UNIVERSALITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS: A REFLECTION ON HUMAN AND NON-HUMAN ANIMAL SIMILARITIES

• Authors: Florian Oldřich Tristan
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

While natural rights are typically understood as applying only to humans, there are in fact no suitable criteria which justify such an assumption. Indeed, arguments from marginal cases show that characteristics which are considered innately human are not in fact shared by all humans and can even be identified in some non-human animals. However, if we try to dismiss the issue by implying that the fact of being human is itself a sufficient criterion, the problem of evolutionary theory then arises, with the gradual evolution of the human species suggesting that several different human species coexisted at some point in the past. In order to ensure the universality of human rights, we must draw the line not only in the present but also in the past, and in this context it would seem logical to extend natural rights to non-human animals. However, regardless of the criteria which we apply to this issue, it remains problematic to justify why the ones we have chosen are relevant to the existence of natural rights.

Keywords

EN

HUMAN RIGHTS; ANIMAL RIGHTS; NON-HUMAN ANIMALS; NATURAL RIGHTS

• Publisher: Institute of State and Law of the Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Právny obzor. Teoretický časopis pre otázky štátu a práva (Juridical Review. Theoretical journal for the questions of state and law)
• Year: 2023
• Volume: 106
• Issue: spec.
• Pages: 21 - 40

Contributors

author

Florian Oldřich Tristan

• Masaryk University, Faculty of Law, Department of Legal Theory, Czech Republic

• https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1058-2289

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31577/pravnyobzor.specialissue.2023.02