interests of a being should be considered happento have
chosen the wrong characteristic. By saying that we must
consider the interests of all beings with the capacity for
sufferingorenjoymentBenthamdoesnotarbitrarilyexclude
from considerationany interestsatall—asthose whodraw
thelinewithreferencetothepossessionofreasonorlanguage
do.Thecapacityforsufferingandenjoymentisaprerequisite
forhavinginterestsatall,aconditionthatmustbesatisfied
before we can speak of interests in a meaningful way. It
would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a
stoneto bekickedalongtheroad byaschoolboy. Astone
doesnothaveinterestsbecauseitcannotsuffer.Nothingthat
we candoto it couldpossibly makeany differenceto its
welfare. The capacity for suffering and enjoyment is,
however,notonlynecessary,butalsosufficientforustosay
that a being has interests—at an absolute minimum, an
interestinnotsuffering.Amouse,forexample,doeshavean
interest innot beingkicked alongtheroad, becauseitwill
suffer if it is.
AlthoughBenthamspeaksof“rights”in thepassageIhave
quoted,theargumentisreallyaboutequalityratherthanabout
rights. Indeed, in a different passage, Bentham famously
described “natural rights” as “nonsense” and “natural and
imprescriptablerights”as“nonsenseuponstilts.”Hetalkedof
moralrights asa shorthandwayofreferring toprotections
thatpeopleandanimalsmorallyoughttohave;butthereal
weightofthemoralargumentdoesnotrestontheassertionof
theexistenceoftheright,forthisinturnhastobejustifiedon
thebasisofthepossibilitiesforsufferingandhappiness. In
thiswaywecanargueforequalityforanimalswithoutgetting
embroiledin philosophicalcontroversiesabouttheultimate
nature of rights.