Animal rights

[C3PO]

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL256586320080625

I don't know if I'm just too old fashioned, but I find this slightly hypocritical and distasteful.
I see mainly two problems with this.
1: Doesn't rights come with responsibilities?
2: If you use DNA to determine what gets these rights, where do you set the boundary?

 

[GregBurch]

I think it's a harder moral and legal problem than you're giving it credit for. Consider that we recognize that humans with reduced mental and moral capacity have significant legal rights. For instance, small children and mentally handicapped people are considered to be fully "human" when it comes to most basic human legal rights in civilized societies. Yet, these individuals clearly have very reduced capacity to be held to the duties that are usually seen as accompanying the rights that they are recognized to have. How can you rationally distinguish the great apes from these cases?

Let me say that I actually consider this to be one of the "frontiers" of my own moral and political philosophy. I struggle with these questions constantly and don't claim to have sound answers "all the way down" to first principles.

 

[C3PO]

I can assure you that I'm not trivializing the moral or the legal implications. In both areas I think we'll end up in a mine field.
Can a human be convicted of murdering an ape? Or vice versa?
Is putting down a sick or injured ape euthanasia?
Or are we going to blur the distinction between mentally handicapped and apes? I hate to think about where that may lead.

I'm all for animal protection laws, but selecting a particular species and giving them (limited) 'human' rights is dangerous IMHO.
And it might look like that this is a 'soft target' because we in the western world would not consider apes a food source, but there are 3'rd world cultures that do.
What if you extend those rights to pigs and cattle? They share 90+ % of our DNA.

 

[GregBurch]

I know my thinking on this subject is pretty far from what most people would consider mainstream, but I start from questioning whether we're really clear about what our definition of "human" is.

These kinds of things end up bouncing around in my head:

If I lose one of my fingers in an accident, am I somewhat less human? How about a whole hand? How about both hands? How about both arms and both legs?

Most people would answer all of those questions with a resounding "no". Which begins the journey to where I have arrived in my moral and legal philosophy -- that a morally and legally rigorous definition of "human" can't be based on static physical, biological states. Ultimately, I conclude that it is process that we really mean when we talk about "humanity" in moral and legal terms, not some definable static physical characteristic such as a particular configuration of DNA.

But that opens up a whole can of worms ...

 

[Urwumpe]

I think all living beings should have the same level of respect. I don't want to go so far, that we need constitutional rights for mammals, but I think even a unconscious tree should have respect. Most problems we have in industrial farming come in my eyes from the fact, that we lost respect. Once, growing a cow until you can butcher it was a task which needed time and dedication. And if you didn't respect the cow, you risked the cow to be ill or have bad meat.

With growing industrialization the distance from the owner to the animal/plant grew - and the respect got lost. Who has to care for a single tree, when he owns millions of them?

That's why I think you can't let managers do respectful decisions themselves - they need laws to create pressure. But don't ask me, how far such a law has to go. I think something like the oath of Hippocrates for using natural resources would be already a good start, when this oath also comes with mechanism to punish people abusing it - like we have in the medicine.

Also, I don't think chimps or dolphins require special rights, only because they are more similar to us humans. Just respecting them to be chimps and dolphins would be a major step for mankind - currently we are still often in the "Regard them as tiny humans" phase.

And who cares about beavers, which are very good for their surrounding nature, but very bad for (badly planned) human settlements (as their understanding of hydrological engineering is opposite to the understanding of human idiots about it) - and just ask a civil engineer about the constructions of beavers. Most of them who know a lot about beavers have some sort of respect among colleagues for them. If we would learn from beavers, New Orleans would never have to fear flooding (OK, most of it would be flooded all the time, but the growth in new land would be immense...)

 

[Donamy]

How can you give rights, to something that can't understand, what that right means, it's just so we can feel good, not them.

 

[Jarvitä]

How can you give rights, to something that can't understand, what that right means, it's just so we can feel good, not them.

