Objectively, we can observe all manner of differences. Or are you suggesting there is no difference between species?
That statement is completely incoherent. I’m beginning to suspect you don’t know what a priori deduction is.
You claim a priori deduction is scientifically discredited?
Dodge. Are animals ownable, yes or no? It’s a simple question. If you can’t answer it, then you’re in no position to lecture me on animal rights.
You’ll have to do better. Arguing that reason is invalid might make your arguments valid, but that would indeed be a false premise (that A is not equal to A).
I don’t know what your position is except empathy for animals.
No, I am asking you how you define torture of animals. The same questions I am putting to Curlz and Conza. Are animals ownable? If they are, then obviously the owner can dispose of his property as he sees fit as long as it does not aggress against others. If they are not, then caging a bird must be slavery.
Seems pretty simple to me.
Now the trick is to get the emotional defenders of animals (I love dogs and don’t mind cats) to take a position that is consistent with their stated objections to animal treatment. So far, no one has. I suspect because the positions have not been thought through with regards to ethics.
Hanging, extreme beating(like slamming an animal on the wall, setting it on fire, training two animals to rip each other apart), and neglect is what I view as torture. If a human being had this done to him or her then society might retaliate, even if the human were property. Why can’t this be the case for animals?
That’s exactly what i’m not suggesting. I’m saying objectively observe the differences and objectively relate them to what rights are valid.
Again, you are engaging in axiomatic fallacies. Define the word “own” before you accuse me of dodging.
I’m not arguing that reason is invalid. In fact the basis of your own argument is that reason is invalid.
I’m saying that if a priori allows you to take a subjective assertion that is not true and proclaim to deduce scientifically valid conclusions simply by using logic from that point onward, then yeah, it’s absolutely discredited in terms of objective reality.
You know you cannot answer the question one way or the other, because either admission invalidates your argument. So instead we play the game of pretending there are no definitions, and there is no knowledge, and we can’t know anything, even though you claim to know a great many things, without defining them or having perfect knowledge.
It is like talking to a child.
You might be quite proud of your word smithing, but all you have done is show that you’re insincere in debate.
Yes I can. I’m asking you to tell me what you think “own” means. If “owning” an orangutan means you are somehow allowed to pour gasoline on it and set it alight, then no, you can’t “own” it.
ummmm … no. Your whole world view seems to have been determined by your worship of certain writers. We are all human. Asking you to define what “own” means is perfectly legitimate. If you can’t explain what it means in a real-life scenario then it really has no meaning does it.
Nar, that’s you playing that game.
I’m not saying a lack of perfect knowledge means there are no objective truths. I’m saying you should always work from the truths which are established and progress from there. You work from your own invalid axioms.
Then do it. We all know what private ownership means. Can you own (sole control) of an animal, yes or no?
I’ve refuted this strawman twice already. When someone repeats a false claim over and over, it goes from rhetorical device to intentional lying, and that simply won’t do here.
I hadn’t heard of Ron Paul until I came here, really. I came here through a very strange route, although I’ve got to say that I was always in a sense an Austrian economist, I just needed to have it formalised and explained properly. I’ve got 20ish books from the Mises store, although that include pamphlets, and Economics in One Lesson, and a few others are “on loan” to friends.
For what it is worth, Curlz, I am a libertarian who understands what you are getting at. I think you understand the bare bones of libertarianism and moral philosophy more than most people.
I do not believe animals have rights the way humans do but I have no universally objective proof of my belief. It is just an axiom. Similarly, the non-aggression principle is just an axiom. Natural rights boil down to an arbitrary moral axiom.
The discussion of animal rights pops up routinely on anarchist / libertarian discussion boards and it just goes around in circles. Rest assured, not all libertarians treat natural rights and the non-aggression principle as if they were objectively provable facts. There are libertarians who understand that all morality is relative and ultimately relies on an axiom. Other libertarians never see it.
No one has proposed a right to torture. There is the issue of disposing with your property as you see fit. Whether it is slaughtering a cow for meat, or caging a bird for entertainment. If animals are sovereign creatures, then we certainly wouldn’t be able to eat or domesticate them.
If humans only have rights because they can rationalize then would someone who is comatose with no brain function lose all their rights? Or would it be okay for me to go to the nearest hospital and shoot every person lying in a bed in a coma?
Don’t you have to be able to communicate with the target life form to establish rationality? And if you can’t are you suggesting you can presume rationality from perceived actions? I don’t think you can assume that just because animals aren’t as complex as us means they aren’t rational.
Aren’t rights derived from the values of the people’s who create them? If we all decided certain animals had certain rights how could you say they wouldn’t?
Thanks Charles, for trying to understand my position. I don’t agree that natural rights are an arbitrary axiom though. I believe they are evident in the very nature of human behaviour and the state of the universe. But of course we don’t have perfect knowledge of the universe so often there are grey areas.
I am not a libertarian for the hobby of deriving logical conclusions from certain axioms. I am only interested in the absolute nature of the universe.
You did. You said it would be acceptable to pour gasoline on a dog and set it alight if the dog was your “property”.
The problem is you are thinking in black and white. You think everything needs to be defined in terms of having liberty or not having liberty. You are working from an axiom rather than looking at the universe objectively.