Why Animals Have No Right Research Assignment Paper

Why Animals Have No Right
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Why Animals Have No Right
Carl Cohen advocates that animals do not and cannot have moral rights. This sentiment is supported by people who use animals for research or experiments in a way to defend the moral propriety of their kind of work. However, a tangible explanation against the rights of animals is essential to elaborate as the reason for human beings with less complex mentality or mentally retarded, infants compared to those of animals have rights but animals have no rights. The essay thus objects Carl Cohen's explanation on the nonexistence of rights to animals. Thus portrays Cohen as not a moral advocate.
Cohen ascertains that the mentally retarded on insane indeed have rights. Thus, it can be eluded that his explanations why the humans have rights suggest that animals too have right. Conversely, one can also note that even human beings have no rights. The strategic explanation that Cohen puts across does not support his initial argument hence it is inconsistent and has false implication concerning the rights of animals (Rights, 1986). Cohen’s four main points of support of the idea are that animals have no right to claim since having a right is potential claim to exercise by an individual over another person. Secondly, animals are unable to make moral claims or judgment against one another. Furthermore, animals lack the attributes that result in their ability to make moral claims against other animals. Hence, they are unable to make moral claims and judgment against others (Cohen, 1997). In order to understand Cohen’s argument, first, an elaboration of the meaning of right will be important. Cohen elaborates his understanding of right as:
Right is a claim or potential claim that one party may exercise against another. The target against whom such a claim may be registered can be a single person, a group, a community or all humankind (Rights, 1986, p.865).
One has to ask whether animals are entitled to claims on their interests of not being subjected to suffering, pain or death, to retain their mental and body integrity and life as indeed human beings. Cohen thought has a meaning that animals have “the right not to be used as inanimate objects to achieve human interests…no matter the importance of the human interest might be” (Cohen & Regan, 2001, p.22). Furthermore, Cohen’s idea is similar to an argument proposed by Tom Regan explaining the meaning of having a right. He says,
To have a right is to be in a position to claim, or to have claimed on one’s behalf, that something is due or owed, and that the claim that is made is a claim against somebody, to ...