That's how Arabs and Europeans justified enslaving people from the African lands they've colonised.

Just because the animals can't grasp the concept of human rights doesn't mean they don't deserve to be treated with respect.

 

[Donamy]

I didn't say, they were to be treated without respect. I only said, what good does it do, to give something a right, if it can't appreciate that right. Slaves brought from Africa, did understand the difference. Do you ?

 

[Jarvitä]

I didn't say, they were to be treated without respect. I only said, what good does it do, to give something a right, if it can't appreciate that right. Slaves brought from Africa, did understand the difference. Do you ?

I do. However, as Urwumpe's already explained, not every single animal owner can be expected to treat his animals with respect, for the sake of it. That's why we need laws for that.

 

[Donamy]

I agree ! Laws, yes, rights, no.

 

[Andy44]

Well, in general, if you have to "give" a creature rights, as opposed to the creature being able to "claim" rights, then it's questionable as to whether that being has any inherent rights.

But I have the same problems Greg has; there are many humans who are not capable of understanding the concept of rights, and yet it would be considered very immoral to treat them like animals. Mentally retarded, small children, etc. Of course, this could be the starting point for an abortion debate, but I don't want to go there...

Although I can't nail down the firm limits to my philosophy and therefore have no firm basis for what I believe on this subject, I can say that I don't believe in rights for animals. At the same time, I also think it's immoral to be cruel to them.

For instance, I'm okay with slaughtering cattle for food and leather, and harvesting deer for sport and wildlife managment, so long as a an effort is made to avoid torturing the animals.

If you tried to nail me down on why I think this way, I would say that even though an animal has no rights, being cruel to it has a negative effect on humans due to the empathy we feel for creatures which are clearly aware and capable of feeling happiness and pain. It's demoralizing to us, basically. (At the risk of anthropmorphizing, I suppose.) Don't know if this makes sense, but there you have it.

After all, I have a pet, and I would react violently were I to see someone abusing my pet, and my reaction would be based on something substantially more than the fact the animal happens to be my property. I still don't think the animal has rights, per se.

 

[ijuin]

Animals should be protected from being killed or abused in most circumstances, with exceptions being made for self-defense and for food (hunting/livestock). Trying to put a blanket ban on meat-eating for the sake of the animals is a political non-starter among those who are not already inclined to be vegetarians. However, I do not see why livestock should be kept in appalling conditions (tight cages, poor food, poor hygiene) just because it is twenty percent cheaper than treating them decently till we kill them anyway.

On the other hand, placing the life of an animal co-equal with a human is a non-starter as well. Would many people truly believe that a human should die if it would save the life of an animal? A whole group of animals? A whole species of animals? And among those who would say "yes", which of them would be willing to have THEIR OWN life be the one to be sacrificed for the animals? For a common example, let's say that there's only enough food to feed either you OR your beloved gorilla (or whatever intelligent animal). One of you WILL die of starvation. Who would let themselves starve instead of letting the animal starve? For comparison, who would let themselves starve instead of letting a human friend starve?

Finally, one other animal rights issue that bugs me: the problem of animal testing of medical techniques, technology, and drugs. While it seems cruel to do it, and while it probably is used more than necessary, I can not see how it can be eliminated. Basically, I see four possibilities:

1: Use animals for medical testing.

2: Use humans for medical testing, which would probably result in a number of humans harmed by the new drugs if they turn out to have unpredicted toxic effects.

3: Release drugs without testing at all, which is even worse than human testing.

4: Give up on releasing any new drugs at all unless you can be 100% certain that they are safe WITHOUT having to do any human or animal testing--this would probably bring the creation of new drugs to a near-halt, since our ability to predict the effects of a drug with no testing is far from perfect.

So in short, if we are to keep creating new drugs, then we have to test them on something that is alive. If not animals, then humans. Who is going to volunteer to be a test subject, including waiving the right to sue if the drug turns out to be toxic, in order to protect the lab rats? If nobody, then we still need animal testing.

