Carl Cohen's Argument For Animal Rights

Carl Cohen, in “The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research”, presents an argument for why no beings outside of humans possess rights. Therefore, he argues, since animals reside outside of the realm of those who have rights, they have no rights to protect them from being experimented on for biomedical research. I believe that Cohen’s argument of why humans are the only beings that possess rights is true; however, I believe that the argument he used to defend his claim was insufficient, and did not effectively contend his point. In this paper I will dissect Cohen’s main argument to why animals do not have rights. I will first present his definition of “rights”. Then I will present the difference he makes between rights and obligations. …show more content…
If Cohen wanted his audience to buy into his argument, then he should have gone all the way with defending his statements, or he should have not bothered with it in the first place. He could have argued that in these certain instances that his objectors bring up these individuals actually do not have rights. Babies are born without rights. Their parents have a right to them, their parents hold all rights surrounding them, and society holds the parents up to moral obligations that they take care of the child in a socially respected way. Once babies grow up, and develop a strong cognitive function and can participate morally within the society, then they are bequeathed rights. Those individuals who have severe mental challenges that prevent them from participating in full in a moral society do not have rights either. If they were born with the disadvantage then they never reached the level in which society was willing to give them rights and any idea of rights surrounding them remained with their parents. If they developed the disadvantage later in life, their rights were revoked and given back to their parents, or a caregiver. These individuals rely on the moral obligations of their parents/caregivers and the rules of their society. Society is quelled by the fact that they know these individuals, for the most part, will be treated well due to the obligations their parents/caregivers have to them, as well as the right society has to the parents/caregivers protecting and taking care of them. The fact that Cohen only argued his credentials for his definition of rights on the basis of kind left his argument weak. To be effective he needed to show people how these individuals do not have rights, as demonstrated above, or abandon the argument, and with it the assertion that only moral agents can have