ABSTRACT
It has been suggested that: ‘what differentiates the modern animal protection movement from its predecessors is the acceptance by the former of the notion of animal rights.’10 The crucial feature of the ‘inherent value’ argument is that it is an uncompromising denial of the modern-day arguments regarding the benefits that we obtain from the use of animals. It is the ultimate argument in favour of the individual animal by replacing the notion that ‘the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one’ with the notion that ‘the needs of the one are equivalent to the needs of the many’. There is evidence of this notion in human attitudes to ‘the gift of life’. No one, it appears, feels such a burning desire to benefit the whole of mankind that they willingly allow themselves to be sacrificed in the cause of medical advance.
