Animal rights

[Ghostrider]

My 2*10^-100 cents on the subject is: rights = duties. Animals do not have responabilities, and have no rights. Humans, on the other hand, have both. Treating animals well is one of those responsabilities.

 

[GregBurch]

My 2*10^-100 cents on the subject is: rights = duties. Animals do not have responabilities, and have no rights. Humans, on the other hand, have both. Treating animals well is one of those responsabilities.

This is certainly a defensible position. But you would be willing to say that a severely mentally handicapped human has no rights because he is incapable of recognizing or carrying out his duties?

 

[Urwumpe]

Rights and duties are not always balanced. Kids for example have far more rights, as you can expect duties from them. And a dog, which just lays in front of the fireplace for comforting the owners, has still no less rights IMHO, as an avalanche rescue dog.

After all, how do you define a useful duty for an animal? Cats are a great example - you can't teach them to do any desired duties, but you can be sure that cats have an understanding themselves what they can do to please you... who never woke up to see a dead mouse in front of his bed and a proud cat sitting behind it, does not know what it is like to own a real cat.

So, IMHO, the main goal for any animal rights should not be based on a human concept of usefulness. I think many US citizens have any reason to hate termites, but without the possibility to study them, we would most likely never learned as much about how to build energy efficient skyscrapers as we did from them.

So, I think, there should be some initial credit in granting animals rights. Of course, this would remove freedom from us humans to ignore animals in our expansion. But so far, what had ignoring nature ever brought us, except catastrophic events, because of our hubris and lack of knowledge?

 

[Xantcha]

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.

Is IQ that important? Someone born from human had a high chance being a human no matter the IQ There can be complicated issues, but IQ just does not really matter. Besides, In most cases it is easy to distinguish beetween human and chimp. If someone will look like human and act like human I would call it a human (even if it's chimp).

Will you feel the same when a chimp with IQ 40 kills human with IQ 40 the same as when opposite happens?

 

[Ghostrider]

This is certainly a defensible position. But you would be willing to say that a severely mentally handicapped human has no rights because he is incapable of recognizing or carrying out his duties?

Good point here. We could say that a human, no matter how handicapped, still could have the potential to recognize and carry out his duties. Anyway, a person who could not recognize his duties would not be in any position to exercise his rights either - sadly. So it falls to other humans to respect and care for him.

 

[GregBurch]

Is IQ that important?*Someone*born*from*human*had*a*high*chance*being*a*human*no matter the IQ There can be complicated issues, but IQ just does not really matter. Besides, In most cases it is easy to distinguish beetween human and chimp. If someone will look like human and act like human I would call*it*a*human*(even*if*it's*chimp).*
*
Will you feel the same when a chimp with IQ 40 kills human with IQ 40 the same as when*opposite*happens?

Xantcha -- I'd love to respond to you, but whatever has been causing problems with your postings make them very hard to read. Do you have any idea what's causing that? I wonder if you're seeing the way your posts appear on the forum -- as far as I've seen, yours are the only ones that get distorted this way.

At any rate, I THINK I can read your point. The reason I refer to "IQ" (itself a problematic concept) is that I'm using it as a proxy for the matter raised by many in this discussion that rights and obligations should be paired, an idea with which I am very sympathetic. Proponents of this view seem to think that the moral capacity of the subject should be the foundation upon which "rights" are premised.

 

[Xantcha]

Rights and duties are not always balanced. Kids for example have far more rights, as you can expect duties from them. And a dog, which just lays in front of the fireplace for comforting the owners, has still no less rights IMHO, as an avalanche rescue dog.

After all, how do you define a useful duty for an animal? Cats are a great example - you can't teach them to do any desired duties, but you can be sure that cats have an understanding themselves what they can do to please you... who never woke up to see a dead mouse in front of his bed and a proud cat sitting behind it, does not know what it is like to own a real cat.

So, IMHO, the main goal for any animal rights should not be based on a human concept of usefulness. I think many US citizens have any reason to hate termites, but without the possibility to study them, we would most likely never learned as much about how to build energy efficient skyscrapers as we did from them.

So, I think, there should be some initial credit in granting animals rights. Of course, this would remove freedom from us humans to ignore animals in our expansion. But so far, what had ignoring nature ever brought us, except catastrophic events, because of our hubris and lack of knowledge?

You don't have to give legal rights to animals in order to 'not ignore the nature'. It's weird reason.
Suppose we have an ecological catastrophe going on where one imported external species are threatening to exterminate other. Would it make sense to grant special rights to native species in order to protect local ecosphere?

And the moral reasons for giving rights.. It's just about laws. laws that work only inside human society. Nonhuman animals are outsiders no matter what. You need humans to grant someone a right and you need humans to make someone abide laws.

