### Difference between rights of sentient beings (like animals) vs welfare of sentient beings This difference can be seen clearly if we first talk in context of human beings. The most fundamental right of a human is to **not be anyone's property**. Socities and cultures world-over reject slavery and maintain that one human cannot own another human as a property. In this sense, the human right to be not a property of someone else is a fundamental moral right. This right prevents humans to be subject of unconsented scientific experiments or have their organs harvested. However, this does NOT neccessarily create an obligation on others to care for other humans who enjoy this right. Unlike there being no debate on slavery being wrong, there are strong and vigrous debates about obligations of humans towards each others. For example, should we ensure health and well being of others via mechanisms such as universal basic income? Should we subsidise for education of all fellow humans? Hence, in this light **welfare is an obligation to minimize suffering of others**. Truly altruistic welfare often comes at a personal cost and therefore debated in societies and generally not readily accepted. Welfare initatives are readily accepted when there is collective benefit. An example of it is taxpayers subsidizing education because they need workers to run their companies. As per [this excellent talk on animal rights v/s welfare](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kt0evaSNRI), when it comes to animals welfare is adopted when it's economically beneficial to do so. For example, the Humane Slaughter Act of 1956 in US was passed because, before slaughter, large animals such as cattle or pigs would defend themselves vigorously and in process, end up causing worker injury and damage their own bodies. Both of these are not good for business and lower profits. Hence, the efficient solution which got proposed in the act was stunning of animals which would render these animals unconscious. It's important to note that this act excluded chickens because due to their smaller body size, they caused fewer injuries and carcass damage. #### Which is important for sentient beings: rights or welfare? As per [[Suffering focused ethics]], what ultimately matters is the net reduction of suffering in our world. So, welfare matters a lot more than rights. To see why, imagine an animal or some other sentient being having rights of not being a property. If such an animal gets disease and we see it clearly suffering and unable to help itself, we should do whatever we can to relieve the animal from this suffering (by proper care or medicine). Hence, we should not stop at granting rights of selfhood to sentient beings. Even after the right to not being a property, we should actively plan and act in a way that reduces suffering towards others. However, as we saw above in the case of Humane Slaughter Act, in practice, welfare towards a being that does not enjoy right to self-hood only happens if it is self-serving. Without the right to not being treated as a property, our welfare initatives towards other beings will ALWAYS be in conflict with our own needs, desires and profits. **We need both for sentient beings: rights AND welfare**. Since rights for non-human sentient beings is a much more difficult task (no country has it so far), the better focus in the short term should be to focus on welfare of sentient beings (as that reduces suffering as well, albeit incompletly). Asking for a smaller change is easier than asking for a big change [^1]. However, the demand for moral rights for all beings capable of sentience should always remain persistent and groups that demand this in different countries should be actively supported. [^1]: This observation is supported by other interventions such as [higher net reduction of meat consumption](https://faunalytics.org/reduce-or-go-veg/) due to calls for reducing meat intake v/s calling for total elimination of meat, or the fact that throughout history, [gradual progress towards more ethical practices has not caused complacency](https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/foundational-questions-summaries) in achieving total elimination of unethical practices.