Animal Rights
It is only recently, and in response to their perceived mistreatment by humans, especially in processes of industrial agricultural production and scientific research, that rights have been ascribed to animals. The concept remains contentious, especially insofar as in radical forms it would severely restrict the use of animals in scientific research and elsewhere, but has been defended on a number of grounds.
Historical Developments
The debate over whether animals possess rights must be viewed against the background of the ubiquitous use of animals to meet human needs and desires throughout history. Although interpreted in various ways, the status of animals is a significant economic and cultural category in every human society. Because the human connection to animals runs so deep, our shared history may amount to a form of coevolution: The selective breeding of domestic species has rendered them substantially different from their wild counterparts, and the effects of domestication on human social evolution have been profound, perhaps defining. At a minimum, because the benefits of this relationship are mutual (although rarely equal), domestication invites comparison to symbiosis.
However, because of the uniquely powerful effect of this symbiotic relationship, technological models contribute to the understanding of domestication.
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