Animal Rights and Human Limitations

Abstract This chapter discusses the moral status of nonhuman animals. It argues that theories of moral status based solely upon intrinsic properties imply that we must condemn as irrational all such differences between the treatment of animals that belong to different species, but that appear to be comparable in their mental and behavioural capacities. On the multi-criterial account, such differences often make good moral sense. There remains an uncomfortable tension between the Anti-Cruelty principle, which bids us hesitate before harming any sentient being, and the Ecological principle, which permits us to recognize overriding obligations to members of endangered plant and animal species, to the species themselves, and to the earth's ecosystems.