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Animals don't have rights, stupid!
Animals cannot, and should not have any rights whatsoever, and that is a good thing to. The whole concept of animal rights is a pathetic fallacy perpetrated by groups and individuals who have an overblown sense of kindness towards animals. In fact, animals that exist in society are the property of humans, which is why they do not deserve to have legal status. Imagine if animals did have legal status all hunters whether in the Amazonian jungle or the Scottish highland could be charged with murder, a road kill would be a hit and run, or worst, manslaughter, pet ownership would be viewed as an illegal slave-market.
Humanities rational reasoning has conceived of what we know today as the concept of rights, for itself not for any other living entity. The notion of rights is a moral concept that humanity needs in order to live our lives the way we see fit. Indeed, it is humanities right to use animals like any other resource around us we have the right to eat animals for food, we have the right to kill certain animals for clothing, we have the right to experiment on animals, and yes, we have the right to use animals for our entertainment if need be.
Proponents of rights for animals say they want to put a halt to the sadistic treatment of animals by torturers (aka scientists), but the truth is the aim of animal-rights activists is to sacrifice and subjugate humanity to the level of animals. This is the logical conclusion of the idea of animal rights. You cannot attribute rights to dumb animals that are amoral and nonrational to do that would turn rights from an important tool that preserves humanity to a tool that would liquidate humanity.
It comes as no surprise that some animal rights activists turn to terrorism to pursue their aims of destroying humanity, from digging up dead bodies to the attempted murders of scientists and lab technicians (including their families). Locking up the lunatic fringe of the animal-rights movement is not enough what is needed is a new war against the very notion of animal rights. It needs to be confronted by a principled and intellectual war that will condemn animal rights for what it is logically false and morally, deeply repugnant.
Submitted on Sat, 2005-10-15 02:08
Re: Animals don’t have rights, stupid!
I only just noticed this posting. This is a typical ill-thought out argument based on prejudice rather than rational thought.
'Imagine if...' usually presages some extreme version of a situation using rhetorical flourishes rather than argument, as it does here. Very much the same arguments were made with regard to freeing slaves, giving rights to women etc. You do not actually establish any basis for the categories about which you are arguing.
This is simply an unsupported opinion about human development, which is basically ideological not philosophical or rational. What is or is not a resource and legitimate for use and in what way has changed markedly over human history and across cultures. If there is any general progress that can be idenitfied, it is the widening of our circle of moral considerability from de facto hierarchies of strong and / or wealthy men to larger groups or categories of humans, to all human beings, and lately to other living beings and even ecosystems and collections of beings.
The arguments about dumbness and irrationality as the basis for exlcuding entities from moral considerability would also exclude damaged human beings (autists, the mentally ill or those in comas) children, the very old and infirm etc. Further, the notion of some absolute 'human rights' does not exclude the possibility of defining those form whom rights are to be withheld as sub-human or non-human (or similar categorisation), as has happened many times, and continues to happen.
Finally, ad hominem arguments about what terrorists do have no relation to the central concepts at issue. That is reductio ad absurdem logic, which could be applied to any idea or philosophy, and merely serves here to demonstrate that you had an initial prejudice which you were determined to support by any means necessary, rather than being interested in considering the issues at stake. Sadly, this is all too common here and more generally.
Re: Animals don’t have rights, stupid!
David Wood,
"Imagine if...' usually presages some extreme version of a situation using rhetorical flourishes rather than argument, as it does here. Very much the same arguments were made with regard to freeing slaves, giving rights to women etc. You do not actually establish any basis for the categories about which you are arguing."
I argued that, humanities rational reasoning has conceived of what we know today as the concept of rights, for itself - and not for any other living entity. This is the 'basis' of my argument, and this is one of the sole 'basis' of why we have human rights in the first place.
If this argument was used in order to deny freedom to slaves or to hold back women's liberation, then that would be wrong. What I'm taking about here, is rights for dumb animals. Animals cannot reason, can they? Therefore, animals shouldn't have rights. Animals lack the fundamental capacity to reason. It is this capacity to reason that enables us to make certain judgements, to engage in free actions that meet our needs and values - more importantly, the capacity to reason (or even having the potential to reason), means that we can engage in society.
"The arguments about dumbness and irrationality as the basis for exlcuding entities from moral considerability would also exclude damaged human beings (autists, the mentally ill or those in comas) children, the very old and infirm etc."
Wrong.
Of course, there are humans that are not capable of reasoning. What you describe as 'damaged' humans, are also known as 'marginal humans'. These would include the senile, those in indefinite coma, or the severely mentally handicapped - but, marginal human beings are not on par with dumb animals.
Babies, toddlers and young children could also be viewed as marginal humans. According to this 'sub-human' thesis, marginal humans like babies, the mentally handicapped ect... cannot have rights either if the qualifacation for such rights is the ability to be rational. In other words, rationality cannot be the basis for having rights, or, in that case, marginal humans do not have any rights at all.
