As some of you may know, I have argued this position before as an aside in other threads, but I think it deserves its own topic. Increasingly, there have been calls for more "humane" farming and scientific research—calls to avoid causing animal suffering at all costs. On its own, this would not be a problem, since these people are still a minor fringe, at least in America. The real problem is the nature of the counter-arguments being made to defend practices like modern farming, scientific and cosmetic testing on animals, and hunting. More and more people are conceding the moral high ground to the animal rights advocates by saying that the animals live fulfilling lives before they are slaughtered, that the death is painless, that animal testing is absolutely necessary to the future of science, that hunting is necessary to prevent the larger-scale suffering of animals when they starve, etc. All, or at least most, of these counter-arguments are true; however, they concede the basic, fundamental point to the animal-rights advocates, that these animals have rights in the first place, and that causing them to suffer unnecessarily is somehow morally wrong.
Now, my point of view is basically the same as John Locke's. There is simply no justification for ascribing rights to animals. They are the property of their owners, to do with as they will. Secularly, animals are non-sapient, and they do not participate meaningfully in society, nor have they ever, nor will they ever. With nothing to contribute to society, they are therefore excluded from the social contract; they are inherently inferior to humans. And no matter how mistreated, an animal cannot rebel against society in the same way a human slave (since animal rights advocates often compare animal ownership to slavery) can, and it will not do its work better if left to its own devices, like a human slave. It won't, in fact, do anything useful at all. It is true that animals may have developed sensory organs, but what is a sensory organ? What is the suffering that these organs allow them to feel? Nothing but an electrical impulse, a negative stimulus that tells it not to remain in the situation causing it pain. Why, besides irrelevant emotional arguments, should this be worthy of consideration? It is essentially the same thing as the error dialogue a computer might output, put on a larger scale. There simply is no rational, secular justification for animal rights.
Now, we come to religion. Unfortunately, we cannot debate religion, in any meaningful way, over the internet. Nevertheless, I do not believe that animals have souls. This alone excludes them from being considered to have basic, natural rights.
So, how should animals be treated? Here, we come to some better arguments: animal rights are to be respected, not for the sake of animals, but for the sake of humans, since it desensitizes them to violence. However, while I agree with this in my personal life and do not abuse animals, I do not believe that this argument justifies outlawing animal "cruelty". These campaigns, like the great moral outrage over dogfighting, are the same tired, unworkable attempts to control society by means of illegitimate government force, and they are essentially the same as arguments for banning pornography because it encourages rape and objectification of women, for banning violence in movies and video games because it desensitizes children, for banning gambling because it encourages people to make really stupid decisions, for banning alcohol because it destroys lives, and for the current War on Drugs, a "war" far more expensive and devastating to Americans than Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
Therefore, I believe that farmer, researchers, hunters, and meat-eaters in general need to stop conceding the moral high ground to animal rights advocates because, if this continues to happen, it completely shifts the goalposts (in fact, this has already happened with capitalism, to a great degree. Politicians and the electorate are so enamored with "compassion" that they forget individual responsibility). They merely have to prove that a specific practice causes unnecessary suffering, and they win the argument. This creates a steady movement towards the ridiculous goals of animal rights advocates, something which I believe is harmful to both individual rights and a sane society.