What would happen if tomorrow animals got the same fundamental rights as humans? Would we be willing to give up their exploitation in food, research and clothing? Let's take a (speculative) step to discover a radical but perhaps not so unattainable scenario. After all, many elements to transform animals into real "fellow citizens" are already present in our society.
Imagining a world of animal rights
When activists demand animal rights, they invite us to imagine a different world. First of all, we need to understand how our lives are shaped by the lack of animal rights.
The use we make of animals is enormous, far beyond food, work and clothes. From matches to paper passing through condoms, the applications of animal derivatives and waste in industry and consumer products are endless. We kill billions of animals every year to accomplish all this.
Demanding animal rights means prohibiting most such uses by law. And also a request to radically reconfigure our relationship with them. Imagining such a possibility can be truly difficult, but it is an important philosophical and social exercise in considering new ethics.
An invisible change?
Granting rights to animals would drastically change many productions, but many of us may not notice the difference in our daily lives. Not only do there already exist valid vegan alternatives to most animal products, but new technologies make it possible to obtain them without killing or making animals suffer.
For example, it is already possible to grow meat, eggs, milk and leather in the laboratory without using animals. In the future, scientific advances could make these alternatives cost-effective advantageous on a large scale.
Positive consequences on the environment
A change for the better (we would notice it} or{is a environmental improvement. Intensive animal farming uses enormous resources of land, water and energy, and causes heavy pollution. Its drastic reduction it would lighten our impact on the planet.
What would happen instead? scientific and medical research based on animal experiments? Even in this field new computer modeling technologies make it possible to predict the effects of drugs without testing them on animals.
For animal rights advocates, the benefits obtained in the past do not justify us to continue to violate a fundamental individual right, that of not being used as a means to another's ends. In any case, if future progress is possible without harming non-human animals, we must choose alternative methods.
Reconfiguring the human-animal relationship
What would happen to the roles that living animals have for us, as workers, entertainers or companions? Even though we love our pets, some owners have them euthanized for questionable reasons. If animals had rights, we should treat them more like trusted family members or even fellow citizens. They might have social rights, perhaps (don't laugh) pension rights.
When police dog Finn was stabbed in 2016 in England, the attacker was only charged with criminal damage. If Finn had had full legal rights, he would have been protected as a person. Some natural entities, such as the Magpie River in Canada, have already achieved this status.
Animal rights: a radical but concrete scenario
Once upon a time, the idea of abolishing slavery or giving women the vote seemed impossible. Perhaps one day our grandchildren will look with dismay at the way we have treated nonhuman animals.
When we try to imagine a world of animal rights, we find that it's not that difficult. The necessary concepts, technologies and mechanisms already exist, we just have to be brave enough to use them.
