Animal Rights and Human Rights

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Recommended: Utilitarianism for animal rights

According to Tom Regan’s Kantian Account, “There are no degrees of moral standing” (Waller, 2011). Animals and humans are equal. Just because a human is smarter than an animal does not give it any more rights than the animal. Utilitarianism casts a wide moral net: all who are capable of feeling pleasure or pain must be counted in our moral decision making (Waller, 2011). Animals should have rights such as humans do even though they may not be as smart as we are, they should still be treated with dignity because they still feel pain.
This is animal vs. human. To put this in perspective I am going to use the example of a human who has done a horrible crime, something one could call inhumane. To punish a human being of such a crime as murder of another human being, one could be sentenced to life in prison or the death penalty. When a human is sentenced to the death penalty they are injected with a solution that kills them humanely. An animal should get the same rights as of a human in this aspect if an animal bites a human or does a vicious crime and it is deemed that this animal sho...

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