On the issue of animal rights versus animal welfare, let’s consider this segment from an article by the Association Against Animal Factories. Looking at Austrian laws, we can clearly see a shift in animal rights from welfare protections to true rights:

Politically, we can indeed provide a continuous transition from laws that do not restrict animal usage at all, to complete animal rights based on an equal value of the lives of each individual:

No restriction of the use of animals
→ indirect protection (a ban on abusing animals if that upsets humans)
→ minimal direct protection (a ban on beating animals “too much“)
→ relevant protection of economically irrelevant animals (“pets“)
→ relevant restriction of economic use of animals (e.g. cage ban)
→ radical restriction of economic use of animals (only free range)
→ ban on killing
→ “weak rights“ according to Mary Midgeley
→ the only right: to have animal laws executed
→ basic rights for some animals (e.g. Great Ape Project)
→ basic rights for all animals
→ equal value of life and suffering for all animals (incl. humans)

Hence we learn that while there is a deep philosophical gulf between animal welfare and animal rights, psychologically and politically there is a continuum. That means on the one hand that it is at least possible, if not probable, that a person develops psychologically from animal use via animal welfare to animal rights. And secondly it proves that it is at least possible – even if we haven’t provided data of its likelihood yet – that a society develops politically from animal usage via animal welfare to animal rights. The least we can say for sure at this stage is that such a development is not excluded in principle.

Seems to fit well with a quote from MLK: “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.“

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Sections: Vegan Theory
Topics: abolition, animal rights, austria, reformism, Theory, Vegan, welfare