Animal Rights
Offline Hi, i'm new here, but i was listening to one of the shows where the squad talked breifly about animal rights, and i was interested in what the general opinion here was on these sort of issues, whether they be vegetarianism, hunting or animal testing. I personally have been a vegetarian for many years, and am very pro-animal rights in general (though i suppose it's pretty debatable what the term 'animal rights' means). The reason i'd like to bring up this subject here, is that i think the notion of animal rights is very linked in with having a good understanding of evolution.
Anyway, please discuss.
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Offline I think I'll need such an explanation. I don't see how humans have intrinsic rights. I think properties humans posess allow us to grant one another rights in the form of contract and mutual understanding.
Right. These properties, intrinsic to the nature of humans, are the properties that give people intrinsic natural rights. Do people have a right to grant one another rights? If not, then no rights exist. If they do, then people have intrinsic rights. I don't see how you can avoid rights being intrinsic.
I don't think that humans possess rights by the mere fact that they are human - which is what intrinsic implies.
Not by the fact that they are human alone, but by a certain combination of the properties of humans which I provided and you didn't like.
A PERSON has rights, a human does not - at least not necessarily, and a PERSON only has rights based upon contracts and mutual understandings with those around him or her.
If we have established that a person has rights, and that a person is a different thing from a human, how can it be said that all people are necessarily humans?
And again, your "social contract" source of rights presupposes intrinsic rights.
To say a human has such intrinsic rights implies that they come from somewhere. Considering where we are talking, I think it safe to assume you don't things such riights come from divinity. So where, exactly, do they come from?
The nature of people and the world. If for no other reason, then because everything else is demonstrably contradictory.
No. I'm not sure you understand the term "intinsic". This implies that something by its very nature has some sort of property. IOW - humans, by the mere fact of being human, have rights - NOT SO. Look around you.It should be clear to you, first and foremost, that there is a distinct difference between merely being human and being an actual person. A human is simply a member of the species homo sapien.
Humans do not, by the mere fact of being human, have rights, I agree with you here. I gave you the two critical factors - self-awareness and understanding and respect of ownership - as the things that distinguish a person from a nonperson.
While the default position of a human is having rights and being a person, they can very well act in ways that negate their personhood. Such a person, however, must necessarily be disreguarding the property rights of others to their lives, liberties, and property, and as such fail to fulfill the second condition I offered.
A PERSON is a human above such simple genetic or taxonomic classification. A PERSON is a human individual capable of understanding, possessing and reciprocating rights and duties.Terry Schiavo before they pulled the plug was a human. You and I are PERSONS.
She was little more than meat. You and I are capable of possessing, understanding and reciprocating rights, contracts and privelidges.
I only disagree with your defining a person as necessarily a human in this definition. It seems arbitrary.
Terry Schaivo was not a person because she failed at least one of the tests I gave. She was not self-aware. And she could not have respected property rights if she had violated anyone's rights, for instance if the hospital she resided in no longer wanted her there, she could not have honored that wish and left. Although it's questionable whether or not the second factor played a part, the fact that she failed one disqualifies her as a person.
I am willing to hear you out, simply tell me why humans have intrinsic rights and tell me what they are. You'd probably best define what a human or person is as well.
I agree with your definitions of human and person, save your defining all persons as necessarily human. You seem to be defending the position that only humans are people by defining all people as humans, it seems like a circular argument to me, and if I have to use those definitions and those words, I couldn't possibly prove you wrong. But if you don't at least open up to the possibility of nonhumans being persons, I'll just use different words. So for convenience, please accept the definitions whereby human is not a necessary condition of a person.
Firstly I do recommend you read some material by Murray Rothbard, perhaps his "For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto"?
Rothbard's proof of natural rights sets out from the axiom that people act, and they act because they want to act, that by acting they employ scarce means to fulfill desired ends, wants. The fulfillment of wants, or happiness, is good.
This is axiomatic because attempting to refute it involves acting, because you want to, utilizing scarce time, energy, and effort, to fulfill the end of communicating with me, as a means to happiness for yourself. And attepting to refute it while doing it is kinda contradictory.
Because finding good (happiness) requires action, it follows that actions which serve these wants are good.
Since some actions are good and some are not, there's got to be a way to tell the good ones from the bad ones. Beggining with Crusoe Ethics, where there's only one person in the world and they can't possibly harm the lives of anybody else, we can basically assume that anything they do will be done because they want to do it. All action will support the life and happiness of that one person. Everything is good. Bad actions are impossible.
If there are more people than that, one person can interfere with the happiness of others, by depriving others of the means to those ends that they value. In order to avoid conflicts between these competing values, ends, which people seek to fulfill, it is necessary to decide, between people, how these scarce means will be allocated, or more accurately, how it will be decided how these will be allocated. Ownership is rightful decisionmaking power.
There are three possible ethics that will allow for this necessary decisionmaking, avoiding conflicts of interest.
