-human
animals? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations
67 Watson, Richard A. "Self-Consciousness and the Rights of Nonhuman Animals and Nature."
Environmental Ethics 1.2 (1979): 99-129. Print.

Sparks 25
General Assembly on 10 December 1948, was the first global expression of rights to
which all human beings are inherently entitled. It includes thirty articles which espouse
the, “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all
members of the human family.”68
These rights include, most prominently, the rights to
life, liberty, and bodily integrity:
Article 3— Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 4— No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave
trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Article 5— No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment.69
There is a problem with the way these rights are laid out in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, though. These rights — one’s rights to life, liberty, and bodily integrity
cannot be shown to be universally nor strictly human rights. These rights, because of their
inclusion in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are held at the same level and of
the same importance as the right to education, the right to form and join trade unions, and
even the right to rest, leisure, reasonable limitation of working hours, and periodic
holidays with pay.70
This seems intuitively wrong. Without a right to life, liberty, and
bodily integrity, all of these other rights are meaningless. While it is important that these
rights are drawn out in legal doctrine, they are not fundamentally derived from this legal
doctrine. The rights to life, liberty, and bodily integrity cannot be said to be strictly
‘human rights’, but instead fall under a broader category of ‘living rights’ or ‘natural
68 United Nations General Assembly. "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights."University of
Minnesota Human Rights Resource Center. Ed. Nancy Flowers. University of Minnesota Web. 18 Sept.
2013. <http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/edumat/hreduseries/hereandnow/Part-5/8_udhr-
abbr.htm>. P. 1.
69 Ibid, 2.
70 Ibid, 5-7.

Sparks 26
rights’ that are not exclusive to human beings. There have been many different ‘human’
qualities, characteristics, and criterion presented as that which is necessary in order to be
a rights-bearing individual, but scientific research and evidence continues to show that
none of these are universally nor strictly human qualities. The rights to life, liberty, and
bodily integrity are the rights that humans derogate from animals most vigorously and
consistently. While there may be other rights in international human rights doctrine
which could be meaningfully applied to non-human animals, these very basic rights to
life, liberty, and physical integrity seem to present a reason why most, if not all, of our
current practices regarding animals are immoral and should be altered if not completely
ceased.
Many dislike the idea of granting animals rights because it seems to put non-
human creatures on the same level as humans, but this is not necessarily so. Granting
non-human animals the rights to life, liberty, and bodily integrity easily agrees with a
degree theory of moral status and rights. I would argue that all of the supposed morally
relevant criterion, including cognition, reason, emotion, empathy, self-awareness, and
consciousness, as well as moral status and the ability to bear rights are all characteristics
which come in degrees, among humans and non-human animals. While animals are not
qualitatively different from humans in regards to morally relevant criterion, they still may
be quantitatively different. So, it can be argued that humans do, in fact, have a place
above animals, while still granting animals the basic rights to life liberty and bodily
integrity based on their more basic versions of cognition, reason, emotion, empathy, self-
awareness, consciousness, and moral status. It needs to be clarified, though, that this
means that humans cannot treat animals as morally irrelevant ‘things’ in the way that we

Sparks 27
currently do. If one does feel it necessary, or if they feel that they are entitled to treat
animals as mere ‘things’, the burden of proof as to why animals’ moral status and rights
do not matter in the situation and why we should be able to use animals as ‘things’ lies
with them, not with those wishing to treat them as morally relevant.
Now that it has been shown which rights can be meaningfully applied to non-
human animals, the logical next question is which animals can be seen as rights bearing
individuals? This question cannot be easily nor completely answered as of yet, though.
Scientific research has only been conducted on a small number of species thus far, but as
it continues, more and more species are shown to possess the reason, linguistic abilities,
cognition, self-awareness, or consciousness necessary for basic rights. According to
Frans De Waal, the pillars of morality, reciprocity and empathy, are found in a number of
non-human animals, including chimpanzees, capuchin monkeys, dogs, and birds, among
other animals.71
Rudimentary moral communities have been seen in baboons, wolves,
elephants, and meerkats, as well.72
Even more complex characteristics, such as self-
awareness, cognition, emotions, and phenomenal consciousness, are suspected in almost
all mammals and many vertebrates generally.73
Drawing lines as to which non-human
animals are and are not included as moral agents and rights bearing individuals is not the
purpose of this particular paper, though. There is no doubt that as research is conducted
more thoroughly on different species, more evidence will emerge of these morally
relevant criterion in species previously thought to be non-sentient. Until all research has
72 Gruen, "The Moral Status of Animals."

Sparks 28
been done on the subject, which may take a long while, no real answer can be given as to
where to draw the line on morality.
I. Conclusion
While the arguments in favor of animal rights and moral status are still fairly
indeterminate, the arguments against moral status and rights in non-human animals are
even more so. When the debate is analyzed, it seems that there is sufficient evidence that
non-human animals demonstrate moderate amounts of the characteristics necessary for
basic moral status and the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and bodily integrity. Again,
while not fully proven, the evidence is sufficient to deem necessary a reworking of our
treatment of non-human animals as morally irrelevant ‘things’. This would mean
changing or ceasing the factory farming industry, closing many zoos or increasing the
care and amenities in those deemed humane, compensating animals who hold jobs in our
society, and ceasing or reworking of the animal testing industry, among other things. All
of these actions would be considered seriously fundamentally immoral if they were
performed on another human moral agent, and until non-human animals can be fully
proven as non-moral creatures, they should not be allowed. The burden of proof should
lie with those using and performing typically immoral and often illegal acts on non-
human agents.

Sparks 29
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