Animals have no rights and are not the equal of humans

Humans are not obliged to respect animal rights because no such rights exist. Therefore, animal testing does not violate any rights. It is ethical to use animals for research purposes. Some philosophers explain the inexistence of animal rights through the concept of the moral community. A moral community is a group of individuals who have certain traits in common. This means that they take on certain responsibilities toward each other and assume specific rights. The human moral community is characterized by a capacity to manipulate abstract concepts by personal autonomy. It does not include animals because animals do not have the cognitive capabilities of humans and do not hold full autonomy (animals do not rationally choose to pursue specific life goals). Hence, humans do not have any obligations towards animals. In this sense, animals have no rights and humans have a higher moral status than animals. Therefore, it becomes permissible to use animals in experiments. The question of whether the experiments harm animals or not is less significant than the potential human benefits from the research.^[1] Another related argument is that if animals had such rights, they would have to be held accountable for killing other animals in the wilds. It is a matter of ethics and not of the laws of human societies that animals ought to be treated kindly by people. Eagerness to treat animals kindly does not justify imposing one's hopes and dreams for them on human beings.^[2] Overall, humans possess a higher moral status and fundamental rights that animals lack. This situation gives humans the ethical justification to use animals in experiments.