動物保護入憲模式之探討—從「權利觀點」出發

Since 1970, the issue of animal protection is highly noticed and concerned through national wide. In philosophy, we have certain consensus that animals are not machines and they should deserve certain moral rights. In legislation regulation, there are more and more regulations about animals. Moreover, scholars even try to argue that animals should have legal rights to protect themselves. Although I agree that argument, I think the aspect of rights should be refined in some way. To deal the issue of animal protection, we should exam the attitude of the whole society and our legal system. I find out that we people treat animals as “objects” or “property”. It is the unequal relationship that makes we human exploit animals so greatly. So I claim, not until we human get rid of the myth of specisim can we fairly and equally treat the interests of animals and the interests of human. Then I introduce theories of animal rights as the basis of the models which I propose. I think the argument of rights aspect should be put in the context of Constitution. Through the superiority of Constitution, it can avoid the situation “ prima facie of human rights” when there are some conflicts between the interests of animals and the interests of human beings. Also, I argue the aspects of rights should not be confined as the type of “human rights” we have discussed a lot in the past. It can be quite diverse. In order to equally concern the interests of animals and human beings and notice the difference between animals and human, I propose three models, such as the right model, the value model and the model of environmental right. Finally, to put my models into practice, I have to take the real cases into consideration. I find out the three types of model are compatible. They outline as an image of concentric circle. According to the progress of our social society and social consensus, the decision makers can be flexible to choose which one is the best to protect animals as wide as possible. As a result, although how animal protection in question is still a difficult issue, there is a workable model with consistent understanding of “animal rights” to be applied.