Another animal rights topic

[Graham]

This might be a philosophy topic rather than current events or politics but this is where the debate on this subject has been the past while.

So, why not animal rights?

How about this for an idea - the notion of rights are ultimately descended from selfishness and self-interest. "Do unto other as you would have others do unto you" etc.

We "allow" rights to our fellow human beings because we would prefer to be allowed such rights ourselves.

Historically, rights were usually restricted to a varying selection of privileged classes defined by social standing, sex, race, etc, with varying levels of rights allowed to the lesser classes like peasants, women and black people.

As society continued to advance we had the suffragette movement and women’s lib, the civil rights movement and the end of institutionalised racism (in theory anyway) and the near complete dissolution of the formal class system through, well, common sense really.

The circle of those worthy of rights has expanded and continues to expand. Handicapped people, for instance, continue to fight for equal opportunities and privileges. Homosexual people (or activists working on their behalf) struggle with a different set of irrational prejudices and superstitious nonsense.

Animal rights activists would have us expand the circle further. Depending on their own particular preferences, they would have us include domesticated animals, cute animals or all animals. The most extreme, I do suppose, would advocate equal rights for dragonflies.

Now, there are always opponent to any “rights” movement. They will ask “Why?” – “Why should we give civil rights to black people?” “Why should we provide facilities for handicapped people in the workplace?” “Why should gay people be allowed to get married?” and so on and on and on.

There are answers to all those questions, of course, some of them very good and persuasive answers. There is also a second set of questions to be asked, however, and asking those questions can often be far more revealing than the first.

“Why not”

“Why not give civil rights to black people?” “Because we don’t them getting uppity and thinking they’re as good as us”

“Why not provide better facilities for handicapped people in the workplace?” “Because it’s expensive and difficult”

“Why not allow gay people to get married?” “Because it makes us uncomfortable”

The funny part is, you can swop the answers around from question to question and it makes no difference. Basically they all come down to three things – ignorance, laziness and blind resistance to change.

I don’t think we need to consider whether any of those three things makes a good foundation for a decision – ethical, moral or otherwise.

So, for anyone who’s managed to stay awake so far, now we come back to animal rights. Why should animals have rights (staying with just “rights” for the moment, rather than “equal rights”)?

Well, why not? I challenge you to find and answer that doesn’t stem from ignorance, laziness, blind resistance to change or some combination of the three.

Once you’ve applied that reasoning to your dog, apply it to your cat, your hamster, your pet spider, your ant farm, an earthworm and so on down the line. Why not allow rights to everything?

The lower I get on the pecking order, the harder I find it to answer the “Why?” questions and the “Why not?” questions. I’m thinking though that the default position should be “Rights” rather than “Not Rights”

So anyway, that’s been my reasoning over the last little while. It’s obviously incomplete but while I’m not a hemp-wearing, dope-smoking, Buddha-not-stepping-on-ants worshipping animal rights fanatic just yet but I guess I’m getting there.

Comments anyone? You at the back stop snoring!

Graham

 

[BillyTK]

My take on the matter: fundamental principle (kind of tautological I admit); we should/have rights because we can conceive of those rights (this commits the fallacy of stating the bloody obvious, in that if we couldn't conceive of rights, we wouldn't be having this conversation). Next, we can/should have rights not simply because of the Golden Rule of "Do unto others..." (colleagues may wish to consider the consequences of how literally a masochist might choose to interpret that rule), but in terms of the self-interest which benefits from mutual dependence; no (person) is an island and all that.

My cats don't have rights (not being cognitively capable enough to manage such rights) but have protections which I am obliged to respect as a result of the duty of care I undertook when I agreed to look after them. This status prevents me from intentionally causing harm to other cats in the neighbourhood, other than the minimum necessary to protect my cats and my property (and occasionally to ensure the safety of these other cats).

Slugs which eat my plants get no such protections.

Great topic by the way

 

[zenith-nadir]

Because animals cannot do anything with those rights. They are incapable of conceiving the concept of a right, nor can humans communicate to them what thier rights may be. Maybe animals do not want certain rights, for instance maybe humans are not the best judge to decide what a dog or cat wants as a right. There are many reasons.

Human: "Here Mr. Cat, since you live in the states you now have the 'right' to bear arms, here is your free gun".

Mr. Cat: "Meow?"

 

[Some Friggin Guy]

An excellent response, Billy. Now, I'm going to turn some odd questions your way:

How can you be sure your cat or your plants cannot conceive (cognatively) of rights? Have you asked them? I submit the possibility that they both may be aware of rights, just not rights as you or I understand them. (I will admit to SEVERELY stretching the concept here, so don't shout me down as a woo-woo. I do not necessarily believe my points, merely bringing up the possibility.)

