The term animal rights often conjures ideas around veganism and land usage, which may misinform the public on the true philosophy of animal rights. Most animal rights activists argue that animals deserve to be afforded some of the same protected interests as humans or natural persons, such as the right to not be harmed and the right to shelter. However, a newer argument within the realm of animal rights has begun: the question for animals to have legal personhood.
Animal law lawyers such as Steven M. Wise, who was inspired by the book Animal Liberation, began to propose a legal status to animals termed “non-human personhood.” Non-human personhood is defined as “answer goes here.” Animals are usually afforded protections in terms of legal property, usually around the literal usage of livestock—as farmers and ranchers are able to eliminate threats to their living stock, including killing aggressive pet dogs. Legal battles around animal mistreatment usually must relate in some form back to how a human could or was harmed, sometimes allowing for animal abuse causes not receive legal justice.
Personhood, legally, does not solely belong to natural humans. The term “legal person” designates an entity with the capacity to possess legal rights. Corporations are also guaranteed some rights of natural personhood and thus when they are implicated in law, shareholders and CEOs do not face greater legal trouble. This gives corporations the natural right to buy and own property, enter contracts and to sue or be sued.
In a case of a cat being abused, a lawyer may sue if the cat’s treatment was detrimental to a human or following local laws against animal cruelty, yet struggles to sue on the grounds of an animal’s right to not be tortured. Legal personhood would not grant animals a right to vote or act as citizens. In U.S. law, one is either a “person” or a “thing.” All nonhuman-animals are classed as things, and thus, cannot have the capacity for rights—ironic, considering what we know of animal sentience.
Dolphins, elephants, primates, crows and other animal species are recognized as having sentience. Orcas are known to have culture and dialects, great apes have been proven to have complex sentience, elephants are commonly known to have funerals and have long-term memories, and most animal rights lawyers focus on these animals due to human-resembling intelligence. Since they feel and know that they suffer, animal lawyers argue that then they should have greater legal rights.
Button projects, with cats and dogs able to communicate more directly to humans, suggest that other animals have an ability to communicate to us in our language–with questions around productivity and language, with dogs able to create new statements to communicate to their humans. This suggests that even animals such as dogs have awareness and cognition. However, none of these animals are able to have nationwide legal communication around rights granted to humans such as a right to not be harmed and abused. Animal cruelty laws are state specific, and thus abuse may be permitted in some states and illegal in others.
Receiving legal rights is a contest against the United States’ usual view of animals being servants to human causes and lesser to human ambition. If animals are granted personhood rights in our legal system, it also gives greater legal edge to ecological efforts, as the ability to sue for the well-being of the animal has greater justification than harming people. Animals should be afforded some natural rights, especially since a corporation can have them–corporations that do not have a sensing and thinking body–it seems illogical to not afford rights to at least the sentient animals. Personhood for animals would still allow hunting, especially as carnivores have a right to eat, and herbivore species have a right to defend themselves.
Humans fundamentally are animals and our constructed system gives itself right to unusual torture and degradation of animals’ well-being. While there are questions around animal legal personhood, it should be the case that animals are legally given federal anti-cruelty laws. Animals should at least have rights, like corporations, to least have the personal legal right to be without cruelty.
