Certainly so that they prefer to live rather than die. So then I would assume you are extending these animal rights to all such animals, such as all arthropods(what to do with an ant or termite infestation at that point?). Animals aren’t the only kingdom of living things that have all sorts of mechanisms to avoid death either as I’m sure you already know.
Edit: Interestingly enough this discussion did have me research a bit more regarding pain in all animal classes and its pretty cool. The naked mole rat is an example of a mammal that has no pain sensation on its skin. Cephalapods such as Octupus are shown to be very intelligent with problem solving skills(plenty of youtube videos showing them inspecting and opening up jars with crabs inside them, as well as breaking apart cocunut shells on the sea floor and fixing them into a makeshift house)- but have no pain sensations to our knowledge anything like our own. In regards to this discussion, the diversity of life itself tells me that there’s no reason pain should be a reason to extend rights. There’s plenty of suffering that takes place which can have adverse effects on the body even when there was no physical pain trigger.
Not more human, but more of a person - that’s if we remove the association of personhood with humanhood.
Well, objectively humans don’t have rights. It’s a pure social construct, so I wouldn’t not eat humans because of that. If you were alive in a society which ate humans, then you would say it’s ok, because those values are subjective.
I would say most of us have that reaction because of pure indoctination. Slavery hasn’t always been seen as as bad as it is seen now. Many extreme animal rights activists would agree with that advert. For myself, I would say that in general, humans have a greater value because they are consciouss to a greater extent, but that doesn’t entitle us to eat those who are lesser.
Well, if you value the preference of the individual (human or not human), then I would say in most cases it would be wrong to kill. I can imagine some cases where that rule doesn’t apply, just like in some cases it doesn’t apply to humans. But I would also say we need to take into account awareness as well as preference.
Well then in that case would it be wrong to kill any and all forms of life until it somehow intrudes upon your property and threatens you in some way? Could you expand upon taking awareness into account? Most all life prefers to live rather than die- even plants have defense mechanisms against other organisms.
If it’s a biological trait, then it can differ between organisms and mutate. So, while you can say it is immoral to eat animals or torture them for a particular individual, such morality is not necessarily homogeneous to the species.
You also say that evolved morality would serve the purpose of promoting the survival of one’s own species. How exactly does eating or torturing animal hinder our survival as a species? If anything, meat has allowed man to thrive as it is one of the best sources of vitamins, fats, and protien available. And torturing animals for recreation or research has never lead to our demise.
Which is why deontology is laughable.
So what is the purpose of your argument? Is it to pursuade others to treat animals the same as humans? Because I doubt you will have much success here.
And so I would hope that we are consistent in our beliefs. I would think that killing and eating humans is wrong, and that there is no relevant difference between humans and non-human animals - although you disagree with that - and so for me, to be consistant, it is immoral to eat animals.
I guess that means that I can’t go around telling other people how to live their lives, and I’m happy with that.
Well, it benefits humans. I mean, if we see it as wrong to kill each other then we stand a better chance of survival because the gene pool contains more diversity.
I agree with you about deontology. There is no purpose really, I just wanted to see what you all said.
“This in turn affords them to be more generous in whom to extend the non-aggression principle and empathy to, which ultimately creates even more material abundance.”
How does it create more material abundance? An animal does not create and trade with other animals or humans.
“Also note that the argument you just presented could also be used as an argument against extending rights to the mentally handicapped, coma patients or the elderly.”
I agree. They do not have ‘rights’. Nobody has such mystical things."
Animals trade affection for food, shelter.
natural rights. They are grounded in the nature of man: the individual man’s capacity for conscious choice, the necessity for him to use his mind and energy to adopt goals and values, to find out about the world, to pursue his ends in order to survive and prosper, his capacity and need to communicate and interact with other human beings and to participate in the division of labor. In short, man is a rational and social animal. No other animals or beings possess this ability to reason, to make conscious choices, to transform their environment in order to prosper, or to collaborate consciously in society and the division of labor.
How can this be said for certain… I seen some animals follow close if not all these qualities. Dosen’t animals deserve rights? Maybe not natural rights, but species specific rights like humans get with natural law?
