Animal rights movement

The animal rights movement (also known as the animal liberation movement, the animal personhood movement, or the animal advocacy movement) is a social movement that seeks to abolish the strict moral and legal distinction drawn between humans and non-human animals, the status of animals as property, and the use of animals in the research, food, clothing, and entertainment industries. Other names for the animal rights movement include the animal liberation movement, the animal personhood movement, and the animal advocacy movement.

There is a consensus among animal liberationists that non-human animals have unique interests that should be acknowledged and protected, but the movement as a whole may be broken down into two main schools of thought.

See, for instance, Tom Regan's work for an example of how animal rights proponents feel that these fundamental interests ought to bestow legal rights on animals and/or moral rights of some type on animals, and that these basic interests ought to impart moral rights on animals. However, they argue, on utilitarian grounds — utilitarianism, in its most basic form, advocates that we base moral decisions on the greatest happiness of the greatest number — that, because animals have the ability to suffer, their suffering should be taken into account in any moral philosophy. Utilitarianism advocates that we base moral decisions on the greatest happiness of the greatest number. They claim that excluding animals from that consideration is a sort of discrimination that they refer to as speciesism; for an illustration of this, one may look at the work of Peter Singer.

The reformist or mainstream faction has also been regarded as being on one side of the faction divide, while the radical abolitionist and direct action factions are on the other. The mainstream group has been highly professionalised and is primarily concerned with fundraising and garnering presence in the media. Participants in the reformist movement hold the view that it is imperative for people to refrain from mistreating animals. They engage in behaviours that might be considered "morally shocking." It has been observed that the strength of the animal rights movement in the United States is centred in professionalised nonprofit groups that strive to enhance animal welfare. These organisations' primary focus is on preventing cruelty to animals.

Abolitionists are those who think that all human interactions with animals should be terminated immediately. Gary Francione, a prominent figure in the abolitionism movement, developed his strategy as a reaction to the conventional abolitionist movement's emphasis on policy change. In their efforts, members of the abolitionist side prioritise nonviolent education and moral persuasion above policy change because they believe that legislative reform would be unproductive. They see the advocacy of veganism to be a method for establishing a society that is anti-speciesist and for ending animal agribusiness as a whole.