For example: your cat would know that it has the right to, say, walk, as long as it is physically capable of it. If you don't believe this, try carrying a cat (or any animal, for that matter) who REALLY doesn't want to be held.

If we view things in this manner, animals (Okay, I haven't come up with a good example for plants, but I'm sure there probably is one, somewhere.) do have rights, simply on a different level.

All this being said, I don't think my dog, as much as I love him and believe he had rights, should be allowed to vote. Mainly because I think he may be a Republican.

 

[Graham]

My take on the matter: fundamental principle (kind of tautological I admit); we should/have rights because we can conceive of those rights (this commits the fallacy of stating the bloody obvious, in that if we couldn't conceive of rights, we wouldn't be having this conversation). Next, we can/should have rights not simply because of the Golden Rule of "Do unto others..." (colleagues may wish to consider the consequences of how literally a masochist might choose to interpret that rule), but in terms of the self-interest which benefits from mutual dependence; no (person) is an island and all that.

My cats don't have rights (not being cognitively capable enough to manage such rights) but have protections which I am obliged to respect as a result of the duty of care I undertook when I agreed to look after them. This status prevents me from intentionally causing harm to other cats in the neighbourhood, other than the minimum necessary to protect my cats and my property (and occasionally to ensure the safety of these other cats).

Slugs which eat my plants get no such protections.

Great topic by the way

Thanks - I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

So, your cats don't have rights but have "protections" you are obliged to respect.

I put it to you that a "right" is nothing more than exactly that "a protection (or privilage) others are obliged to respect".

Obliged in the moral imperative sense, I guess, rather than the legal or forced sense.

Graham

 

[Graham]

Because animals cannot do anything with those rights. They are incapable of conceiving the concept of a right, nor can humans communicate to them what thier rights may be. Maybe animals do not want certain rights, for instance maybe humans are not the best judge to decide what a dog or cat wants as a right. There are many reasons.

Human: "Here Mr. Cat, since you live in the states you now have the 'right' to bear arms, here is your free gun".

Mr. Cat: "Meow?"

The right to bear arms is, IMO, a different sort of right to basic "human" rights. I suppose that's debatable but it's not really an essential need in that you can at least imagine a world where people could manage perfectly well without guns.

Second, obviously having a right to something that you can't or won't use is pointless for you - gay people, for instance, have the right to marry people of the opposite sex. That doesn't necessarily reduce the value of that right to those who can and will make use of it though.

Finally, and to get to the most important point I think, any animal given basic rights (the freedom to live without torture and to have enough food to eat, etc) can and will make use of those rights.

To say that they won't is ridiculous - no animla will turn its nose up at food or volunteer for vivesection.

Do they know they are being given rights and know that they are using them? That's a different question.

Graham

 

[BillyTK]

An excellent response, Billy.

Thank you... um... what do I call you, exactly? "Friggin" for short?

Now, I'm going to turn some odd questions your way:

How can you be sure your cat or your plants cannot conceive (cognatively) of rights? Have you asked them? I submit the possibility that they both may be aware of rights, just not rights as you or I understand them. (I will admit to SEVERELY stretching the concept here, so don't shout me down as a woo-woo. I do not necessarily believe my points, merely bringing up the possibility.)

I'm satisfied that the physiology of plants is such that, if they had the capacity for awareness and thought, then the content would be completely alien to us that there would be no common concepts of what rights are or should be. They would probably see us as walking fertiliser.

For example: your cat would know that it has the right to, say, walk, as long as it is physically capable of it. If you don't believe this, try carrying a cat (or any animal, for that matter) who REALLY doesn't want to be held.

If we view things in this manner, animals (Okay, I haven't come up with a good example for plants, but I'm sure there probably is one, somewhere.) do have rights, simply on a different level.

From observing my cats, I would conclude that they believe they have rights (in terms of committing certain actions with impunity) particularly with reference to going upstairs, sleeping on our bed and sitting on my newspaper whilst I'm reading it. Unfortunately they haven't quite cracked the work-money-food relationship.

All this being said, I don't think my dog, as much as I love him and believe he had rights, should be allowed to vote. Mainly because I think he may be a Republican.

My cats are definitely Libertarians; no doubts about it!

 

[Some Friggin Guy]

Thank you... um... what do I call you, exactly? "Friggin" for short?

For the record, I'm most often refered to as Frig, Friggy, SFG, or Binky. (Binky, being part of the title Binky, The Dark Lord, which refers to one of the names I use while broadcasting my radio show.)

 

[BillyTK]

Thanks - I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

So, your cats don't have rights but have "protections" you are obliged to respect.

