Animal Rights: A New Vista

Abstract

The debate on animal rights has been influenced by changes in science, philosophy, nature, and social life over the last 40 years. These include (1) increased moral sensibility that gradually embraces creatures which are more and more distant from those closest to us; (2) environmental threats and their connection with people’s attitude towards animals; (3) scientific discoveries in the field of ethology and animal emotionality, which indicate evolutionary roots of morality; (4) new philosophical concepts (embodied, embedded, enactive and extended mind, and posthumanism) and revision of the concept of subjectivity; (5) exposing the vagueness of the notion of rights and how it is related to the concepts of duty and need. These changes suggest that the point of departure in discussions of the relations between humans and non-human animals has shifted from the traditional human perspective to a more inclusive approach that relies on the developments in science and the inclusion of environmental concerns.