Book Sale: International Animal Rights Day

Today is International Animal Rights Day. It’s also Human Rights Day, celebrating the day in 1948 the UN General Assembly adopted the UDHR. In 1998, Sheffield animal rights group Uncaged started to observe the 10th Dec as a day for animals to make a link between human and nonhuman rights.

Animal rights theorists like me argue that the foundation for human rights is the same as that for other animals. There are no capacities possessed by all humans & no nonhumans. The only capacity nearly all of us share is sentience, the ability to feel. But other animals possess that too. If you think all humans ought to have rights, & you want to avoid arbitrary moral principles, then it’s very hard to exclude nonhuman animals from being rights-bearers Sentient beings experience the world, their lives matter to them & that’s why they ought to matter to us. Unlike rationality, language, or moral agency, nearly every human possesses sentience. Sentience is what enables us to feel happiness & to suffer. Most animal rights theorists adopt an interest-based theory of rights, grounded in sentience. We think animal rights and human rights come from the same place. 

To celebrate International Animal Rights Day, Bristol University Press is holding a flash sale on my book ‘What are Animal Rights For?’ If you use the code ARD50 when placing an order on their website, you’ll get a 50% discount: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/trade/what-are-animal-rights-for At £4.50, that’s a bargain.

If you’re interested in learning more about sentience, than I really recommend Jonathan Birch’s book The Edge of Sentience (open access): https://academic.oup.com/book/57949 For more on the connection between sentience, rights & justice see Alasdair Cochrane’s Sentientist Politics: https://academic.oup.com/book/5971