 

[Urwumpe]

For me, personally, hunting for sports is already criminal. How would we like it, if we would be hunting the hunters for fun? Runaway man? Hunting for food is a respectful way, as well as killing an animal in self-defense (which could also apply to mosquito).

But killing animals for sports is a bit disgusting, and wildlife management a two-bladed sword, after all it is we, who define what is best for the wildlife. Usually this is done in a very narrow-sighted way, assuming that humans have EVERY god-given right to turn the world into their habitat.

 

[Xantcha]

All this is about humans. Nearly everything in human society is about humans.
I see human rights as socially accepted stuff that helps protect things that I really care about. Of course, in return I have to give up lots of cool options (like killing random people in my spare time), but I think it's a nice bargain
According to this pov animal rights just don't really matter. It's nice when it protects your pets (or when it protects you from discomfort of witnessing corpses of tortured animals lying around). I just don't care about random animals any more than i care about random people.

My point is - animal rights only matter for people. People who feel offended when some animal got hurt. But this stuff is really really depends on traditions.
And unlike human rights those traditions are far from being very universal. Urwumpe thinks that hunting as entertainment is bad, some people don't eat meet, some despise furs, etc
Forcing universal animal rights is like forcing everyone to be become vegan
Human-animal distinction can be tricky as legal question. Some stupid laws (should they be created) can force you to fight in court and claim that you are indeed human.

 

[SlyCoopersButt]

You pretty much sum up how I feel Urwumpe. It really bothers me why people take amusement in the death of animals just because they are viewed to not be equal to people and are helpless to defend themselves against us. After all, Homo sapiens happens to be an animal himself. Just has more brains. That's the only difference. But if you shoot him you go to jail. Of course I agree that I would indeed defend myself from both homo sapiens and any other species if my life was in danger, That's just a fact of nature you can't get away from. It's called survival. And there's a fine line between survival and being heartless.

Now the fur industry, It makes my blood boil far far more than hunting for sport! I find it hypocritical that dogs and cats are spared from it yet anything else no one cares about just because they aren't as popular for people to keep as pets and aren't considered domestic. And there are some people who hold such frequently massacred animals as cherished as dogs and cats. I mean what the heck makes those animals any less important just because they have the label "Wild"? Dogs and cats were once wild! Few people really know what those poor animals have to go through like they were garbage.

And as for meat, I am fully convinced we are naturally meant to be vegetarian. I believe I have seen plenty of evidence that meat causes a lot of problems for the digestive tract as it is too hard to digest and takes a very long time to be removed from the system and to add a second blow to it, I've heard some research suggests that the burnt residue that you always get on it when cooked by fire/grill is a leading cause of intestinal cancer. Think about it, That stuff remains in the system very long. So there goes the american weekend tradition of firing up the grill I'm afraid. Even I had a hard time quiting as I was once a hardcore griller but I believe it'll be rewarding in the long run and science will likely prove it in the future.

 

[simonpro]

I enjoy killing wasps and bees when they invade my house, does that count?

Seriously, though, I can't really see the point in these laws. They're vaguely in the right spirit of keeping animals in good conditions, but I don't think that's the point of them. To me it seems like they've just been cooked up by some animal rights fanatic who wants to feel good about themselves, I doubt they'll have any real effect other than wasting taxpayer's money.

 

[Xantcha]

You pretty much sum up how I feel Urwumpe. It really bothers me why people take amusement in the death of animals just because they are viewed to not be equal to people and are helpless to defend themselves against us. After all, Homo sapiens happens to be an animal himself. Just has more brains. That's the only difference. But if you shoot him you go to jail. Of course I agree that I would indeed defend myself from both homo sapiens and any other species if my life was in danger, That's just a fact of nature you can't get away from. It's called survival. And there's a fine line between survival and being heartless.