1. Private ownership. A owns A, B owns B. An individual has absolute irresponsible dominion over certain objects. Nobody else can tell him what to do with it (this would be a conflict between competing interests).
2. Feudalism/Slavery. A owns A, A owns B. This ethic fails the test of universality. Rules which apply to A do not also apply to B. The criteria by which it is determined that A owns B but B does not own A are inherently arbitrary. This ethic is contradictory and therfore invalid.
3. Collective ownership. A+B own A+B. Everybody owns an equal quotal share of everything else (including each other. To not include each other is to assume private property in individuals while holding that private property is illegitemate, which is a contradictory blend). This passes the universality test which (2) fails miserably. However it brings up a different problem. If everybody has rightful control of everybody, and anybody attempts to communicate to anybody else, they are making use of a scarce resource, their vocal cords, without the consent of everybody. This creates a circular dependancy. Getting consent requires action. Action requires getting consent. Since neither can be presupposed without assuming private ownership, you can't end up with either.
Thus, private ownership is the only logical ethic of ownership.
Private ownership assumes the private right of individuals to decide how to act, thus liberty is a right. Liberty requires that one have a right to one's own body in order for one to be able to act. Thus, one has a property right to the object of one's own body. As owner of one's own body, it follows that the works and products of that body belong to the owner of the body which created it. It belonging to anybody else would be baseless, and it must either belong to one person according to the private property ethic demonstrated above, or belong to no person, in which case nobody has any rightful decisionmaking power over such an object. Because acquisition of rightful decisionmaking power over other objects (scarce means) is necessary for the fulfillment of needs (ends served by those scarce means), the aquisition of rightful decisionmaking power aka ownership of an object is right.
This establishes the rights of life, liberty, and property as intrinsic.
I think it would be great if we had intrinsic rights or ordained rights, but I simply do not see how this is the case. Would not such a thing be absolute? Would it not be universally understood?
It would be absolute pursuant to it's own implications. Universally understood, unfortunately not, however luckily it is easily intuited by most people.
OK, now I'm not sure where the disagreement lies. I'm hoping it is a semantic misunderstanding. Let me know.
Whether rights are intrinsic or not, and what determines whether or not a certain being has rights, and whether or not nonhumans can be persons.
OK, no, we were getting along so well there and now we're back at square one. Rights require the ability to reciprocate, you said so yourself and agreed on that point above. I know of NO animal capable of such, except in insignificant capacities. And again, whatever rights would be involved would be limited to the degree of understanding and reciprocation.
The question isn't yet "which nonhumans have rights" or even "whether nonhumans can have rights", but "what determines rights?" Once we answer the other questions I'll see how strong a case I can make for any species having rights, but we have to know what exactly we're looking for first.
So far as I can tell the ability to reciporicate requires (among other things, but to list specifically those which most animals do not posess) recognition of self and recognition of others. Self awareness and ability to respect the rights of others. The same two conditions I keep giving.
I understand why you do it. I simply think it misquided. Say a police dog sacrifices itself for her handler. We must understand that "sacrifice" is the WRONG word here.The dog did not understand it would cease to exist upon the act. The dog did what it was trained to do. It sacrificed itself, because it got food rewards for exhibiting such behaviour in training. Not out of a sense of obligation. Not out of a sense of duty. It may as well have been a robot programed to do such in order to get charged up again.
And if the dog actually DID have rights, how could we ever justify putting it in harms way like that? The dog is an animal. Has no rights, as it is incapable of understanding the situation or the parameters involved.
Agreed. The dog is basically a bio-robot. It doesn't understand that people have rights, does not recognize itself as a person, and is probably not self-aware. The dog doesn't meet either of the conditions I have put forward.
I think I've been fairly clear. We're talking apples and oranges.
It seems to me that you define all non-macintoshes as oranges by defining all non-humans as animals without rights, but that's just how I see it. They way you are defining things seems constructed to make it difficult for me to make my point.
I agree. If Shamu has rights, Shamu IS a slave. As are all police dogs, guard dogs, helper monkies, most pets, etc. Do you honestly think such is the case?But Shamu does NOT have rights. Shamu is a fishy mammal in a tank.
I answered the question later. Let's leave the question of whether or not Shamu has rights until after we can agree on where rights come from and what conditions need to be met to determine whether or not something has rights.
And I assume no such thing. Why should I?
Because your request (get me a spot on Shamu's schedule) assumes that Shamu has rights. If you assume in your question that Shamu has rights and then answer assuming Shamu does not have rights, I can't very well give a satisfactory answer can I?
There is a distinct difference here. Whales, while intelligent for animals, are not human and have NEVER demostrated the same sential capacities as humans. When they do, IF they do, I'm happy to reconsider my position.
They have never to your knowledge demonstrated those abilities. The question is, if I could show you contrary evidence, would you accept it? Since I believe you would you don't really have to respond to this paragraph.
1. Humans are animals.2. Humans have rights.
3. Therefore some animals have rights.
You know this is garbage logic, especially when I contest the second premise as you've presented it.
