As the article points out the soul in its original conception had the exact opposite purpose, to establish man's dominion over earth and everything on it. Anima

As the article points out the soul in its original conception had the exact opposite purpose, to establish man's dominion over earth and everything on it. Animal rights are a fairly new invention, and the most popular argument against them has always been that unlike humans, they have no soul, which establishes an exclusive human relationship with some divinity or another. Rights based discourse always has a flipside, the not-havers of rights. Doing away with souls and rights and switching to a frame of welfare would be a pretty huge boon for animals as well as many humans. The source for alleged rights is always some scripture, some arcane interpretation of nature or history. You can always deny people their rights based on some text they allegedly derive from. You can, by definition, not deny people their demand for welfare or subjective interests. Case in point, the right to vote. Not only didn't it magically extend to everyone because it was conceived of as a right, arguably the opposite was the case.