If animals have rights, must they also have responsibilities?

"If animals are to have rights, they must also have responsibilities. They are not capable of taking responsibility, so they cannot have rights."

These words were stated to me last weekend. I knew instinctively at the time that this point of view was deeply flawed, but did not state my case well enough. So once again I thank my friend for hitting me with another blog post. I've had time to think about it, and here's what I reckon.

The issue of animals having rights is not only close to my heart, but it is also nothing new. It is one that's informed socio-political discourses for thousands of years (influenced in no small part by the Judeo-Christian, anthropocentric view of the world as expressed in the Bible). As Tristram Hunt explains in The Bloodless Revolution, although the word 'vegetarian' was first coined in the 1840s, and the Vegetarian Society was established in 1840, the existence of vegetarians and vegans has been recorded throughout history. In addition to the followers of the ancient Indian doctrine of ahimsa, the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras instructed his students to abstain from meat. The Jewish Essenes, the Spartans and Christian ascetics all had vegetarian strands. Numerous philosophers, thinkers, scientists, poets and great minds have also advocated meat-free diets: da Vinci, Shelley, Newton, Einstein, Descartes, Gassendi, Francis Bacon, Samuel Richardson, Rousseau, Voltaire, Tolstoy, Gandhi...

And once again it's making headline news: the case of Tommy the chimpanzee, on behalf of whom the Non-Human Rights Project is campaigning for liberation, has got people talking again. Wanting courts to recognise that certain non-human animals are entitled to certain legal rights, the NhRP says that the term 'animals rights' is a contradiction. "Hundreds of organisations say they work for 'animal rights'. But the only animal with legal rights is the human animal. No other animal has Human rights at all. None." 'Human rights,' they say, are arbitrary (in fact, some philosophers say there are no such things), and speciesist.

The concept of 'rights', be they for human or non-human animals, is muddy and confused. To say that they must automatically come with responsibilities, too, is problematic, as it is often used as propaganda to exert power and control, to manipulate and influence. "It is often said that rights come with responsibilities," says this site. "Naturally, the person saying this has an idea about what your responsibilities are, and thinks you should agree and comply."

As Fleet Street Fox also says, "The same people that tell us that [rights come with responsibilities] also tell us other humans should be bombed, taxed, hacked, gagged, and made to conform to a narrow and impossible moral and economic ideal."

The 'rights come with responsibilities' argument when applied to non-human animals is used as a means of justifying their abuse. Because animals, some people say, can't take responsibility – for themselves or others – they have no self awareness, and are unable to reflect on their actions.

This may seem straightforward – to those who believe it. But certain sections of humanity – the mentally ill and other individuals (such as babies, small children and vulnerable old people) – are unable to take responsibility, yet a just and civilised society still grants them rights. (Conversely, prisoners have their rights removed but are expected to take responsibility for their actions, which would also seem to be a contradiction).

In addition, the rights vs responsibilities argument does not take into account cultural differences – Buddhist monks in Bhutan believe dogs are one step away from human reincarnation, thus endowing the argument with an entirely new dimension – or the emerging scientific truth that animals are infinitely more complex than we once ever could have imagined.

You do not need to understand what your rights are to have access to them. We must still have rights, even without responsibility.

So it must be with non-human animals. The majority of us are able to reflect on our own actions, and that must include towards animals.

My little Chenny

'Intelligence' means one thing for humans (being able to read, formulate opinions and arguments, to navigate the human world) and another for animals (being able to survive in the wild, sniff out cancers and drugs, or track each other across deserts). My cat probably has more knowledge of my world than I do of his. When I bumped my head on the low sloping ceiling in the bedroom the other day, my little Chenny looked at me with a concerned expression on his face.

Did I misread it? I know him well enough to have seen that expression before, and to know what it means.

Or what about the time when he accidentally knocked over a glass of water on to the carpet, and he looked up at me with utter contrition. He was sorry, and telling me so.

I am convinced that he's learned these responses from the relationship we have together, which is based on love and kindness – which he is able to perceive, remember and act upon. It is a relationship like any other – one that is evolving.

Not only would I argue for Chenny's rights, I'd say they are already granted to the best of my ability: the rights to bodily integrity, dignity and liberty, to safety, health and happiness. Given the overlaps between our species, I treat him as much like a human as I am able, while honouring his wild cat-ness.

Applying the concept of human rights to animals will always be tricky, though, when human rights are a fuzzy concept in the first place – just like our relationship towards animals. We invite some to live with us, yet eat others and wear their skins. No wonder there is no consistency or agreed approach when it comes to treating animals.

But the 'rights v responsibilities' argument cannot and must not be (mis)used as an excuse to exert power over the vulnerable, to carry on torturing animals in factory farms, science labs and abattoirs – or just for the hell of it.

Giving animals more rights should be done in conjunction with the education and penalisation of those who abuse them. Animals should be protected, and safeguarding procedures should be in place to ensure that protection.

The 'rights v responsibilities' argument is a dangerous myth, yet it is a conversation that needs to be had. It's great it's being addressed. Anything that causes humans to think more carefully about our relationships to those beyond our own species has to be a good thing.