This is a composition fallacy.
You may as well have said:
1)Humans are made of cells
2)Cells are invisible to the naked eye
3)Some humans are invisible.
Let me elaborate:
1. Humans have rights.
2. Humans = a subset of Animals
3. Therefore a subset of animals has rights.
4. (3) would be impossible if animals could not have rights.
5. Therefore animals can have rights.
I simply deny any animal other than a human has such an ability in anything other than a trivial capacity. Show me that I'm wrong on such an assessment and I'll gladly change my mind.
At the moment I'm just trying to get you to admit that it is possible that any animal other than a human can have such an ability. If this is such a statement, then I can move on to proving specifics.
No shit. But again you are equivovating.
You are making arbitrary exceptions.
Oh, no, I'm being anything but arbitrary. Like I said, there are certain humans that do not have the rights you and I may enjoy. This is a direct result of their inability to understand and reciprocate such rights as you and I may enjoy.
This does not answer the originally quoted text, I accused you of excepting humans from your definition of animal. If you are not doing that, please say so. If you are doing that and you do not believe you are being arbitrary in doing so, your subsequent statements don't support your first one.
Rights entail the ABILITY to UNDERSTAND them and the CAPACITY to RECIPROCATE them. If one cannot do that, they cannot have said right.
Thank you for merely restating one of my two necessary preconditions for having rights, that one is able to understand and respect rights. I take it I will not have to demonstrate in the future that the second requirement is indeed required?
Animals can have rights, after they've satisfied the necessary criteria - understanding and reciprocation. Let me know when they can do that. They would also have to be subject to the same reprecussions you and I have.
Understanding and reciporication? Well the second prerequisite I've given is a way of saying you need understanding. The first rerequisite taken with the second implies reciporication.
If a monkey in the park takes my lunch, that monkey is getting prosecuted for theft.
Agreed.
Any such organism, human or otherwise, would not have the rights you and I do. Likely they'd have no rights at all.
You quoted a rather large portion, so I'll assume you were referring to the later statements made in it about a creature which doesn't have rights. In which case you restated what I said and we're in agreement.
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Hi Kid A (after the Radiohead album?),
There are a few of us here interested in animal rights. I'll take this opportunity to direct you to the Philosophy/Psychology forum and an essay I wrote. The thread is entitled an Essay on Animal Rights and focuses primarily on primates (because that is the question I was set).
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Thanks for responding, and yes, my name does come from a radiohead album.
I've read the first few parts of your essay and flicked through the rest, but i haven't the time right now to read the whole thing, so i apologise in advance if i misrepresent any of your points.
Your essay is very impressive, and your method of writing strikes me as that of a philosopher, so may i ask if you are a philosophy student?
I agree with many of the points your bring up, and i can see that most of them are particliarly relevent in relation to abortion. However, i am afraid that i do not agree that morality and rights should only be applied to species and creatures in general that fit the criteria of personhood. I'm actually not 100% sure from your essay whether you agree with this notion, or if you are just saying 'if you have that notion, then you need to include other great apes aswell'.
The answers to these question may well be in your essay, but to save time, would you mind stating your views here on issues such as:
eating meat.
hunting.
testing on animals.
Yes, I am a philosophy student. I don't think I made my standpoint completely clear in the essay, as well as this writing the essay did actually change my views a little and so there may be some slight differences between beginning and end which given that I had a deadline to make I didn't have time to change and since I got a first for it haven't bothered to change. Personhood was deemed important only for moral equality with humans (persons not just meaning humans). However the vein of thought I have predominantly been concerned with is interest based rights. I will say more on this some other time if you're interested in a discourse on that topic.
Eating Meat.
I personally am a vegetarian, although I must say mostly through habit. My views on animal rights do not actually lead me to think killing them to be wrong (that was an old view of mine at the time I became vegetarian and at that time I was merely 5 years old).
My theory is thus. If an animal cannot conceptualise life/death can it have an interest in its own life in the same way it has say in eating, not feeling pain, living a healthy life? Some animals can recognise when another animal is dead, but can it realise that it itself may die? Apes can, as can elephants, dolphins and other species that can be persons. These creatures have an interest in life. They can tell what death is as they can life, and as is mentioned in the essay are just as uncomfortable about the idea of their own death as humans are. Sheep on the other hand? Ok, a sheep has an interest in eating grass, procreating, and living healthily, and it should be allowed to do so, we are harming its interests if we don't. Free range meat is justified here, free range meat has a good life, and its interests are never jeopardised.
Another point I would like to bring up is a utilitarian dilemma. Is it possible for the whole of humanity to be vegetarians? Would not many people die as a result in areas where vegetables simply cannot grow and there is no infrastructure to transport vegetables to such people? Also is there actually enough cultivatable land to produce enough vegetables for the human population?
