Animals Have the Same Right to Life and Freedom From Pain and Fear That I Have

Buddhist scriptures always use the term "sentient beings" or "living beings" without qualification. There is never a hint in Buddhist teachings that intellectual ability, a sophisticated sense of self, or any characteristic beyond the ability to suffer is relevant to moral standing. And this egalitarian approach to ethics acknowledges a fundamental truth that is often ignored or denied in the West. For ethical purposes, sentience is an absolute; either you have it--like humans and animals--or you don't--like plants and rocks. The complexity of the brain and the levels of intellectualization that a being is capable of (his "capacities" as Singer calls them) are not germane to the question of whether he is entitled to ethical treatment.

Supposedly objective standards of suffering are irrelevant because they are meaningless. Suffering is not an objective phenomenon; it is entirely subjective and can be judged by the degree of distress that it inflicts on its subject. The suffering of crabs and earthworms is as urgent to them as my suffering is to me, and for that reason, their suffering carries the same moral weight as my own. The chicken and the fish have the same right to life and freedom from fear and pain that I do because they have the same aversion to suffering and death that I have.

---The Great Compassion: Buddhism and Animal Rights, by Norm Phelps---