My question is: What might a list of animal rights include?
Well, I think that ideally there would be more than one list, since animals are very different from one another and have different needs, which merit different legal rights. A dolphin, for example, is highly intelligent and requires very careful treatment, whereas a trout is less intelligent. While one should still afford the trout a certain amount of respect, certain things that one can ethically do to it one could not ethically do to the dolphin - for example, one could curse at the trout without fear of harming it in any way, but the dolphin might pick up on one's attitude or the tone of one's voice while cursing, and so could sustain psychological or emotional harm.
A basic list of rights, however, could probably apply to all animals at or above a certain level of awareness, supplemented by additional rights in many cases. The basic list, I believe, would include the right to life; the right to freedom from physical or psychological abuse (at least in the cases where psychological abuse could actually occur); the right to food, water, shelter, and other necessities of survival in a sufficient quantity to satisfy the animal, rather than simply help it stay alive; the right to companionship if it is a social animal; and probably other things also. These are the only ones I can think of right now. If anyone else has ideas for what such a basic list should include, by all means, contribute them.
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