In my views on interests I rule out harmful interests. This is simple, harmful interests will conflict with the interests of another creature. However there is such thing as a necessary harmful interest and these in certain circumstances should be allowed, you cannot stop a lion from killing a gazelle (as well as this, such guidelines are only based upon how we should behave towards other creatures, not how they should behave towards others, we have moral agency, they do not). That would be stupid. Similarly, even if we were to accept that animals had an interest in life, could we justify the starvation of millions of human beings as a result? Indeed for many people eating meat is a necessary interest.
Hunting.
I am completely for the hunting ban that was introduced in England and Wales recently. It wasn't so much the killing of the fox, probably not a creature with an interest in life but the way it was done. Chasing the poor thing with a pack of blood thirsty dogs who would then rip it to shreds does harm the fox' interests, it feels extreme fear and indeed a hell of a lot of pain. The arguments for it was that it was pest control. And indeed fox' do cause a nuisance to farmers, killing chickens (a necessary interest one might say). But all the pomp that went with it, would you wear a pristine bright red coat, and a fine pair of jodpers and ride horseback to put down rat poison?
Also the body of the fox does not go to waste, it is simple killed, ripped apart. It is a waste.
What it comes down to is harming of interests.
Testing on animals.
Again same arguments apply, however if rats were genetically engineered not to feel pain or the symptoms of illness, would it then be against their interests to experiment on them with diseases or whatever? Rats and mice, however stupid they are, are sentient creatures, avoidance of pain is an important interest to them and so experimentation on them always seems quite iffy.
However, should we counterbalance this with the interests of humans not to be ill? The interests of medicine? Something I'm trying to decide at the moment is whether a human's interest in life is a trump card on the rat's sentience? When it comes to this I can find no rational reason to decide either way, only person-centric intuitions? Certainly I do not think there should be testing on chimps or other person-creatures. However, if a person were modified to not have a conscious brain, nor sentience that would be ok.
Testing on mice is difficult in some respects scientifically, they are different enough from us that many experiments that may work on mice may not work on humans. Mice are not reliable subjects of study for human diseases and ailments.
I'm fairly tired so, this probably isn't that great a post but I hope you can understand it well enough.
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Personally if I'm hungry I'll eat meat, honestly I could use the protein. I am all for animal testing as it advances science and has/will save lives. Hunting I see as kinda useless, but I don't have a big problem with it as long as it isn't some kind of bullshit where they put out food to draw the animals in.
On the idea of being vegetarian or vegan well I have mixed feelings. We got to where we are from eating meat (or more having to hunt for it), but I know I'd feel better if I knew the animal died a "timely" or "painless" death.
All that being said there is still a difference between killing an animal for eating or testing for science and torturing an animal.
Keep in mind, you'll not find a general consensus amongst atheists on "animal rights" issues.
Thanks again for replying. I'll try and respond point by point to your post.
Okay, you make some good points here. I for one believe that free range meat is infinitely better then factory farmed meat, and yet i still have an objection to it. Your basic arguement seems to be that if something cannot conceptualise death, then it is not cruel to kill it. First of all, i could bring up examples like babies or mentally handicapped people, and see if you'd feel the same about them, but i'd rather focus on the fact that i disagree with your very premise.
I don't see why having a concept of death makes our death any worse, then if we lacked it. I suppose one could argue that if you know you are going to die before you do, you would feel a lot more fear and have a much worse death, but using that logic you could justify killing humans as long as they didn't know they were going to die before you killed them. Perhaps i should start by asking you in what way you think an animal's concept of pain differs from their concept of death? An animal doesn't try to avoid pain because it's thinking 'Man, it really sucks when i get burned or cut here', it just experiances the pain and has an instinct not to want to feel it again. From my understanding it doesn't consciously rationalise the experiance. In the same way, though it can't really understand what death is, it has a survival instinct that means it does not want to die.
Okay, let me ask you this question. Tell me, what is wrong with me grabbing a sniper rifle and shooting a man in the middle of nowhere, who dies instantly. For simplicities sake, let's assume that he's a complete loner, and has no family or friends.
This is an excellent point. My reply would be that i am not a vegetarian because i think that everyone who eats, or ever has eaten meat, is evil. I can perfectly understand why meat was absolutely vital for our survival as little as 100 years ago, and still is in some places in the world. My reason for not eating meat nowadays is that i simply don't believe it to be necessary. I live in england, and it's so simple to be a vegetarian nowadays. Every possible meat based meal you can think of seems to have a vegetarian alternative, and you can get all the proteins you need from other sources. So no, if someone will starve unless they eat meat, then of course i can understand why they would eat it. But in places like America, and the majority of europe it's so very simple to have a meat-free diet.
On the economic issues of not eating meat though, i read a rather good artilce on the very subject in (i think it was the economist, but i'm not certain. It was a magazine along those lines anyway). It explained how the land and food we are using to feed and contain livestock (around 18 billion animals), could be put to far better use. I will try and look for it and post it here soon.
