The Green Kant: Kant's Treatment of Animals

In this article, Wilson upholds Immanuel Kant's view that human beings should not treat non-human animals as their equals because that would cause human status to decline to that of other animals. This view is based on the assumption that there are significant differences between humans and other animals in terms of mental capacity and the ability to reason, in particular, that make humans superior.
I agree with Wilson in that it wouldn't make sense for us to treat other animals the way that we treat each other, not because it would cause our status to decline, but because of the many differences that exist between humans and other animals. For instance, there are in fact differences in intelligence and ways of communicating between humans and other animals that would prevent us from treating them in the exact same way that we treat one another. Even so, I do not think that this should prevent us from giving non-human animals (and other forms of life, such as plants) certain rights for their protection.
Moreover, I do not think that it is necessarily the case that animals are incapable of reasoning. An animal that is targeted as prey by another animal, a predator, can certainly think in such a logical manner that it realizes it is in danger of being killed and must get away from the predator that is pursuing it. Wilson or Kant may respond to this argument by saying that this example simply illustrates a survival instinct that animals possess and that does not constitute reasoning. However, whether one considers this animal's response to being in danger an instinct or not, it fits the definition of the word reason. Anyway, humans as well as other animals are driven by many instincts, such as the instinct to eat and drink in order to survive. Humans and other animals are more alike than Wilson and Kant would like to believe.
There are differences between human beings and other animals that might lead one to believe that we are actually the inferior species, such as the fact that four-legged animals are able to run at much faster speeds than we can. Interestingly, Wilson does not acknowledge such differences in her article. Despite the existence of these differences, which Wilson is most likely aware of, she does not seem to believe that any other animal species is superior to human beings.