Besides I really hate laws (not as much as politics, though). Yeah, its necessary evil but its evil nonethless. And forcing this evil on animals is very, very amoral thing

2GregBurch(and everyone else): sorry for distorted posts. I'll try to stick with IE untill I resolve my provlem with browser

 

[GregBurch]

You don't have to give legal rights to animals in order to 'not ignore the nature'. It's weird reason.
Suppose we have an ecological catastrophe going on where one imported external species are threatening to exterminate other. Would it make sence to grant special rights to native species in order to protect local exosphere?

That's a good point, and one that illustrates the problematic nature of our conception of "nature" in moral and legal terms: Your hypothetical about "native" vs. "imported" animals goes to the core of a problem with which I have been fascinated for a couple of decades: Should we place some moral value on "nature" per se, such that we (as humans ) should feel a moral obligation to protect the "natural" state of the world versus the way it becomes when altered by human activity?

Much of the political rhetoric of the left/green alliance is premised on an unquestioned placement of great moral value on "nature" -- but without a very reflective consideration of what is meant by "nature," and what the implications for placing such a great moral value on "nature" (however it is conceived) may be.

I'm fascinated by the fact that you have so quickly moved to this point, since I have concluded that the two issues -- "animal rights" and the moral aspects of our conception of "nature" -- are closely connected.

And the moral reasons for giving rights.. It's just about laws. laws that work only inside human society. Nonhuman animals are outsiders no matter what. You need humans to grant someone a right and you need humans to make someone abide laws.

So, you see "rights" as something that are a complete human invention, and one that can only be said to exist as a practical function of human social and political activity? In that case, would you say that it is impossible to make moral judgments across cultural lines, i.e. if "human rights" are simply a construct of society, then there's no way to decide that one society's definition of "rights" is somehow more correct or morally better than another? If so, this is a common "post-modern" view, but one with which I disagree.

Besides I really hate laws (not as much as politics, though). Yeah, its necessary evil but its evil nonethless. And forcing this evil on animals is very, very amoral thing

Fascinating -- politics is OK, but laws are a necessary evil? Oh the fertile ground such an opinion opens up!

2GregBurch(and everyone else): sorry for distorted posts. I'll try to stick with IE untill I resolve my provlem with browser

Whatever you've done fixed the problem not only with this post, but the previous ones, also -- interesting!

 

[Urwumpe]

Suppose we have an ecological catastrophe going on where one imported external species are threatening to exterminate other. Would it make sense to grant special rights to native species in order to protect local ecosphere?

Like currently with the gray squirrel in Scotland? Or do you mean more the Rhea bird in Northern Germany?

I think we have often just not understood, what is going on. The Rhea for example is no problem for the German ecosystem so far, as it merges well into the agricultural regions. And the gray squirrel on the other hand displaces the native species, because it is far better adapted to the Scottish ecosystem. But only because nature favors both immigrant species, so why should we protect the ecosystem against them?

 

[Xantcha]

Like currently with the gray squirrel in Scotland? Or do you mean more the Rhea bird in Northern Germany?

I think we have often just not understood, what is going on. The Rhea for example is no problem for the German ecosystem so far, as it merges well into the agricultural regions. And the gray squirrel on the other hand displaces the native species, because it is far better adapted to the Scottish ecosystem. But only because nature favors both immigrant species, so why should we protect the ecosystem against them?

Because their rights are violated?
And no, I had no special situation in mind - Just to show that situations can be different and it is already a tough choice to make judgment on them, even without extended animal rights thing.

Speaking of which - should zoos (or pet owning) be considered slavery then? Or should freeing animal from zoo be considered 'leaving in danger'?

Also - how about animals have private property? I mean, most of animals have this concept anyway

2 GregBurch: That was probably a bad composition of words on my side :-(. I was trying to tell that while I hate politics even more than laws, laws are evil anyway.

And yes, rights (in my pov) are just social constructs. But why do you think that it is difficult for me to make moral judgments among cultural lines? In fact it requires some effort not to make moral judgments

 

[Urwumpe]

Also - how about animals have private property? I mean, most of animals have this concept anyway

Just like children - children can not have private property protected by contracts, as they are not capable of signing legal contracts. But their parents can. And so, for animals, their owners should be responsible for their property and this would also mean, a human "owner" or "parent" or "grandparent" has to exist who takes legal responsibility for the animal. Which does not always have to be a person... a legal person would be enough.

But still, such a system would require a lot of legal clarity. For children, it is more or less easy to tell, who is responsible for them. What about stray animals? Who is responsible for them? Or for the children of animals?

And if the government is responsible per default for all not otherwise owned animals, what constitutional rights do these animals have from the government to ensure the government does not do harm to the animals in it's decisions in their name?