I agree with most of that. Again, i disagree with the notion tha just because the fox can't rationalise it's death, it isn't wrong to kill it (perhaps you can explain this notion better in your reply). You make good points in general though. Foxes can be a pest, and in some areas there are needs to cull them. However, fox hunting is not really about that. A question i'd always ask people who went for the view that 'fox hunting is purely culling', is: 'If you got dressed up and ready with a big hunting party, to go to a farm and hunt a particuliar fox which has been pesting the famer, and the second you stepped out the fox appeared so you had a clear shot of it, would you kill it?' And every time they'd answer something along the lines of :'no, there would be no fun in that'.
Yes, testing is a very tricky issue. I think when it comes to things like testing for cosmetics it is terrible and unacceptable, but when it comes to testing for medicine and research that could potentially save human lives, it is much tricker. I suppose a fair arguement is that the good will potentially outweigh the bad, but that argument has issues of it's own. I think we can agree, that is fair for us to value a human life above another animals. However, does that give us the right to kill and torture an animal to cure a human's disease that has most likely been caused by a humans unhealthy lifestyle. I think you would agree with me when i assume that you value the life of a family member more then a stranger you walk past on the street. I think you'd also agree that if you were in a burning building and you could save either of these two people, you would save the family member every time. However, if we then hypothesis that this family member has a weak heart and needs a trasnplant, would you agree that it would be fair for you to take the strangers heart against his will?
Obviously the issue of animal testing is not quite so simple, but i think these are all things that people should think about. I read in a paper the other day that a fair majority of animal tetsing is done on research into curing diseases like lung cancer and heart disease, which are mostly caused by unhealthy eating and smoking. This research seems to be fairly redundunt in general. However, i must also admit that there are massive benefits from animal testing and many scientists have stated that animal testing has been the greatest help to medical researach in the last half century, so i could not at all say that it is useless.
I think at best, i would have to contest that testing on animals is perhaps the lesser of two evils. However, we should also acknowledge that the lesser of two evils is evil nonetheless. I think the best thing we can do is to put more money and time into other forms of medical research that have shown promise such as computer simulated testing and stem cell research (though i suppose that is a whole other issue).
Anyway, i hope i have been clear aswell. I am also very tired, so please forgive the inevitable abundancy of typos and spelling errors.
You raise the problems of my argument quite well.
In relation to babies/ human non-persons.
The one thing that prevents us from killing babies is our instinct/intuitions. It is wrong to kill a baby because we are sensitive to that kind of thing. The mother will almost always feel extremely emotionally if we were to kill the baby, there are also many reasons not to. In the absense of a biological parent a baby could be adopted, it is wasteful to kill it. However if the killing of the baby were for necessary reasons we would not be acting against the baby's interests. An interest in not dying is perhaps different from other interests in that all other interests relate to things that may affect us in our life, death on the otherhand is different, it will not affect us any longer because well we'll be dead. The psychological desire to avoid death relies upon the conceptualisation of life/death in a way that other interests do not. By killing a person we are acting against that person's interest whether he knows he's going to die or not.
Over to human non-persons. This refers primarily to those humans in permanent vegetative states. They will never actually live, they will never feel, they are simply breathing organisms being kept alive by machines, no brain function, very little motor function, they are all but dead. I have no problem with killing such people if there is no chance of them living again. Mentally handicapped is tricky, I would suggest that intuition and nature prevents us from doing so, they are often also capable of enjoying life whether they have an active interest in it or not. If we were to systematically kill babies or the mentally handicapped the repercussions for society would be phenomenal, any good that might come from their non-existence would be outweighed by bad consequences. There would be outrage, emotional trauma, harm done, not to the subject killed but to its family friends and to the public at large.
On vegetarianism in the modern age you are right. I live in England too, Lancaster in the North-West. It is not necessary to eat meat. However, I have very little moral reason not to eat meat anymore. If I were to go somewhere where I needed to eat meat to live, I would probably give in and do it. The idea of eating meat disgusts me mostly because it is an alien idea to me, it is an idea I indoctrinated myself into disliking! But I would begrudgingly cast aside my vegetarianism, it is only habit that keeps me being one.
Utilitarian dilemmas
Lets say I could save five people or my brother and I had time to decide on this subject. My choice would be to save the five lives. I would miss my brother dearly but I would know I'd done the right thing, I would have maximised the good of the most people possible. If I'd been confronted with the same dilemma say in a burning house, with the fear and the instinct over reason, I would save my brother. I would feel regret afterwards as well as relief for my brother's safety, but I would know that I could not have done anything else in that situation.
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Thanks for replying again. I still have a few problems with some of your points, but you at least seem consistent with your beliefs and seem to have really thought things through, rather then just picking what suits you.
I don't agree with that. I suppose you could make the arguement that everything is based on our instincts to some extent, but i don't think that's the point your making. Anyway 'll explain why i disagree with this in a minute, i'll just clear up a few more things first:
Yes, i agree with that. I think the indirect negative consequences of killing a baby would always be far more then that of an animal.
