Philosophy Response

Should we treat non-human animals well because they have rights, interests, neither, or
both?
I. Introduction
The treatment of non-human animals has long occupied a fraught and evolving position within
moral philosophy. From the Cartesian view of the "automata", to contemporary debates over
animal sentience and legal personhood, one's ethical obligation to animals remains contested.
The central question, "Should we treat non-human animals well because they have rights,
interests, neither, or both?", is complicated by ambiguous terms: what it means to "treat well",
what constitutes a "right", and whether animals have "interests" in any morally significant sense.
This essay argues for the existence of a moral imperative to treat animals well because their
differing capacities for consciousness and self-awareness endow them with different degrees of
rights and interest-based moral value, which should be proportionally respected. Rights and
interests are not mutually exclusive foundations for moral consideration; rather, they are
interdependent categories that arise from an animal's cognitive and experimental complexities.
Our obligation to treat animals well emerges not from arbitrary sentiment, but from a system of
universal principles grounded in natural law and the categorical imperative.

II. Defining Terms: Rights, Interests, and Moral Obligations
To answer the question meaningfully, we must first clarify the terms in question. Rights, in the
moral sense, refer to justified claims or entitlements that others are bound to respect. These may
be natural (arising from the mere fact of existence and rational agency,) or legal (arising from
institutional contracts or law) (Locke). Interests, meanwhile, refer to the capacity of an entity to
benefit or suffer from a state of affairs; a notion central to utilitarian thinkers like Jeremy
Bentham, who famously wrote, "The question is...can they suffer?" (Bentham 17). Critically, not
all beings that have interests necessarily have rights. Plants, for instance, may "benefit" from
sunlight, but they do not possess the cognitive machinery necessary to formulate recognition of
that benefit. Rights, therefore, require a minimum level of subjectivity; what philosopher
Thomas Nagel called the existence of a "What is it like" perspective (Nagel 435). That is, some
form of conscious, first-person experience must be present for the attribution of moral standing.
This definitional work yields a crucial insight: rights and interests are only meaningful when
situated within a framework that acknowledges the internal lives of animals as morally salient.
This recognition must be informed by the best available understanding of animal consciousness.

III. Consciousness as the Metric
The keystone of this framework is consciousness. Not in the general sense of biological
awareness but in the more specific sense of sentience, self-awareness, and the capacity to
experience suffering. Animals display varying levels of said capacities. An ant does not possess
an equal capacity for pain that a dolphin or chimpanzee might. This difference is morally
significant, as it establishes a relative moral hierarchy of suffering amongst animal species. For
example, killing a wasp to avoid being stung is widely considered morally permissible, despite
the fact that it ends a life. At first glance, this appears disproportionate, as the harm done exceeds
the harm avoided. Yet such reasoning overlooks the asymmetry in moral significance: a human’s
capacity to feel and interpret pain is vastly greater than that of a wasp. Moral weight, therefore, is
not measured by the quantity of harm alone, but by the depth of subjective experience it affects.
This means that pain and harm inflicted onto a human is more morally significant than pain and
harm inflicted onto beings with a lesser capacity to process and understand pain.
As established by Kant's categorical imperative, moral obligations must stem from universally
applicable axioms (Kant). Thus, if we accept that it is immoral to inflict unnecessary suffering on
a being that can feel pain and desire relief, we must extend that principle to all such beings
proportionally to their cognitive capacities. This insight is reinforced by previously established
works, such as Peter Singer's Animal Liberation, which argues for equal consideration of
interests based on the capacity for suffering rather than species membership (8). This creates a
graded system of moral rights. Highly sentient animals may be owed more stringent protections,
not because of their biological proximity to humans, but because their internal lives are more
complex, and their capacity for qualia is more profound. Thus, animals are not moral equals, but
moral subjects with differentiated standing. To establish this differentiation, one might appeal to
a set of cognitive benchmarks. Although differing criteria have been proposed, most fall under
one or more of the following general headings: capacity for non-verbal communication, ability to
learn, ability to solve problems, ability to display creativity, brain structure, behavioral
versatility, and stimulus independence (Gennaro 3). While these benchmarks are not exhaustive,
they provide a practical guide for determining the level of moral consideration an animal should
receive. This calibration already occurs in law and public policy. We restrict animal testing more
severely for primates than for other animals, such as insects. The U.S. National Institutes of
Health formally ended all invasive research on chimpanzees in 2015, citing both ethical and
scientific considerations (Reardon). We have extensive protections for dolphins and elephants,
yet we treat rodents as disposable (Reardon). This inconsistency is not always just, but it reflects
a rudimentary acknowledgment that not all animal lives are ethically identical.
IV. Legal Rights and Practical Interests
Some argue that animals have legal rights only insofar as they serve practical purposes for
humanity. This is undeniably true, as laws prohibiting animal harm are often motivated more by
societal benefit, environmental stability, and psychological well-being than concern for animals
themselves. However, even these contractual rights reinforce the legitimacy of a broader moral
framework. For instance, protecting a species from extinction might be motivated by its

ecological utility, yet such protection entails a practical respect for the animal's interests. In this
way, interests and legal rights often converge, even if they originate from differing philosophical
justifications. However, legal rights, being mutable and anthropocentric, cannot form the sole
basis of our moral obligations. If society were to abolish all animal protection laws, the moral
question of how we should treat animals would remain. A clear example lies in the use of
animals for scientific testing. Legally, certain animals are subject to fewer restrictions than
others. However, such permissions do not override the moral truth that some uses of animals are
unethical regardless of legality; the mere legality of an act does not entail its moral
permissibility. This distinction was emphasized by philosopher Tom Regan, who argued in The
Case for Animal Rights that animals are "subjects-of-a-life" and thus possess inherent value
beyond utilitarian calculation (243). Moreover, contractual rights are always subordinate to
natural rights in moral reasoning. If a legal contract permitted slavery, it would not negate the
slave's natural right to freedom. Similarly, an animal's legal status cannot exhaust the question of
its moral standing. Contractual frameworks are convenient, but they cannot substitute for a
principled ethical account.

