Speaking of Animal Rights, Mary Anne Warren

Warren is writing in response to Regan’s views on animal rights. Although Warren agrees that animals have rights, she believes there are problems with Regan’s theory. First, she finds his notion of “inherent value” to be obscure. Regan argues that some animals—those who are subjects of a life—have inherent value, which is the basis of their moral rights. Warren points out that the idea of inherent value is defined only negatively; Regan tells us what inherent value is not. But what is it, exactly? And why does having this sort of value mean having rights? A second problem is that Regan’s theory seems to call for a sharp dividing line between animals that have rights and animals that do not, and it is not clear how or where such a line could be drawn. According to Warren, we cannot treat nonhuman animals as our moral equals, but we should still attribute rights to them. She defends a “weak animals’ rights” position, arguing that nonhuman animals have rights but not rights as strong as human rights.

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