I would like it if you could explain what you mean by "interest in not dying"?. What does it matter if someone has an interest in not dying if they are dead?. Seen as they don't exist anymore, they won't be able to regret dying. Aside from the fact that other people will be sad about losing that person, there is no direct reason, using your logic, why it is wrong to kill them. Why does it matter if we are acting against a person's interests if they are not alive to experiance it?
Being a core member of the squad, I'm for animal testing for medical research, I eat gobs of meat, and I hunt (thogh I haven't been out for a few years).
Kelly on the other hand is a vegetarian, does not hunt and is conflicted on the testing issue - though you'd have to get specifics from her.
We vary across the board, but I'm probably the most to the right of the issue, being raised in a rural community and being involved in the scientific field.
Frankly, I personally don't think animals have rights, save for the ones we grant them. In my mind, rights entail responsibilities and reciprocity - animals are not capable of such (nor are some humans for that matter), and thus the concept is a human domain.
I agree with you, it IS very linked with an understanding of evolution, which only cements my sentiments on the subject.
Rights, liberties, freedoms, civility, etc. - are for the most part human domain, as I stated earlier. I will not claim, that chimps for example do not exhibit empathetic behavior, they certainly do, and I use research and lines of evidence all the time in my own arguments with creationists.
However to give animals actual rights though, to me, seems untinkable - for no animal is capable of understanding the responsibility and reciprocation involved in such an entity. A lion will not refrain from eating you if you grant it rights, and chimp won't refrain from ripping you limb from limb if you step between him and his mate or offspring.
Rights are a two way street. Rights cannot exist without the capacity to reciprocate them.
You can (and most people I argue with do) bring up exceptions like mentally handicapped humans. The simple fact of the matter is, if such people are not capable of responsibility and reciprocation of rights, they DON'T have the same rights as you and I may have. Clinically diagnosed pyromanics are not permitted to roam the streets at will, nor are people who would obviously be a danger to others or themselves. Rights are proportionate to the ability of the organism, human or otherwise, to respect them, understand them, and reciprocate them.
Now, I do expect some sort of counter along the lines of "well we don't kill the retarded, simply because of this lack of understanding, so why are we entitled to kill animals who also do not understand." The thing is, I think it is simply natural to grant exceptions and clemency to one's own kind and own species - we've been conditioned to do so by billions of years of evolution. This is not an ethical argument, it is a animalistic one, for after all, we are animals - and as the only animals who understand the concept of rights, we're the only animals who have them. Either we're all animals and equal, so anything goes as far as survival goes, or we're somehow "better" than the other animals and have some sort of ambiguous moral obligation to save them from ourselves.
Either avenue upholds the status quo.
I'm not claiming eating another animal is moral or immoral - I think it is A-moral.
In the end, I honestly do not see any problem placing our species above others, that is exactly WHY we are still here, evolutionarily speaking. All species do it. It prompts the question that if there were a rodent or primate or insect species that threatened human survival, would we be justified in exterminating it? I think if you answer yes to that question, then you do understand where I'm coming from, at least in part.
We must also look at facts like; domestic cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, horses, etc, exist for the sole reason that we eat them or use them in other capacities and use their hides - same goes for domesticated pets. These animals were bred from the wild for the table, they probably would have gone extinct or have been hunted to extinction long ago without us simply keeping them aroung because they were tasty and easy to manage or otherwise useful.
Then there is medical research. I've been involved personally with that myself in the past, and the blunt fact of the matter is that animals are excellent models to work on. The strides in medicine and drug development due to animal research is hard to deny - this sort of goes back to my last point. Also, don't forget that this research also benefits animals in the end. And again, speaking from the point of evolution, such testing yields viable results because we ARE very similar physiolocially to other animals.
I don't think any living thing should be subject to abject torture for our whims; the cat that toyed and tortured with a mouse on my porch for two hours last week doesn't share that sentiment - it cannot, it's a fucking cat, incapable of such moralistic hand wringing.
I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins
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Of course some animals have rights. Humans are animals and humans have rights.
I came up with a really simple test for determining whether or not something has rights.
1. It has to be self-aware.
2. It has to understand ownership.
If it can do both, then it owns itself, and if it owns itself, it has rights.
To my knowledge the animals that can pass this test are humans, dolphins, maybe some primates, and elephants could be taught ownership and then they'd have rights.
Other animals don't have rights. I certainly never feel bad about killing insects or watching squirrels do backflips off car hoods after being shot with an airsoft gun, or eating meat, and can't imagine why anyone would feel bad for using a product tested on animals. And I'd like to learn how to hunt.
Y#5's reciprocity argument is strong as well, although is basically what I said using more legal than moral language.
Well I don't vehemetly disagree with you, but there are problems here.
I could point out severl logical failings here, but the first and formost is equivocation. It's ALWAYS been the problem in such issues. Just because humans are animals does NOT mean animals have rights. By what logic is this extended? Shit, it isn't even clear that one has rights simply on the accord of being human - in fact of contested such in previous posts.
Does a dog have the right to vote? No.
