ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on animals and seeks to understand the extent to which the debate over animal rights can inform responses to the machine question. It reviews religious beliefs and intellectual positions about the treatment of animals; compares properties-based, direct/indirect, relational, and legal approaches to animal rights; and examines recent cases in which petitioners attempt to secure rights for nonhuman creatures. The chapter argues that while properties-based and direct/indirect arguments have resulted in an impasse unlikely to be overcome any time soon, relational approaches offer a more promising avenue for animal rights. It explains how issues involving anthropocentrism, duties, properties, and inclusiveness commonly observed within scholarship and case law on animal rights frustrate the translation of this model to the realm of technology. The chapter concludes by describing the conditions under which philosophy and law on animal rights might contribute to the discussion regarding rights for robots.
