Contractarianism And Animal Rights Essay

On the other hand, skeptics to contractarianism claim that animals are neither moral nor immoral and cannot take any decisions based on morals (Regan, 2012). Opponents dispute the theory and support the notion that humans are free to decide what to do with animals as natural resources meant to fulfill their needs. However, the reality is that this model can be very useful in protecting animals as acknowledged by the animal rights activists. For instance, in American there is pervasive moral abhorrence to the notion of killing animals with patriotic or emotional importance such as bald eagles. This idea can be perceived to be rooted in their moral philosophical influence on people and may, thus, serve as extensions of contractarianism and animal rights (Linzey, 2013). However, the major philosophy that dominates is the rights view. Here, it is maintained that every living being who is “a subject-of-a-life with an experiential welfare” has …show more content…
Put another way, living beings with the quality of self-identity and conscious awareness should be able to enjoy moral rights. When related to human-animal association, the rights’ view specifies that animals have moral rights to particular exemptions and freedoms in the same way people do (Rowlands, 2013). Also, animal rights activists maintain that animals not only have the right to life but also the right to liberty from human-induced bodily disturbances such as painful subjections to painful laboratory practices, habitat fragmentation, slaughter, and hunting for meat and byproducts like hides and skins for clothing (Munro, 2012). In simple terms, humans should stop using animals to meet their