The Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare are Rights

✍ Scribed by McCausland, Clare

• Book ID: 121577730
• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 2014
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 189 KB
• Volume: 27
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1573-322X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10806-013-9483-6

✦ Synopsis

In this paper I defend a theory of welfare rights for nonhuman animals. I do this by demonstrating that a well-established framework for protecting the interests of farm animals, the 'Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare', is already functioning just as a set of rights. To support this claim I adopt a common approach to detecting evidence for deontological reasoning and look at the structural features of rights. I first consider Hohfeld's system of legal rights and consider whether the Five Freedoms may be understood as liberties or claim rights, before making a more successful comparison with side constraints and an interest theory of rights as understood by Nozick and Raz. I also respond to a likely objection that it is not possible to have some welfare rights without a right to freedom from exploitation. The argument therefore contributes to breaking down the stubborn division between 'animal welfare' and 'animal rights'.