There are some out there who would be prepared to bite the bullet on this question and conceed that marginal humans could be treated the same way as we treat non-human animals. Not me. Apparently, we either accept rationality and values as a criteria for having rights and say it's ok to treat young children as we would a cat or a rabbit - or, we have to accept that the concept of rights is not soley limited to humans, and should include some furry animals as well.
"This is simply an unsupported opinion about human development, which is basically ideological not philosophical or rational.
The defenders of rights for animals are quick to highlight the philosophical problems surrounding the legal status of marginal humans. Indeed, the entire cannon of animal rights politics rests on the assumption that the traditional theories of rights fail to establish that all humans, as well as marginal and borderline cases, have rights.
But they are wrong - because, under normal developmental circumstances marginal humans would be normally functioning rational beings, unlike any other animals. Indeed, under normal developmental circumstances animals cannot become rational, or conceptual beings - ever. This is the non-arbitrary distinction that offers us the theoretical basis, by which legal protection can be afforded to marginal humans, but not to animals.
In the future, medical advances offers us the posssibility of treatment and cures for people in indefinite comas, and for people who are severely mentally handicapped, which would give these people the potential to be rational human beings. In fact, it is this potential treatment that establishes the link between non-rational humans and normal rational humans. That is why marginal humans posses certain rights - whereas, animals will never have the potential to be rational beings, and are therefore undeserving of rights as we know them.
Re: Animals don’t have rights, stupid!
First of all what makes you so sure of this statement:
"Indeed, under normal developmental circumstances animals cannot become rational, or conceptual beings - ever."
Experimentation with animals as diverse as birds, primates and dolphins has indicated capacity for thought and self-identification (in other words conceptualisation). We too are animals, and the borderline between the unthinking and the thinking is not as clear as you seem to believe.
However, that is really besides the point unless one accepts your premise, which I cannot fromteh arguments you advance. I still do not see where you have in any way demonstrated, apart froma vehement insistence that it is the case, that only conceptual beings deserve rights.
What is the basis for this assumption? What is the line of argument behind this insistence?
Re: Animals don’t have rights, stupid!
David Wood,
"Experimentation with animals as diverse as birds, primates and dolphins has indicated capacity for thought and self-identification (in other words conceptualisation)."
David, your belief that animals should have rights seems to be boiling down to these experimentations. I would love to know what specific experiments you are referring to. Because, as far as know, no animal has the capacity for thought or self-awareness, none. Nor, do I know of any study that has proven that animals have the ability to conceptualise.
So if you could enlighten us all as to which experimentation or study produced such an implausible finding, I would be eternally greatful.
For the sake of your research, I'd suggest that you do not refer to the 'trout that can feel pain' experiment, because that study has already fallen at the first hurdle - peer review. Fish can't feel pain, nor are they self-aware - if they were, we would never be able to catch them as they would know what a net is, and avoid it. (1)
Read on:
(1) Animal rights? Wrong! Fish can't feel pain. By Courtney Hamilton.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread.jspa?forumID=106&threadID=45022&tstart=0
Re: Animals don’t have rights, stupid!
> David, your belief that animals should have rights
> seems to be boiling down to these experimentations.
No, not at all. In fact if you notice that was just addressing the basis of your vehement instistance on that ability to conceptualise as the basis for the granting of rights. if you read the next paragraph in my last message you will see that no reason why this should be a basis for the granting of rights, in fact it is something of a side issue.
However since you wish to go further down this sideroad, let's deal with it.
>as far as know, no animal has
> the capacity for thought or self-awareness, none.
> Nor, do I know of any study that has proven that
> animals have the ability to conceptualise.
I wonder how much knowledge of animal behavioural studies and in particular sociobiology, you actually have. I am no specialist, but i have worked on projects studying primates and read a great deal of the literature. And, it is clear to me that higher primates have conceptual abilities, recognise the difference between themsleves and others, and have emotional lives - albeit different, indeed more limited than our own. As for references, there are hundreds of books and papers, just on primates. Go do some reading, if you are really interested. Given your clear lack of knowledge in the area, I have to question your vehemence further... your atttiude sounds a lot like the pre-sociobiological primatologists who absolutely refused to acknowledge the findings of people like Goodall, Galdikas and now many others...
You might also like check out some of the work in Boston with African grey parrots, which has shown that their mental abilities go way beyond simple mimicry or memory as was previously thought. I am sure you must be aware of all the work that has been done on interspecies communications with dolphins too...
I am not surewhat fish have to do with it, since they are not animals I mentioned and it seems somewhat perverse, not to say irrelevent, to base a general theory of rights on whether trout can feel pain or not...
I repeat my original pondering - why are you so vehement about this, and what difference would it make to you if you were forced to acknowledge that the black and white boundaries you inist upon were rather more grey?
Perhaps when you have thought about this for a while, we can get back to the central issue - which is why you think conceptual ability is essential for rights.
Message was edited by: David Wood
Re: Animals don’t have rights, stupid!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4766490.stm
You might try thinking about this recent research too. Apparently chimpanzees demonstrate the same kind of unrewarded altruism when young that young humans do...
No doubt you will find some ideological objection.
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