The right to have rights is nearly as essential as living. It is decidedly within the contemporary society where every person has a right to self-expression, which subsequently entails all other rights’ implementation. However, there is a notion of people’s desires and interests that cannot by any means be regarded as equal as rights. Cohen claims that moral rights are those that have to always be respected no matter what, while interests represent a lower case of respect. So, whether being a human is a sufficient condition to have a right to live or not is a very disputable question. It is believed that having a right to live by a person means that a human cannot be killed by any other human. Therefore, modern society has long been struck with endless debates on the rights of people of moral and legislative origin. To make the conclusion obvious and clear up all facets of this problem it is necessary to compare the human issues to the animals’ existence. For many years already there exist debates on euthanasia, capital punishment, abortion, etc that directly address the right of a human to live. It is said that nobody and nothing can stop the life of a person except for the natural condition, namely, it is when a person dies a natural death – from disease or being sheer old. It would seem obvious that this right is evident and reasonable for living creatures because humans mostly support the notion of justice. Nevertheless, many scientists, as Carl Cohen, suggest that such living creatures like animals cannot have moral rights; hence they can be killed, used in food, medical industries, scientific experimentation, etc. In order to prove that Cohen says that the absence of rights in animals is explained by their immoral conduct: “there is no morality for them, animals do no mortal wrong…concepts of wrong, and of right, are totally foreign” (p.31). So, since animals cannot indulge in deliberations, fix moral principles, and follow them, they are not even close to having moral rights, hence no one can prevent people from harming them.
Interestingly, people are confident in their supremacy over all other creatures. So, from the deliberations of Cohen, is it possible to draw a conclusion that having a right to live is decided by the supremacy of one over another? If so, then humankind should be really careful under such conditions. There is another opinion of a scientist named Gaverick Matheny who significantly outlines the basic principles that were actually formed and adopted by many people centuries ago and interpreted newly today. To be more exact, Matheny talks about animals having the same exact rights to live as people do leaning on a matter of Bible: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” (Matthew 22:39) and of equal consideration of interests’ principle: “Act in such a way that the like interests of everyone affected by your action are given equal weight.” This directly contradicts Cohen, of course, though has much in common with the majority of people’s view on animals’ treatment. Utilitarianism is about the efforts of many people to maximize the overall satisfaction of interests all over the planet. However, Cohen differentiates the two notions of a right and interest. So, is it enough to be a human to have a right to live?
Basically, there are two opinions that contradict each other: animals should be treated equally because of their interests, and another view: an animal is not developed enough to morally fight for life. Thus, it is necessary to decide whether a human is moral enough to have a right to life. It is well-known that many humans today act as if they were animals, literally and figuratively. So, if – after Cohen – an animal cannot choose to live because of the absence of morality, then why do those immoral humans (killers, maniacs, and simply loafers) have to live? Thus, it is possible to draw a conclusion in favor of capital punishment, for example. If a human harms society and does not contribute anyhow, then he/she can be easily sentenced to death as per Cohen. Therefore, being a human is not a sufficient condition to have a right to life. However, here we face another disagreement: being united under the high mammals’ class, all humans can be considered similar this way, and so how can one human be sentenced to death by another human if they originate from one clan? Therefore, the theory of Cohen is likely to collapse. Of course, that would be the right outcome because people are of the highest intellectual development and deserve to have a right to life just because the life was given to them. And yes, being a human is a sufficient condition to have a right to life. So do animals, actually, but we, as highly developed creatures, decide to deprive them of that right, but it does not mean they cannot have it. Being a human is a precious gift, and only a person decides what to do with it with regard to social moral rules.