{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/108472"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/108472","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Towards a theory of animal rights: Adventures in metaphysics and morals","abstract":"At this time, we have a century of jurisprudential and philosophical discussions on the metaphysical nature of rights. We have almost half a century of moral theory arguing for the moral rights of animals. Surprisingly, these two literatures have not intersected much. This leaves open whether the nature of rights could preclude the possibility of animal rights. It also leaves open what the nature of animal rights would be, should any of the moral arguments for animal rights be successful in their tasks. In this project, I explore these questions and show that animal rights must be conceived of as a limited form of human rights. Animals possess only passive rights (i.e. claim-rights protected by immunities) which function to advance their interests, in general. So conceived, it becomes clear why the moral arguments for animal rights have been grounded in deontological moral theories (e.g. varieties of Kantianism, contractarianism) rather than in consequentialist moral theories. Finally, even with a precise understanding of the nature of and grounds for the moral rights of animals, challenges remain regarding the ultimate force and place of animal moral rights among human moral rights.","abstract_html":"At this time, we have a century of jurisprudential and philosophical discussions on the metaphysical nature of rights. We have almost half a century of moral theory arguing for the moral rights of animals. Surprisingly, these two literatures have not intersected much. This leaves open whether the nature of rights could preclude the possibility of animal rights. It also leaves open what the nature of animal rights would be, should any of the moral arguments for animal rights be successful in their tasks. In this project, I explore these questions and show that animal rights must be conceived of as a limited form of human rights. Animals possess only passive rights (i.e. claim-rights protected by immunities) which function to advance their interests, in general. So conceived, it becomes clear why the moral arguments for animal rights have been grounded in deontological moral theories (e.g. varieties of Kantianism, contractarianism) rather than in consequentialist moral theories. Finally, even with a precise understanding of the nature of and grounds for the moral rights of animals, challenges remain regarding the ultimate force and place of animal moral rights among human moral rights.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Polk, Amber"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Philosophy","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Livengood, Jonathan M.","Moore, Michael S.","Hurd, Heidi M.","Murphy, Colleen","Ben Moshe, Nir"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2020,"date_issued":"2020-10-07T20:59:44Z","date_published":"2020-10-07T20:59:44Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:48Z","subjects":["Rights","theory of rights","animal rights"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2020 Amber Polk"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/108472","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Livengood, Jonathan M.","Moore, Michael S.","Hurd, Heidi M.","Murphy, Colleen","Ben Moshe, Nir"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Polk, Amber"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2020-10-07T20:59:44Z","2020-07-14","2020-08"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text","Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Philosophy"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Rights","theory of rights","animal rights"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2020 Amber Polk"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/108472"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["At this time, we have a century of jurisprudential and philosophical discussions on the metaphysical nature of rights. We have almost half a century of moral theory arguing for the moral rights of animals. Surprisingly, these two literatures have not intersected much. This leaves open whether the nature of rights could preclude the possibility of animal rights. It also leaves open what the nature of animal rights would be, should any of the moral arguments for animal rights be successful in their tasks. In this project, I explore these questions and show that animal rights must be conceived of as a limited form of human rights. Animals possess only passive rights (i.e. claim-rights protected by immunities) which function to advance their interests, in general. So conceived, it becomes clear why the moral arguments for animal rights have been grounded in deontological moral theories (e.g. varieties of Kantianism, contractarianism) rather than in consequentialist moral theories. Finally, even with a precise understanding of the nature of and grounds for the moral rights of animals, challenges remain regarding the ultimate force and place of animal moral rights among human moral rights.","Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2020-10-02 without embargo terms","The student, Amber Polk, accepted the attached license on 2020-07-10 at 10:52.","The student, Amber Polk, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2020-07-10 at 11:06.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2020-07-14 at 10:58.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #15560 on 2020-10-02 at 15:12:58","Made available in DSpace on 2020-10-07T20:59:44Z (GMT). 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This leaves open whether the nature of rights could preclude the possibility of animal rights. It also leaves open what the nature of animal rights would be, should any of the moral arguments for animal rights be successful in their tasks. In this project, I explore these questions and show that animal rights must be conceived of as a limited form of human rights. Animals possess only passive rights (i.e. claim-rights protected by immunities) which function to advance their interests, in general. So conceived, it becomes clear why the moral arguments for animal rights have been grounded in deontological moral theories (e.g. varieties of Kantianism, contractarianism) rather than in consequentialist moral theories. 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