ABSTRACT

Again – ‘The right not to be tortured, then, is shared by all animals that suffer pain; it is not a distinctively human right at all’, and ‘Whatever rationale is provided for granting humans a right to liberty, it seems that a relevantly similar one is available in the case of at least some other species of animals’ (James Rachels).3 Of course not all philosophers agree, but the disagreement has so far focused mainly on the proper use

of words like rights and equality rather than on defending traditional dismissive habits of thought and practice as a whole.4 Moreover the interesting term speciesism has been coined to describe discrimination against non-humans, thereby branding it as an offence against equality, parallel to racism, sexism, ageism and the like. Isolated writers had said these things before, but this is the first large-scale attempt to extend liberal concepts to the borders of sentience.