Why do animals have rights? Not because of intrinsic value

About the cow, the crop and the question of what animal rights can be based on

A simple diagram

A dairy farmer feeds his cows raw materials. Grass, maize, concentrates. The cows turn these raw materials into milk. In this system they are means of production, just like the barn they stand in and the robot that milks them. When a cow starts to produce less, she goes to the slaughterhouse. There the animal is broken down into raw materials for the food industry, which turns them into new products. Meanwhile the milk goes to the dairy industry, which does the same.

The farmer stands at the center of this system. A lot is taken off his hands: the barn, the milking equipment, the milk tank and the transport to the factory are arranged and financed for him. At the same time he is under pressure. Through the milk price, the industry pushes him to produce as cheaply as possible. That way its own margins stay wide. What the farmer still really chooses is whether he brings the feed to the cow or the cow to the feed: the barn or the pasture.

Anyone who pictures this diagram can ask a simple question: where are the rights here? And why are they not with the cow?

Intrinsic value is everywhere, rights only with the farmer Diagram of dairy farming: raw materials go through the farmer to the cow. The cow supplies milk to the dairy industry. When her production drops, she goes to the slaughterhouse, which supplies raw materials to the food industry. Every part carries intrinsic value. Only the farmer has rights. Intrinsic value is everywhere, rights only with the farmer Raw materials Grass, feed, concentrates Farmer Chooses: barn or pasture Barn, robot, milk tank Arranged by the system Cow Means of production Dairy industry Processes the milk Slaughterhouse Breaks the animal down Food industry Processes raw materials milk price: pressure to produce cheaply feed to cow, or cow to pasture takes care of milk when production drops raw materials intrinsic value rights Intrinsic value is everywhere, rights only with the farmer Intrinsic value is everywhere, rights only with the farmer Raw materials Grass, feed, concentrates Barn, robot, milk tank Arranged by the system Farmer Chooses: barn or pasture Cow Means of production Dairy industry Processes the milk Slaughterhouse Breaks the animal down Food industry Processes raw materials takes care of milk price pressure feed to cow, or cow to pasture milk when production drops raw materials intrinsic value rights
The system of dairy farming: intrinsic value is everywhere, rights only lie with the farmer.

Value everywhere, rights in one place

A common answer in the animal rights movement is that animals have intrinsic value: value in themselves, apart from their usefulness to humans. Rights would follow from that. Some legislators have even adopted the concept. Since 2013, for example, the Dutch Animals Act states that the intrinsic value of the animal is recognized.

Put that concept next to the diagram and something strange happens. Everything in the diagram carries intrinsic value: the grass, the cow in the barn and also the raw materials that come out of the slaughterhouse. That is not wrong. But it does mean that intrinsic value makes no distinction between the living cow and the product that remains of her. That is why it cannot carry animal rights. What is everywhere draws a line nowhere.

The second thing that stands out is that the legal recognition of this value has changed nothing. In the Netherlands, the system has run exactly as before since 2013. The recognition looks like a right, but the cow can do nothing with it. She cannot refuse, cannot leave and cannot decide when her life ends. In the Netherlands, a dairy cow is slaughtered at around six years of age on average. By nature she can live up to twenty years.

The only part of the diagram that does have rights is the farmer. He can choose, protest, stop, sell, switch. He may even dispose of his animals: keep them, sell them and have them slaughtered. His room to move is limited, that is true. The system tempts him into expansion, investments and debts that then tie him down. But that lack of room is the result of choices he made. Those choices could have been different. The cow never chose anything.

So animal rights cannot be based on intrinsic value. In the Netherlands the concept was introduced in the 1980s to force a change in the way animals are treated. There was no solid principle beneath it. The diagram shows why it does not work.

Is feeling the measure, then?

The obvious replacement is the capacity to feel. The cow can suffer pain, experience fear and stress. The grass cannot. That is where the difference would lie.

Yet that too is a shaky basis. Anyone who takes feeling as the measure will inevitably start measuring how much an animal feels and how well we can recognize that feeling. A cow with big eyes evokes more recognition than a rat, a mouse or a spider in the same barn. Feeling as a criterion therefore quickly slides into a measure of how much we can empathize: animals get more protection the more they resemble us. That says more about us than about the animal. There is no good reason why the cow should have more rights than the mouse that scurries around in her feed trough.

What the cow does and the crop does not

There is a difference between the cow and the crop that you do not have to deduce from an inner world you can never fully know. You can simply see it. A cow moves. A plant moves only through its seeds.

