Animal Rights

Tibor Machan makes the common mistake of confusing moral agency with rights possession. One wonders whether he has read any of the literature. Human infants are not moral agents, yet nobody doubts that they have rights. Senile people are not moral agents, yet nobody doubts that they have rights. The severely retarded are not moral agents, yet nobody doubts that they have rights. The insane or mentally ill are not moral agents, yet nobody doubts that they have rights. Machan seems unaware of the distinction between autonomy rights, which only moral agents possess, and welfare rights, which all sentient beings possess. The most prominent welfare right is the right not to be harmed. (Being made to suffer is one type, though not the only type, of harm.) Machan can claim, truly, that animals lack autonomy rights. But then, nobody denies this. His claim, therefore, that animals lack rights is either trivially true (if he means autonomy rights) or false (if he means welfare rights).