Cain
Straussian
A vegetarian friend and I were talking, and we agreed that while most Americans probably scoff at the idea of "animal rights," even while they probably tacitly endorse rights for non-humans on some basic level. I'm sure the same holds true for most of the rest of the world as well. People are confused, not surprisingly.
Animal cruelty laws enjoy wide support from the public. In California, a bellwether state, we have an upcoming proposition on factory farming (the "yes" vote is currently leading by a wide margin, though that will in all likelihood narrow). Most people favor laws prohibiting the outright torture of animals, although I'm sure many Republicans might want to include provisions for unusual circumstances -- you know, in cases where there's collaboration with terrorists or something.
The fear against a moral slippery slope is not totally unjustified because once you accept the premise that non-humans are morally significant, worthy of serious consideration, then we are naturally restricting what we can do to them and for what reason(s). Fundamentally there are two arguments for outlawing the torture of animals, the non-rights view and the pro-rights view (respectively, the "dumb view" and the "decent view").
The non-rights position approaches a ban on animal cruelty/torture by indirectly addressing the suffering, which we are told is not bad in itself, but harmful in that it coarsens our more enlightened sensibilities. I believe Kant took the view that an insensitivity to animal pain could lead to indifference to human suffering. What's interesting here is that this is the view more frequently taken up by people of a more conservative persuasion, and it's not unlike banning flag-burning or pornography. And there's the rub. Even our conservative and "libertarian" friends on this board are largely unsympathetic to regulating things because they offend people, so if they accept this position then there is a bullet to bite.
If animals are basically reduced to private property, then the government should not be allowed to regulate life-style decisions involving them anymore than it should be allowed to dictate how you use your Qu'ran. If I use my Qu'ran to prop up a coffee table, then so be it. Reports of neglecting a pet and desecrating the Bible could therefore assume similar status. However, if we are free to dispose of our private property as we please, then the state violates our rights when it dictates legitimate use (barring aggression against others, e.g., I cannot assault you with hard bound edition of the ol' King James). If we agree animals do not have rights (demand moral attention), then it should be OK to legally torture them. How dare the state rob you of your dignity when it claims you can only legitimately derive pleasure by eating an animal. Similarly, how I decide to use my Bible is up to me.
I use the language of "rights" reluctantly, but just to be clear, we are talking about moral trumps. I realize some sophisticates will insist rights are a social construct, and we only have the rights a society creates, so blah blah blah blah blah, five pages later, they admit that green-eyed people could be enslaved and assume the same status as Cooler Ranch Doritos. I suppose there are also some utilitarians who could also make peculiar arguments that I refuse to pre-empt.
The decent view merely asks us to consider the interests of animals, which most people do anyway. The problem is they are unwilling to give animals much consideration when it interferes with a good meal. A meat eating friend once said that if someone treated his cat like animals in factory farm conditions, then there would be hell to pay. Yet self-described "animal lovers" pamper their cats and dogs to a comical extent while blissfully dining on murder.
Animal cruelty laws enjoy wide support from the public. In California, a bellwether state, we have an upcoming proposition on factory farming (the "yes" vote is currently leading by a wide margin, though that will in all likelihood narrow). Most people favor laws prohibiting the outright torture of animals, although I'm sure many Republicans might want to include provisions for unusual circumstances -- you know, in cases where there's collaboration with terrorists or something.
The fear against a moral slippery slope is not totally unjustified because once you accept the premise that non-humans are morally significant, worthy of serious consideration, then we are naturally restricting what we can do to them and for what reason(s). Fundamentally there are two arguments for outlawing the torture of animals, the non-rights view and the pro-rights view (respectively, the "dumb view" and the "decent view").
The non-rights position approaches a ban on animal cruelty/torture by indirectly addressing the suffering, which we are told is not bad in itself, but harmful in that it coarsens our more enlightened sensibilities. I believe Kant took the view that an insensitivity to animal pain could lead to indifference to human suffering. What's interesting here is that this is the view more frequently taken up by people of a more conservative persuasion, and it's not unlike banning flag-burning or pornography. And there's the rub. Even our conservative and "libertarian" friends on this board are largely unsympathetic to regulating things because they offend people, so if they accept this position then there is a bullet to bite.
If animals are basically reduced to private property, then the government should not be allowed to regulate life-style decisions involving them anymore than it should be allowed to dictate how you use your Qu'ran. If I use my Qu'ran to prop up a coffee table, then so be it. Reports of neglecting a pet and desecrating the Bible could therefore assume similar status. However, if we are free to dispose of our private property as we please, then the state violates our rights when it dictates legitimate use (barring aggression against others, e.g., I cannot assault you with hard bound edition of the ol' King James). If we agree animals do not have rights (demand moral attention), then it should be OK to legally torture them. How dare the state rob you of your dignity when it claims you can only legitimately derive pleasure by eating an animal. Similarly, how I decide to use my Bible is up to me.
I use the language of "rights" reluctantly, but just to be clear, we are talking about moral trumps. I realize some sophisticates will insist rights are a social construct, and we only have the rights a society creates, so blah blah blah blah blah, five pages later, they admit that green-eyed people could be enslaved and assume the same status as Cooler Ranch Doritos. I suppose there are also some utilitarians who could also make peculiar arguments that I refuse to pre-empt.
The decent view merely asks us to consider the interests of animals, which most people do anyway. The problem is they are unwilling to give animals much consideration when it interferes with a good meal. A meat eating friend once said that if someone treated his cat like animals in factory farm conditions, then there would be hell to pay. Yet self-described "animal lovers" pamper their cats and dogs to a comical extent while blissfully dining on murder.
