Читать книгу Animals' Rights Considered in Relation to Social Progress онлайн

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Such is the doctrine of rights as formulated by Herbert Spencer. “Every man,” he says, “is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal liberty of any other man.” And again, “Whoever admits that each man must have a certain restricted freedom, asserts that it is right he should have this restricted freedom.... And hence the several particular freedoms deducible may fitly be called, as they commonly are called, his rights” (“Justice,” pp. 46, 62).[1]

The fitness of this nomenclature is disputed, but the existence of some real principle of the kind can hardly be called in question; so that the controversy concerning “rights” is little else than an academic battle over words, which leads to no practical conclusion. I shall assume, therefore, that men are possessed of “rights,” in the sense of Herbert Spencer’s definition; and if any of my readers object to this qualified use of the term, I can only say that I shall be perfectly willing to change the word as soon as a more appropriate one is forthcoming.[2] The immediate question that claims our attention is this—if men have rights, have animals their rights also?