Who should be included in, and who excluded from, the club of rights-holders?: The case of Animals

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Philosophy - Practical (Ethics, Aesthetics, Culture, Nature, Right, …), University of Manchester (Political Theory), language: English, abstract: The structure of the text is as follows: I shall first give a very brief account of what it means to have a right, based on the Hohfeldian view, in order to understand the common framework upon which most modern rights-theory is founded. I will then move on to explain the rationales of the use of either choice theory or interest theory in the explanation of rights. This short theoretical introduction will serve as a base for the actual question of whether animals should belong in the category of rights holders. 2 Determining Rights-holdersThe Case of Animals In this section I will present some of the views of the aforementioned authors and critically assess and reflect on them.