Whoever argues in favor of granting rights to animals, has first accepted that humans have rights and believes that animals must also be recognized as subjects of rights. And only someone who has a notion of what having rights means can meaningfully ask for this. Yet here, leaving aside the fact that humans can be classified as a specific type of animal, there is no need to justify human rights, but only to assess the validity of animal rights.

In a series of lectures published as a book under the title Economy, Society, and History, libertarian philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe puts forward various differences between humans and animals by distinguishing four different language functions. Among the functions shared by humans and animals, one is the expressive function, where also animals may express inner feelings. Another being where language fulfills a signal function, for example, with sounds that warn of danger. But what is not found in animals is the descriptive function of language, the subject and the predicate. Only with this function does the idea of truth arise, for only then is it possible to ask if something is true and try to find out. And so proper names and identifying expressions arise, as well as the terms to qualify specific objects with proper characteristics. Finally comes the argumentative function, in which complex and combined statements are connected, for example, by conjunctions, and in which humans investigate whether arguments are valid or not, and whether inferences are made in the right way. This very function is used for more precise distinctions between humans and animals. …

Being unable to account for their behavior and, thus, neither morally responsible, nor irresponsible, animals cannot respond to a trial. Consequently, it makes no sense to blame them for rights violations, of which they have no understanding. For example, if animals had rights, should the horse that kicked a man passing by not be punished? Could the horse not respect the innocent man on his way home? This is obviously absurd. The horse cannot articulate such thoughts. Whatever sense of threat the horse may feel, it feels it regardless of the man’s intentions.

Those who claim that animals have rights cannot really be merely asserting that animals have rights as universally as humans, but are implicitly asserting that the alleged rights of animals are somehow superior to the rights of humans. For if humans should respect animals rights like they respect human rights, while animals cannot do the same, then animals would not have equal rights, but actually legal privileges over humans.

Nonetheless, it is because animals have no rights that it is possible for humans to assign property rights on animals, which in turn allows them to be legally protected. It means going to court to seek compensation from those who damage, steal, or kill animals. Hence, it is the human right to own animals that allows seeking justice in conflicts involving animals.

Ultimately, granting rights to animals means legalizing injustice against humans and, even then, to the benefit of those humans who are emotionally favored by such a thing. But social life and human relationship to all nature imply only one theory of rights possible in this world. And in this world inhabited by humans, animal rights are impossible.