Animal rights activism is a form of activism that attempts to bring about both a public awareness of the lack of consideration of rights for all animals, and a change in law to prevent this lack of consideration from negatively affecting animals.
Animal rights activists can be divided into two categories: those who believe that all animals should have equal consideration of rights, and those who believe that non-human animals should be given more consideration of rights than they are currently being given. Although most philosophers who speak on this topic either argue for equal consideration among all animals (see Peter Singer) or arbitrary consideration among all animals (see William Baxter), most activists are in agreement that such a lofty philosophic goal is too hard to achieve, and instead merely work toward giving non-human animals more consideration. Still, it should be noted that are no notable philosophic essays which argue for some particular unequal consideration as the ideal.
See also: Consideration_of_rights, List_of_animal_welfare_and_animal_rights_groups, Animal_rights.