I put it to you that a "right" is nothing more than exactly that "a protection (or privilage) others are obliged to respect".

Obliged in the moral imperative sense, I guess, rather than the legal or forced sense.

Graham

You're right, but it would be more accurate to term what you describe as a negative right–as Cain says here, "Negative rights impose positive obligations"*—but the fundamental difference between rights and protections is that of consent. For example, as an adult I am (theoretically) mature enough to make decisions for myself, to agree to do things or have things done to me. On the other hand, children are recognised as being insufficiently cognitively (and therefore morally) developed to give consent, and therefore require someone who is mature enough to make such decisions for them.

*Although some might argue that such an obligation constitutes a trespass and therefore cannot be a right, but I find that contradictory, in that it supposes only positive rights, but with no means of ensuring such rights.

 

[BillyTK]

For the record, I'm most often refered to as Frig, Friggy, SFG, or Binky. (Binky, being part of the title Binky, The Dark Lord, which refers to one of the names I use while broadcasting my radio show.)

"Hellblazer" it is then!

Binky, The Dark Lord... I love it!

 

[Cain]

Good post, Graham.

Because animals cannot do anything with those rights. They are incapable of conceiving the concept of a right, nor can humans communicate to them what thier rights may be.

A basic right against murder (conscious interference) allows animals to -- pardon the phrasing -- live their lives. We're not allowed to go around killing 'neer-do-wells. Also, all infants, even some adults, are incapable of understanding the concept of rights. This means relatively nothing when it comes to basic protections (life).

Maybe animals do not want certain rights, for instance maybe humans are not the best judge to decide what a dog or cat wants as a right. There are many reasons.

Human: "Here Mr. Cat, since you live in the states you now have the 'right' to bear arms, here is your free gun".

Mr. Cat: "Meow?"

I can't say how many times I hear people ask, "What, you want dogs to have the right to vote?"

Felines with firearms is a new one. Well, of course cats will not have the right to own guns because they have no interest in owning guns (yes, the concept is positively alien to them). Cats do, however, have an interest living, an interest in avoiding pain and suffering. Are sadists allowed to torture cats because they have no concept of torture? ("they" refers to the cats, I think).

Whenever someone says animal X cannot do or imagine Y I replace that animal with a human infant and consider the implications. If they say an infant will *eventually* grow into a toddler, and then a child, and (hopefully) an adult, I tell them they're using a double-edged sword that cuts both ways. Highly similar retroactive arguments can be made on behalf of a fetus or an embryo (and pro-lifers make them all the time).

Michael Shermer (a favorite here) has an interesting discussion of animal rights and the expanding circle in his recent book _The Science of Good and Evil_. He first urges that we consider the rights of higher mammals (apes especially) and then take matters from there.

 

[zenith-nadir]

What I am saying is giving animals rights is imposing human concepts and needs on animals who a) may not agree with the human need or right, we'll never know...and b) cannot conceptualize that right. I also believe that if animals have rights who's gonna defend that right? Another animal? A human? How will that human communicate to the animal the legalities of it's position or rights? Are animals going to go to court now to defend their rights?

Perhaps instead of animal rights we should be talking about human laws regarding the treatment of animals, rather than the rights of animals.

 

[Some Friggin Guy]

How will that human communicate to the animal the legalities of it's position or rights? Are animals going to go to court now to defend their rights?

(With tongue planted firmly in cheek...)


I submit to you that with this (or something similar for other species) animals could have equal representation under the law.

 

[Graham]

You're right, but it would be more accurate to term what you describe as a negative right–as Cain says here, "Negative rights impose positive obligations"*—but the fundamental difference between rights and protections is that of consent. For example, as an adult I am (theoretically) mature enough to make decisions for myself, to agree to do things or have things done to me. On the other hand, children are recognised as being insufficiently cognitively (and therefore morally) developed to give consent, and therefore require someone who is mature enough to make such decisions for them.

I'm not sure I uderstood that. Can you explain why you call them "negative rights" please?

While I accept, as I said above, that inappropriate rights are useless, I am not convinced that rights a creature benefits from but is unaware of are equally so.

Moving away from children and animals, if we were to introduce a person from a hypothetical completely uncivilised, violent and nasty society (Texas maybe? ) , he might be unaware that he has the right to live free from torture even though he is a fully equipped and capable moral agent.

I think we would still grant him that right though.

Graham

 

[Graham]

What I am saying is giving animals rights is imposing human concepts and needs on animals who a) may not agree with the human need or right, we'll never know...and b) cannot conceptualize that right. I also believe that if animals have rights who's gonna defend that right? Another animal? A human? How will that human communicate to the animal the legalities of it's position or rights? Are animals going to go to court now to defend their rights?

