ABSTRACT
It is now widely recognized that members of other animal species and the rest of non-human nature urgently need to be protected from destructive human activities. This article evaluates the case for extending the moral and legal scope of rights as a strategy for achieving these aims. It suggests that we require a more pluralistic approach to the moral standing of non-human beings—i.e. one which does not depend entirely on the discourse of rights and its cognates—and that moral argument and legal reform need to be pursued in the context of a wider movement for far-reaching structural changes in social and economic life.
