Animals have the right not to suffer

Perhaps if we could turn back the hands of time we should have called animal rights “animal needs” or “animal interests”. In his book “Animal Liberation” – often called “The Bible of the animal rights movement” – Peter Singer explains that rights are all about needs and interests. For example, Singer writes, “It would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road by a schoolboy. A stone does not have interests because it cannot suffer. Nothing that we can do to it can possibly make any difference to its welfare”.

Singer also notes that no feminist would demand abortion rights for men. Since men have no need for an abortion there are no interests or rights that are involved here. 

But since animals can suffer they clearly have a need and interest not to suffer and thus they have rights.

Take the much-maligned pig, for example. A pig may be more intelligent than a dog and definitely more affectionate than a cat. Like dogs and cats, a pig has a need for companionship, a need for room to move around and a need not to suffer bodily harm.

A number of years ago Ingrid Newkirk, who is now president of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), angered people when she compared the yearly slaughter of billions of chickens to the murder of millions of Jews by Hitler. But it’s hard to imagine any animal that is treated worse than the factory farmed chicken. The chicken has the same needs, interests and rights not to be made to suffer. And that’s why animal rights are just as important as human rights. It’s as simple as saying that pain is pain. If another living being – human or non-human – can suffer as much as I can, then he has the same right not to suffer.

Of course there are differences between humans and animals. Humans are generally more intelligent (although an adult ape may be more intelligent than a severely retarded human) and animals look and communicate differently from us. But if we can all agree that it would be wrong to harm humans who are less intelligent or who look or communicate differently from us, why can’t we agree that it’s immoral to harm animals for those reasons? As the philosopher Jeremy Bentham said, “The question is not ‘Can they reason?’ nor ‘Can they talk?’ but ‘Can they suffer’?”

Still there are times when we have to choose between our needs and those of animals. Suppose, for example, I have a rifle and I come across a hungry tiger that has a need to eat me. I wouldn’t hesitate to give higher priority to my need not to be eaten and would shoot the tiger. I also give low priority to the rights of a mosquito to bite me in the face and possibly give me dengue fever.

But no moral philosophy is absolute. For example, although we say “thou shall not kill”, we have the right to kill humans in self-defence. Or while we say “thou shall not steal”, certainly there would be a moral difference between Bill Gates stealing a loaf of bread or an impoverished woman stealing it in order to feed her hungry child.

But the fact that I strongly believe in situational ethics and also realise that good people will always disagree on exactly where to draw the line when it comes to animal rights, doesn’t mean we can’t in general accept the principle that we should strive to do no harm to animals and to respect the fact that they have the same needs, interests and rights as humans not to suffer.

Eric Bahrt

Pattaya