Perhaps instead of animal rights we should be talking about human laws regarding the treatment of animals, rather than the rights of animals.

How can we make laws requiring people to respect the rights of animals until we decide what those rights are?

As regards not knowing whether animals want rights or not, I would answer that we cannot know either way and should therefore choose the most likely option based on our own assessment and feelings.

Graham

 

[Rob Lister]

How can we make laws requiring people to respect the rights of animals until we decide what those rights are?

That's the crux of the matter. I can't think of a right that a human possesses that an animal does not. Which is to say, all creatures possess the same rights, or more specifically, a single right: the right to assert their will. All other rights are imaginary. They are, as another poster somewhat suggested, not rights at all but privaliges and protections that we have come to call rights. (they stem from the collective assertion of will)

So, should animals have all or some of the protections humans have? They already have some, as yet another poster suggested, but certainly not to the extent that humans do. But should they?

We can grant them whatever rights we want but that doesn't make it advantageous (for the grantors) except to say that it might make us 'feel' better, which most would consider an advantage in some circumstances. What is the advantage in using the law to provide rights to creatures that cannot be held accountable to that law other than to make us 'feel' better? In that case, the child/fetus argument holds. While a child/fetus cannot be held accountable to the law, we grant them rights/withhold their rights based on subjective and somewhat inconsistant criteria that corrosponds roughly to advantage.

Other nations/cultures are more/less accommodating.

 

[BillyTK]

I'm not sure I uderstood that. Can you explain why you call them "negative rights" please?

Very simply, a positive right = right to do something; a negative right = right not to have people do stuff to you, or stop you from doing something. For instance, property ownership involves a positive right, the right to use and dispose of your property as you so wish, and a negative right which places an obligation on others not to interfere with how you use and dispose of your property, by requiring, for instance, others to refrain from taking your property off you.

While I accept, as I said above, that inappropriate rights are useless, I am not convinced that rights a creature benefits from but is unaware of are equally so.

Moving away from children and animals, if we were to introduce a person from a hypothetical completely uncivilised, violent and nasty society (Texas maybe? ) , he might be unaware that he has the right to live free from torture even though he is a fully equipped and capable moral agent.

I think we would still grant him that right though.

Graham

I probably haven't satisfactorily explained the difference between rights and protections. Protections are like rights, but the difference is that a person who has protections (a moral patient) is not a fully equipped and capable moral agent; they have minimal ability to give consent for their actions or for any actions others might commit against them. So for instance, in the case of your hypothetical Texan, we might argue that he is accorded moral patient status, and protected accordingly, until he learns that he does have the right to live free of torture, and also learns that the practises of his society are unacceptable in our society. this may take a while.

 

[Graham]

Very simply, a positive right = right to do something; a negative right = right not to have people do stuff to you, or stop you from doing something. For instance, property ownership involves a positive right, the right to use and dispose of your property as you so wish, and a negative right which places an obligation on others not to interfere with how you use and dispose of your property, by requiring, for instance, others to refrain from taking your property off you.

Thanks.

I probably haven't satisfactorily explained the difference between rights and protections. Protections are like rights, but the difference is that a person who has protections (a moral patient) is not a fully equipped and capable moral agent; they have minimal ability to give consent for their actions or for any actions others might commit against them. So for instance, in the case of your hypothetical Texan, we might argue that he is accorded moral patient status, and protected accordingly, until he learns that he does have the right to live free of torture, and also learns that the practises of his society are unacceptable in our society. this may take a while.

OK, now I understand what you're saying I just don't full understand the why of it.

Why distinguish between rights and protections - what is the purpose of this distinction?

Do "protections" automatically involve a lesser degree of obligation than rights (ie if a person is a moral patient rather than a moral agent, are they entitled to less consideration)?

Or are the privilages imparted by rights and protections are the same and it's only the subject that's different?

Graham

 

[Tmy]

WE EAT ANIMALS!!!!! They cant have many rights if we eat them.

They have some basic protections, like cruelty protections.

But dont kid yourself Jimmy, that cow would eat you and your whole family if given the chance. (in my best Troy McClure voice)

 

[Graham]

WE EAT ANIMALS!!!!! They cant have many rights if we eat them.

They have some basic protections, like cruelty protections.

But dont kid yourself Jimmy, that cow would eat you and your whole family if given the chance. (in my best Troy McClure voice)

I'm not sure if this is a serious comment from you or what but, assuming that it is, do you agree that animals should have protections as you describe them?

If so, why do you think they are entitled to these protections?

On what basis do you limit those protections (so that they don't include protection from being eaten, for instance)?

Graham