Are animal rights the ethical challenge of our time? Our treatment of animals is contradictory: industrial livestock production on the one hand, growing respect on the other.
In more and more countries, animal rights are being enshrined in law. This is met with skepticism by many; others draw parallels with the struggles over the rights of citizens, women, and minorities, whose demands encountered similar resistance.
Kant understood animals legally as “things”. Nevertheless, he recognized indirect duties in dealing with them, a point also reflected in his statements on animal experimentation.