Now the fur industry, It makes my blood boil far far more than hunting for sport! I find it hypocritical that dogs and cats are spared from it yet anything else no one cares about just because they aren't as popular for people to keep as pets and aren't considered domestic. And there are some people who hold such frequently massacred animals as cherished as dogs and cats. I mean what the heck makes those animals any less important just because they have the label "Wild"? Dogs and cats were once wild! Few people really know what those poor animals have to go through like they were garbage.

And as for meat, I am fully convinced we are naturally meant to be vegetarian. I believe I have seen plenty of evidence that meat causes a lot of problems for the digestive tract as it is too hard to digest and takes a very long time to be removed from the system and to add a second blow to it, I've heard some research suggests that the burnt residue that you always get on it when cooked by fire/grill is a leading cause of intestinal cancer. Think about it, That stuff remains in the system very long. So there goes the american weekend tradition of firing up the grill I'm afraid. Even I had a hard time quiting as I was once a hardcore griller but I believe it'll be rewarding in the long run and science will likely prove it in the future.

Looks like I'm really opposed to all this

I think difference between humans and other animals is simple (and important) - I am human and I live in human society.
So, humans naturally meant to eat grass and all the years that people were eating meet was some sort of horrible mistake? Oh well
But suppose you are right and people indeed are naturay meant to eat grass. So what? People are naturally meant to walk - does it mean that they had to be legaly disalowed to fly?

Also I don't buy this intestinal cancer stuff. I'm living in a traditional meet eating socium and no one I know who is living (or had lived) died of intestinal cancer. Of course it does not prove anything but is ienough to doubt in this meet desease theory.
And about the cancer cause - My father hovewer died of lungs cancer - so I'm familiar with those cancer cause talks. It's always the same - whenever someone dies of cancer it's his sins (stupid church denied him rights for rituals) or his habits (yet he was not smoker) or sins of his ancestors or may be the fact that he was not a vegetarian.
All this is nonsensical magical attitude. People are afraid of unknown so this make them comfortable to blame something and feel safe.

 

[Urwumpe]

I enjoy killing wasps and bees when they invade my house, does that count?

How ineffective. Unless they start building a hive in my house, I just catch them alive and throw them out the door. After all, wasps kill mosquitoes and bees make honey...

And the wasps here can get quite large... we have a hornet nest about 50m away from my house (But you can pass the nest safely in about 1m distance if you don't panic)

 

[simonpro]

Generally the wasps start trying to get into my house around dinnertime, which is when I am most likely to have a beer in hand. I'm authorised (by myself) to use anything up to nuclear bombs to defend my beer.
That said, drunk wasps are funny. Had one a few weeks ago that spent ages milling around in an almost empty wine glass. It couldn't fly for an hour or two.

 

[GregBurch]

Interesting discussion. The fact that I'm sympathetic to almost all the thoughts expressed here indicates to me on a personal level how difficult the issues are. Another personal note: I married Ellie May -- older Americans will know the reference. So our home is FULL of non-human animals, some of them quite unusual. When we designed and built our "dream house," a good deal of it was dictated by the needs of the animals with whom we share our lives. On the other hand, I'm a hunter (and yes, we eat what I kill), and my wife is fully supportive of this. Go figure.

A couple of substantive points. Andy's comment about basic legal and moral "rights" not being something that are "given" is a point with which I am in whole-hearted agreement. Few uses of language set me off more than talking about "granting" basic rights. But much of the problem in discussions of such basic moral and legal issues arises from sloppy and unreflective use of language. Trying to get people to stop and back away from arguing about particular issues to turn instead to consideration of the real meanings behind the vocabulary they use is a tough job, though. My initial comments in this thread were aimed at this difficult endeavor of focusing on first principles through questioning the vocabulary.

Second, for those who would deny that recognizing legal rights in some more advanced animals (and yes, there's a qualitative difference between a gorilla and a wasp) has any merit at all, I return to my question about severely mentally handicapped people. How do you distinguish the case of the human with an IQ of 40 and a gorilla or a chimp with a similar IQ? I'm genuinely curious to see answers to this question.