Can a cow make a binding contract? No.
Can a squirrel be a landlord, regardless of the "rights" you grant it?
Could that squirrel run your town - be mayor?
Humans have rights, only because humans grant other humans rights, and we do so with certain expectations and caveates. Nothing decrees we are entilted to these rights, except contracts (be they business or constiutional or what not) we work out amoung ourselves. or have been worked out for us. But NO such contract can be entered into by a party who is incapable of understanding that contract or incapable of fulfilling it. That's just the way life is.
And it should be noted that even those contracts don't really entitle you to anything without reciprocation and a collective mentality willing to uphold such agreements.
Animals do not, can not, have rights. At least certainly NOT under the criteria you have presented.
I don't think this is a sufficient definition.
When you can rent me some time in Shamu's room at Sea World, and hace Shamu be the one to approve the deal, let me know.
No animal has rights. I don't think you've made any special distinctions in the handful of meat you've mentioned.
I don't feel any bad about any of that and I also have no problem with eating whales and sea otters and border collies.
I wasn't trying to be legal or mioral about it. The issue is beyond that.
I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server.
It means that animals can have rights, and some animals do have rights. That is all I intended to say. I'm sorry if it was costrued any other way. I didn't mean to say that all animals have rights.
Which is why I introduce an alternative way of defining it, which you had a rebuttal to and I'll address in due course.
Voting is not a right but a priviledge granted by the government. The same applies to free healthcare. It's not a right, it's a privilege. Of course a dog doesn't have that right, even humans do not have that right.
Cows don't pass the test I gave later on, I would fully agree with you that cows can't make contracts.
It would be a very exceptional squirrel that was both self-aware and able to respect others' ownership of property. Unless such an exceptional squirrel exists, of course not.
No. Not only because no squirrel I know has rights, but also because even if such a magical squirrel existed that was able to interact with humans as peers, it would be intrinsically criminal to perform the tasks involved in being a mayor, just as it is with humans.
No, rights are intrinsic in the nature of people and the world. Murray Rothbard's "The Ethics of Liberty" has more to say on this if you'd like a more professional explanation.
Not true. This presupposes a right to contract, which would ultimately be intrinsic, which just supports my assertion that rights are intrinsic.
In the same sense that pi has been "worked out" to a certain number of digits, yes. But rights are as intrinsic to people as pi is intrinsic to circles. Rights are not invented or designed, but discovered. The natural law of justice is not dissimilar to the natural laws of physics.
Agreed. And this was part of the definition I gave. An implication of being able to respect the property rights of others includes the right to contract, which is an extension of property rights.
Those contracts do entitle without a collective mentality willing to uphold such agreements, as what is right is totally distinct from what most people think (reality isn't governed by democracy), but I agree that without reciporication (which is a defining element of a contract) you have no contract and are entitled to nothing.
All animals, no, and I never meant to say they did. Some animals, certainly do, as demonstrated by the fact that humans are animals and have rights. That's why I provided additional criteria, to determine which animals do and do not have rights.
What's your specific problem with it? Do you mean it is too general? Not relevant? What?
I can't do that for a few reasons:
1. Assuming Shamu has rights, Shamu is a slave, and thus you would have to contract with Shamu's owner for time with Shamu. Although rightfully you should not have to, Seaworld doesn't recognize what it's doing as slavery. Shamu cannot approve the deal anymore than a prisoner can personally contract for a meeting with someone outside the cell for a meeting in the cell. For clarity, I'm not 100% certain that keeping orcas in captivity is slavery (I haven't run my test on any orcas nor do I have any testimony about orca activity which supports the idea that they do), I just assumed for the sake of argument that orcas have rights, which would make it slavery.
2. There are multiple orcas named Shamu, and all of them have different names among the training staff. Shamu in Sea World San Diego until recently (perhaps you heard about the attack on the trainer during a show) was an orca named Sumar, for instance. Shamu is a marketing name. You cannot contract with Shamu anymore than you can contract with Mickey Mouse.
3. None of the numerous Shamus speak the same language as us. This doesn't mean they don't have rights anymore than you would cease having rights if stranded in a country where nobody speaks english, it just means that something like you asked me to do would be very difficult.
1. Humans are animals.
2. Humans have rights.
3. Therefore some animals have rights.
To say no animal has rights is to deny as well that humans have rights. By any scientific definition of animal, humans are animals. Only by the arbitrary human exception of humanity from the word "animal" does that mean what I believe you intended it to mean, and that would be arbitrary.
Perhaps I should put it like this. Suppose an alien race lands on planet Earth and they can interact with humans as peers. They aren't hostile, they don't speak english ,and aren't human. Would you say that these beings have rights? If so, then the principle has been established that nonhuman animals can have rights, and the automatic exclusion of all nonhuman animals already on earth is arbitrary. Some different criteria of what determines whether an animal has rights or not, one which is not arbitrary, must be discovered which would include everything that has rights and exclude everything that does not. To the best of my ability to reason, the two biggest criteria which aren't presumed in the situtation (i.e. they exist, they do things, etc) are whether or not such a being is self-aware, as without self-awareness such a thing as making a contract binding upon oneself is impossible, and being able to respect the rights of other beings with rights, as if such a being is for whatever reason physically or mentally or in any other way for any other reason incapable of doing so and incapable of giving restitution to any being thus wronged, such a being is intrinsically criminal and violative of rights and should be destroyed in the interests of all beings which have rights.
