animal rights is a subclass of subjective right.

animal rights is a subclass of animal protection.

animal rights is an instance of ethical theory.

Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth independent of their utility to humans, and their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the same consideration as similar interests of human beings.

The argument from marginal cases is often used to reach this conclusion.

This argument holds that if human beings such as infants, senile people, and the cognitively disabled are granted moral status and negative rights, then nonhuman animals must be granted the same moral consideration, since animals do not lack any known morally relevant characteristic that marginal-case humans have.

Broadly speaking, and particularly in popular discourse, the term "animal rights" is often used synonymously with "animal protection" or "animal liberation".

More narrowly, "animal rights" refers to the idea that many animals have fundamental rights to be treated with respect as individuals—rights to life, liberty, and freedom from torture—that may not be overridden by considerations of aggregate welfare.

Like human rights, animal rights center on the notion of freedom.

Many animal rights advocates oppose assigning moral value and fundamental protections on the basis of species membership alone.

They consider this idea, known as speciesism, a prejudice as irrational as any other, and hold that animals should not be considered property or used as food, clothing, entertainment, or beasts of burden merely because they are not human.

Cultural traditions such as Jainism, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, and animism also espouse varying forms of animal rights.

In parallel to the debate about moral rights, North American law schools now often teach animal law, and several legal scholars, such as Steven M.