Some have proposed rights as the concept that will create equality, but they fail to see that there are many gradations of rights and that there is such a thing as partial rights. They feel that anything that has rights must be equal, but this is not true. Others have proposed souls, and argue that because animals and unborn fetuses have souls, it is wrong to claim the lives of either. Proposing such abstract, ungrounded concepts create more problems than they can solve. In the end, what they are trying to achieve is to give animals something they do not have.
Singer tries to make animals capable of human suffering.
Regan tries to claim that animals and humans are equally valuable. But concepts such as suffering and value are human concepts. Agony, anguish, despair, joy, achievement and inspiration are human emotions and they are used to describe animals by animal rights activists. They claim that those of us who fail to grant animals equal moral status are anthropocentric because we are singling ourselves from our equals. I claim that animal rights activists are anthropocentric because they are trying to ascribe human concepts and emotions to animals that do not have them.