At its core, the movement of an animal is aimed at escape. A cow walking in the pasture keeps an eye on her surroundings. She startles, steps aside, flees. The same goes for the rat, the mouse and the spider. The whole body of an animal is designed not to be eaten. In many cases a plant does the opposite. A fruit is there to be eaten: it attracts an eater who carries the seeds away and leaves them elsewhere. A plant can also lose parts and live on, sprout again or spread. An animal that is eaten is gone.

That difference is not absolute. Plants defend themselves too, with thorns or bitter substances. Not every part of a plant that we eat is meant to be eaten. But the difference in direction is unmistakable. With its whole existence, the animal says "no" to being eaten. The plant says this much less. With fruit, it even says "yes".

This is where the diagram becomes painfully clear. The cow in the barn can no longer walk away. The system must first switch off her ability to escape, with fences, barns and a life organized entirely around production. Only then can it use her as a means of production. With the crop, nothing needs to be switched off.

From escape to freedom

So what is taken from the cow in the barn is not primarily value. Nor is it primarily welfare. It is freedom: the ability to move, to get out of the way, to live in an environment that suits her.

That is a better basis for animal rights. Humans and animals are intrinsically equal in their right to freedom in a habitat that suits them. That right does not depend on how much value we assign to someone. Nor does it depend on how well we can put ourselves in someone's place. It depends on something every animal shows by itself: that it wants to be able to go. That is the answer to the question why animals have rights.

That right applies to the cow and to the mouse. It makes no distinction between animals that move us and animals that annoy us. It also explains why the crop is not included: a plant that does not try to escape is not deprived of its freedom when we eat it.

What this means

Three conclusions follow from this starting point.

The first is that factory farming must stop. A system that only works by taking away animals' ability to escape cannot be improved with bigger barns or better rules. The problem is not in the execution but in the design: the animal is a means of production.

The second is that animals must be given rights. Not the right to be treated well while they are being used. It is about the right not to be kept as a means of production. It is the right to live in an environment that suits them. This requires that the right of humans to dispose of animals gives way to the right of animals to freedom. It is not a right we grant animals out of goodwill. It is the recognition of what they already show themselves.

The third is that we must stop consuming animal products. The system in the diagram exists because there is demand for milk and meat. As long as that demand exists, the pressure keeps ending up with the farmer through the price. Through the farmer, it ends up with the cow.

A critical reader will say that arable farming also costs animals their lives: mice at harvest, insects through pest control. That is true. It is no reason to dismiss it. But it actually argues for plants. Worldwide, about 80 percent of agricultural land is used for livestock, as pasture or as cropland for animal feed. Yet meat, dairy and farmed fish provide only about 17 percent of the world's calories and 38 percent of its protein (Our World in Data, 2019, based on FAO data). Anyone who takes the cow out of the diagram needs far less land to feed people. Less farmland means fewer mice under the mower. It also means more room for animals to live where they belong.

The diagram without the cow

Draw the diagram again, but replace the cow with a crop. The farmer brings raw materials to his field. The crop provides parts to eat. The food industry turns them into products. The slaughterhouse disappears. So does the detour in which food must first pass through an animal before it becomes food.

Without the cow, nobody is locked up On the left the system with the cow: raw materials, farmer, a cow that moves so as not to be eaten, dairy and slaughterhouse. On the right the system with plants: raw materials, farmer, a crop that provides parts to eat, food industry. In both columns every part carries intrinsic value. In both, only the farmer has rights. Without the cow, nobody is locked up With the cow With plants Raw materialsFarmer Dairy Raw materialsFarmer Food industry Slaughterhouse Cow Moves so as not to be eaten Crop Provides parts to eat intrinsic valuerights Without the cow, nobody is locked up Without the cow, nobody is locked up With the cow Raw materialsFarmer Dairy Raw materialsFarmer Food industry Slaughterhouse Cow Moves so as not to be eaten With plants Crop Provides parts to eat intrinsic valuerights
With the cow and with plants: intrinsic value is everywhere in both systems. In both, rights lie with the farmer. Only in the system with the cow is someone deprived of freedom.

Intrinsic value is still everywhere in that diagram: in the seed, the crop and the bread. Rights still lie only with the farmer. But no one in it is trying to get away and failing.

That is the difference that matters.

Read also: Animal rights and the theory behind it; Do animals have intrinsic value?; Does ownership of animals contradict the right of freedom?

Want to read more? In our reading guide, one question leads you to the article that suits you: Why animal rights?