What you were trying to do doesn't change what you did.
Agreed.
I think I'll need such an explanation. I don't see how humans have intrinsic rights. I think properties humans posess allow us to grant one another rights in the form of contract and mutual understanding. I don't think that humans possess rights by the mere fact that they are human - which is what intrinsic implies. A PERSON has rights, a human does not - at least not necessarily, and a PERSON only has rights based upon contracts and mutual understandings with those around him or her.
To say a human has such intrinsic rights implies that they come from somewhere. Considering where we are talking, I think it safe to assume you don't things such riights come from divinity. So where, exactly, do they come from?
No. I'm not sure you understand the term "intinsic". This implies that something by its very nature has some sort of property. IOW - humans, by the mere fact of being human, have rights - NOT SO. Look around you.
It should be clear to you, first and foremost, that there is a distinct difference between merely being human and being an actual person. A human is simply a member of the species homo sapien.
A PERSON is a human above such simple genetic or taxonomic classification. A PERSON is a human individual capable of understanding, possessing and reciprocating rights and duties.
Terry Schiavo before they pulled the plug was a human. You and I are PERSONS.
She was little more than meat. You and I are capable of possessing, understanding and reciprocating rights, contracts and privelidges.
I am willing to hear you out, simply tell me why humans have intrinsic rights and tell me what they are. You'd probably best define what a human or person is as well.
I think it would be great if we had intrinsic rights or ordained rights, but I simply do not see how this is the case. Would not such a thing be absolute? Would it not be universally understood?
OK, now I'm not sure where the disagreement lies. I'm hoping it is a semantic misunderstanding. Let me know.
Then we essentially agree.
OK, no, we were getting along so well there and now we're back at square one. Rights require the ability to reciprocate, you said so yourself and agreed on that point above. I know of NO animal capable of such, except in insignificant capacities. And again, whatever rights would be involved would be limited to the degree of understanding and reciprocation.
I understand why you do it. I simply think it misquided. Say a police dog sacrifices itself for her handler. We must understand that "sacrifice" is the WRONG word here.
The dog did not understand it would cease to exist upon the act. The dog did what it was trained to do. It sacrificed itself, because it got food rewards for exhibiting such behaviour in training. Not out of a sense of obligation. Not out of a sense of duty. It may as well have been a robot programed to do such in order to get charged up again.
And if the dog actually DID have rights, how could we ever justify putting it in harms way like that? The dog is an animal. Has no rights, as it is incapable of understanding the situation or the parameters involved.
What's your specific problem with it? Do you mean it is too general? Not relevant? What?
I think I've been fairly clear. We're talking apples and oranges.
I agree. If Shamu has rights, Shamu IS a slave. As are all police dogs, guard dogs, helper monkies, most pets, etc. Do you honestly think such is the case?
But Shamu does NOT have rights. Shamu is a fishy mammal in a tank.
And I assume no such thing. Why should I?
True, but irrelevent.
There is a distinct difference here. Whales, while intelligent for animals, are not human and have NEVER demostrated the same sential capacities as humans. When they do, IF they do, I'm happy to reconsider my position.
You know this is garbage logic, especially when I contest the second premise as you've presented it.
This is a composition fallacy.
You may as well have said:
1)Humans are made of cells
2)Cells are invisible to the naked eye
3)Some humans are invisible.
Not at all. I define the ability to have rights as part and parcle of the ability to understand what said rights entail and the ability to carry out the necessary responsibilities of reciprocation of such rights. You cannot possess a right you do not understand. I simply deny any animal other than a human has such an ability in anything other than a trivial capacity. Show me that I'm wrong on such an assessment and I'll gladly change my mind.
No shit. But again you are equivovating.
Oh, no, I'm being anything but arbitrary. Like I said, there are certain humans that do not have the rights you and I may enjoy. This is a direct result of their inability to understand and reciprocate such rights as you and I may enjoy.
Rights entail the ABILITY to UNDERSTAND them and the CAPACITY to RECIPROCATE them. If one cannot do that, they cannot have said right.
If they were capable of understanding and reciprocating mutual contracts, yes. Language has NEVER been a barrier to rights.
Animals can have rights, after they've satisfied the necessary criteria - understanding and reciprocation. Let me know when they can do that. They would also have to be subject to the same reprecussions you and I have.
If a monkey in the park takes my lunch, that monkey is getting prosecuted for theft.
Any such organism, human or otherwise, would not have the rights you and I do. Likely they'd have no rights at all.
I'm well aware of what I said.
I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server.