Any lifeform that isn’t human, yes absolutely. I think playing this game of trying to figure out which specific living things have rights and which don’t is pointless because there’s no consistency in it- and the sole reason I give humans an exception is because I’m human.
Demonstrate that this is inevitable. Also having an antisocial and violent personality is irrelevant unless it is mans ethical duty to be social and peaceful.
Correlation and causation are separate categories.
So from your view, why should we be bothered about death?
(“We” shouldn’t. Again, it’s subjective. Perhaps I have things I want to try and accomplish, and so I am bothered by the idea of my own demise. But I in no way imply that this is the feeling of every other being. It’s weird…you keep arguing points about subjectivity while, apparently, not realizing that I agree with that aspect. Again, what are you trying to say? Because you also stated the following…)
If they are mental constructs then they are subjective by definition.
Subjective (adjective): ‘based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions’ and ‘dependent on the mind or on an individual’s perception for its existence.’ - Mac Dictionary.
Your seemed to be saying that morality is subjective, but so are rights.
(Which is PRECISELY what I was saying. What exactly are you disagreeing with? And don’t quote the Mac Dictionary. It’s bad form (subjective).)
To auctionguy(and others): I am not meaning to be boastfull here but I am almost certainly the physically toughest here,In a realm of intellect that means nothing of course but I am an ex ‘red berreted’ Soldier ,which translates into Ranger school graduate in the US a d my regimental Middle-weight boxing champion. Again many of you are probably brainier than me and have advanced degrees and whatnot but my point is if you think that its OK to kill animals because you aren’t one who should I not take to kill any living person who is not a member of an arbitary group that I chose to deliniate?
By your logic it would be quite acceptable for me and my fellow soldiers from around the world to impose a structure that exploits you non soldiers for our beneift,actually we already did that for 1000 years and called it feudalism. After all we would have breeding,valour,esprit de corps and other utterly irrelevant qualities that we could use to justfy why we could keep our hardworking,intelligent but venal and cowardly serfs in vassalage?
You, or someone else, seemed to be saying that we can’t use morality because it is subjective. But you, or whoever it was, were arguing that we use rights to set ‘limits’ to what we can do. So I was pointing out that rights are equally subjective, and so I don’t see how you can discriminate against morality on that basis.
Mac Dictionary is probably a more reliabe source than most dictionaries on the internet, and I don’t have an actual dictionary on me so I don’t see the problem with that.
Just like all the reasoning in the world brought so far not to kill certain classes of life is completely arbitrary. All of this comes down to personal preferences. I don’t equate giving humans a distinction as a group when compared to other living things the same as being ok with dividing up populations of humans as AaronBurr implied. Giving respect to humans because I am human has meaning to me, just like you giving respect to other living things based on how close you feel they are to yourself. I think trying to lay down an intellectual line of reasoning for these type of feelings isn’t going to hold.
Just like all the reasoning in the world brought so far not to kill certain classes of life is completely arbitrary. All of this comes down to personal preferences. I don’t equate giving humans a distinction as a group when compared to other living things the same as being ok with dividing up populations of humans as AaronBurr implied.
So its just personal preference then. You have no justification for it
Giving respect to humans because I am human has meaning to me, just like you giving respect to other living things based on how close you feel they are to yourself. I think trying to lay down an intellectual line of reasoning for these type of feelings isn’t going to hold.
So you want me to respect your right to torture animals because it has ‘meaning for me’ but you expect my alter ego feudal self to respect the rights of you not to be tortured and exploited agains based on that ‘meaning’?
Of course- its my personal preference to live, and usually that means other living things must die so that I might continue. I don’t see the sense in dividing up living things based on their sensations towards pain to decide if they’re edible or not, since there are even humans that can’t feel pain. Someone who does is only citing their own personal preference. The closest thing I can come to is that my existence as a human justifies not harming other humans- it stems from an emotive feeling, sure, but what else can someone bring to the table when it comes to this subject?
Oh no the point I wanted to make is that I don’t expect you to do anything except what you feel is right for yourself, I just react accordingly. Just like I’m sure you’d react accordingly if I was(not that I would), torturing animals all over the place. When it comes to animal liberation I’m finding it all comes down to personal preferences. All I see so far being presented is
“Killing Humans is wrong-> Killing everything is wrong-> except for these certain forms of life I’d kill too”.