Informant38

At the centre of human rights theory lies the protection of the vital interests - in welfare, in freedom and in life - of some beings. Of which beings, exactly? Although the most common, and apparently tautological, answer is "of human beings", such a move is, as we have seen, precluded by the fact that discrimination based on species is analogous to the forms of discrimination that the very doctrine condemns in sexism and racism. Unlike drafters of political manifestos, philosophers confronting the question seem to be aware of this problem and, when called into play, reference to species is introduced in a hurried and oblique way. What, then, can play the role of explaining the why of human rights - of illuminating, that is, what it is that, in human beings, justifies the attribution of equal fundamental protection?

Among the solutions advanced, the most defensible appears to be the one put forward by a line of argument appearing at the beginning of the 1960s, and culminating in the elaboration offered by the American philosopher Alan Gewirth. According to such a line, the criterion for the access to the protection that human rights provide lies only in being an agent - an intentional being who cares about her goals and wants to achieve them. All intentional beings are characterised by the capacity to enjoy freedom and welfare (and life which is a precondition for them) both directly, and as prerequisites for action; and, for all these beings, the intrinsic value of their enjoyment is the same. To choose as a criterion, instead of intentionality, any other characteristic - be it rationality or any other among the cognitive skills traditionally seen as "superior" - would be arbitrary, as it would exclude from consideration interests which are relevantly similar in that they are equally vital for their bearers.

Once articulated, this answer - which has among other things the important effect of barring the way to discredited perfectionist worldviews - appears obvious. And yet, it involves a corollary which is not equally obvious: that, on the basis of the very doctrine that establishes them, human rights are not merely human. Not only does the implicit acceptance of the idea that species membership is not morally relevant eliminate from the theory any structural reference to the possession of a genotype Homo sapiens, but the charge to secure equal fundamental rights for all human beings, including the non-ra tional ones, implies that the criterion for the ascription of such rights must lie at a cognitive level accessible to a large number of nonhuman animals.