Related Ideas

Talk about rights suggests that the moral community in which we live can be divided into levels based in part on whether beings can have or exercise rights. For example, we might stratify the moral community as follows:

- Level 1 - Beings that have moral rights, deserve moral consideration, and can act as moral agents (i.e., are morally responsible and can be held responsible). This seems to be the highest possible level. It includes people. But what else might it include? And why should we believe that all people are on the same level? Might it not be, for example, that extremely intelligent people are at a higher level than most? They might, for example, have more or stronger moral rights. Why should we believe that all people have the same moral rights?

- Level 2 - Beings that have rights and deserve moral consideration but cannot act as moral agents. Do some animals fit here? Animal rights advocates believe that they do. But if some animals can have some rights, does it follow that they have the same rights as people? And does it follow that their rights have the same strength? Is there a hierarchy within level two?

- Level 3 - Beings that cannot have moral rights, cannot act as moral agents, but do deserve moral consideration. Do some animals fit here? Many advocates of animal welfare would place sentient animals here but would not argue that animals have rights.

Outside the moral community, or at a fourth or bottom level, are beings that have no moral rights, cannot act as moral agents, and deserve no moral consideration. Most people would agree that rocks fit here.

Many of us are undecided about where some beings fit: What about fetuses? Animals that can feel pleasure and pain? Highly intelligent animals? Unintelligent living things such as a sponge or a tree? Ancient redwood trees? (Do these beautiful, ancient trees deserve moral consideration? Could they have rights? What would it mean to say that they do?)

Loren Lomasky allows that if animals have rights, it is still impossible for them to recognize the rights of others. [See Lomasky, Persons, Rights, and the Moral Community, p. 61.] We cannot address moral claims TO animals. They cannot address moral claims TO us. So they are clearly different from people. Does this mean that animals cannot have rights at all?

Trying to construct a clear hierarchy for the moral community is an exercise that can help us to develop our own view of morals and rights. It raises many interesting questions: For example, what is it about people that makes it possible to meaningfully speak of them having rights? Is it, for example, the fact that people have interests that they are aware of? Is it that they are capable of feeling pleasure and pain? Is it that they are capable of being harmed? Is it that they are capable of planning their lives and making choices about how to live in a way that other animals cannot?

These questions raise others. What is it to have an interest? Must one be aware of one's interests in order to have them? Does a redwood tree have an interest in further growth although it is not aware of that interest? Does a four week old embryo have an interest in further development although it is not aware of it? What is it to be harmed? We all believe that we harm a person when we cut off her arm. (Some qualifications are needed here to allow for amputations to prevent further harm.) Do we harm a tree when we cut off a branch? Do we harm a rock when we cut off a piece? Or do we simple damage the rock?

A well reasoned theory of moral rights and the structure of the moral community must answer these and other questions. If justice depends on rights, then a well reasoned theory of justice must answer them as well.

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