V. Practical Ethics and the Value of Animal Life
This graduated approach to animal ethics, which calibrates moral concern based on the cognitive
and experiential capacities of different species, helps us navigate practical ethical decisions
without relying on false equivalences. Recognizing that not all animals are owed the same level
of moral regard allows us to weigh competing values while still affirming that every sentient life
has ethical significance. For example, while we may not be morally obligated to treat ants as we
would dogs, we are still not morally permitted to cause them suffering without cause. Their place
on the moral scale is lower but not non-existent. This proportionality also helps explain
environmental protections: while the life of a single insect may carry limited moral weight, its
role in a broader ecosystem may justify our concern. Biodiversity contributes to environmental
equilibrium, which in turn supports complex ecosystems, including human life; a point made by
environmental ethicists such as Aldo Leopold in A Sand Country Almanac (201-226).
Furthermore, respecting the integrity of even minimally sentient creatures may cultivate a
broader ethical sensibility in human beings. Ethical habits are not compartmentalized; how we
treat the weakest and most marginalized members of the moral community affects how we treat
one another. A child who learns not to torment small animals may carry that compassion into
human relationships (Miller). Thus, even where moral obligations are minimal, the indirect
benefits of compassionate treatment remain significant. This has important implications for
animal rights advocacy. If we frame obligations to animals solely in terms of their individual
rights, we may neglect the broader systems and structures that shape human-animal interactions.
A more fruitful approach is to integrate rights-based reasoning with consequentialist and
virtue-ethical considerations. Such an approach acknowledges the layered complexity of moral
life without requiring ethical absolutism in every instance.

VI. Objections and Limitations
A common objection to the tiered model of animal rights invokes the so-called "slippery slope":
if moral consideration is assigned according to cognitive sophistication, what principled barrier
prevents us from applying this hierarchy within our own species? Might the same reasoning that
justifies diminished concern for an ant be misapplied to deny full moral status to infants, those
with severe cognitive disabilities, or the elderly with dementia? However, it is crucial to
recognize that this is already a common practice among humans. People with impaired vision
cannot drive; children cannot sign contracts; patients with advanced dementia receive
guardianship. This is not done to discriminate, it is morally responsive to an individual's needs to
achieve their well-being. Some object further by pointing out that if cognitive complexity is the
metric, then a sufficiently cognitively impaired human's life might hold less moral value than
that of a complex animal. However, to ask whether a newborn "ranks higher" than a chimpanzee
is to commit a category error, akin to asking whether a compass is superior to a clock. Each
functions according to ends specific to its kind, and each is evaluated by standards internal to its
form of life. Once this distinction is properly maintained, the graduated model of animal ethics
no longer threatens our commitment to equal human dignity. In conclusion, the complexity of
human experience, no matter how impaired, is incomparable to that of a non-human animal.
Another objection stems from the "problem of other minds", holding that because we cannot
know an animal's consciousness with certainty, we should not build moral systems upon it.
Admittedly, there remains an epistemic gap in our understanding of animal consciousness.
Behavioral and neurological data cannot conclusively prove the presence of subjective
experience; they can only suggest it with varying degrees of confidence. Yet moral reasoning
need not wait for epistemic certainty. We lack first-person access to the inner lives of crows or
octopuses, just as we lack it for other humans. In both cases, we rely on IBE (inference to best
explanation): behavior, neuroanatomical structure, and evolutionary continuity (Gennaro 3).
Empirical evidence converges from multiple domains. Behaviorally, mirror self-recognition in
magpies and elephants, tool use and planning in crows, and pain mitigation behaviors in
octopuses suggest some form of subjective awareness (Andrews et al; Gennaro 5-9; Bekoff et al).
Neurologically, the affective and nociceptive systems responsible for suffering appear
structurally and functionally homologous across mammals. Functional neuroimaging reveals that
regions activated in human pain perception are similarly engaged in other species (Gennaro 5-9).
Methodologically, our ethical practice already accepts that shared structures and behavioral
analogues justify moral inference; we do not demand telepathic access to a human infant's
suffering before intervening on their behalf. To deny animals that same inference is therefore
inconsistent.

VII. Conclusion
In sum, we should treat animals well because they possess both rights and interests, but not
identically or equally. Rather, their moral status should be determined by their capacity for
conscious experience, which grounds both the legitimacy of their interests and the extent of their
rights. This graded system of moral concern, rooted in universalizable principles and informed
by empirical observation, offers a coherent framework for animal ethics. It avoids the pitfalls of
impractical egalitarianism, offering instead a nuanced answer to a deeply complex question.