Regarding plants I do recall that they can feel pain, but I forget whereby I came by that tidbit of information. I might have to look it up.
Sure, but how does that prove that one ought to behave that way? It just shows how they act, not how they ought to act.
-Jon
Well, now, that’s a real question, isn’t it? If one isn’t convinced by Rothbard’s arguments on the nature of man, what other source is there?
I don’t recall Rothbard giving much of a proof to begin with. He refers the reader to Henry Veatch and other Aristotelians, who go to greater lengths to do so.
-Jon
A system in wich the rights of man are violated in order to protect the ‘rights’ of animals has nothing to do with libertarianism.
Well, now, then, if it be our intent to govern fairly, we must simply change our nature such that these sorts of selfish considerations are not in our calculus. I tend to agree that bureaucracies and democracies such as we have now inevitably grow, because people in general always want more. I am not sure that it is inevitable that enlightened dictatorships grow. The problem with them, of course, is that enlightened bit which is most difficult to ensure, especially with transitions. History is replete with cases where a good king is followed by a steaming pile of stank tyranny.
I’m not sure that this is true, if you can establish teleology in the origin of our species. That of course, is a whole nuther debate.
Isn’t it wierd? I was stunned that such a man was in government when I first saw him. The Ron Paul Revolution, while ideological differences have since distanced me from it, was what really got me libertarian in the first place.
Well, now I don’t think you can say that there’s never been a good ruler or even a good defender. It seems to me that there have been several at least OK rulers, they just tend to be poor fathers, if you take my meaning. It is possible for individual humans to actually be noble and enlightened, even if as yet we can not rely on them being so.
Only beings capable of understanding the concept of rights and recognizing rights can be said to possess rights. Even the more intelligent animals do not grasp the moral concept of rights. A dog will take food off your plate and chew up your best shoes unless he’s trained not to, and this has much more to do with conditioning than with comprehension. He obeys because through repetitive training you establish a connection between the dog’s unwanted action and an unpleasant consequence, not because he recognizes your ownership of the items in question. It’s the same with the dog’s expectation of a treat for performing a trick. This isn’t a contractual agreement; it’s purely a conditioned response to a recognized stimulus.
I’m less familiar with chimps. They obviously have some capacity to reason and to manipulate elements of their environment, but that in itself is not sufficient condition for the recognition of rights. Is there any body of evidence to suggest that they understand the concept of personal property?
Cut me some slack. I no where claimed to be a philosophy student and have made some posts here and elsewhere concerning my intentions and current progress with a more dedicated and in depth self education into the subject. Of course maybe I am deriving a tone of hostility where there is none… it would not be the first time, as i am so used to moderate-extreme hostility on forums.
I suppose the distinction was and is still a bit blurry for me. In the end though, I might think that rights would be what I am most concerned about and perhaps what I currently think of as aesthetic morals like compassion and the like are much less important or completely optional for a libertarian.
This has been mostly my impression for some time actually. That beyond rights, its a free for all. And I am not sure I can see yet how it cannot be.
I suppose it is up to me to further discover why rights alone are and not others beyond what I think of as aesthetic morals and neccesary interpersonal morals.
Hmm. Once again I leave these forums with my thoughts slightly clearer. Thank you Geoffrey and Jon.
Almost all animals comprehend the notion of territory. As for property, that’s an interesting question, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if chimps had a rudimentary understanding of it. A good book on property’s deeply biological roots is The Territorial Imperative.
Thor, I did not intend to be hostile. My impersonal style tends to give the impression that I am though.
-Jon
Sure. In fact Hoppe leans toward monarchy because, he argues, a monarch is much less bad than a democracy. If I have to be under any archy at all, I more or less prefer monarchy myself.
But Orwell probably said it best, referring to Ghandi: a saint should be presumed guilty until proven innocent. If you make a living gambling, you’ll starve betting on the benevolence of aggressors.
–Len
Ok, well, I have to concede that animals have no rights, as abhorent as animal “torture” is to me.
It’s clear that animals are not like rocks, or sand or this kind of static material objects men can find in nature.
The first clue is this, they ran, when you try to get it, they run away from you, even they defend themselves.
So, to ‘use’ animal products one has to use force against something that clearly doesn’t want to have deals with you, it tries to run or defend.
You do not aquire rights to own animals through comerce or through contracts, because obviously, they were never made.
So, they have to be taken by force, the question is, is this use of force legitimate? by a truly libertarian point of view?
You can not say that humans have rights because they are humans, that’s a circular and void argument.
They have someting inside, some innate characteristics. I’m not talking about utilitarism which is void, ‘we have rights because it serves us well for now’.
¿Is it that they own their own body and use it to achieve its own goals with the mediums the can manage?
Yes, that is the core, and I’m saying here that animals(specially mammals and birds) own their own bodies and use them as they can to achieve their own goals. That’s the real deal.
How big their brains are is irrelevent, how many fingers they posses or how impact they make while achieving their goals is secondary.
They cannot be homestead, because they already have an owner, themselves!
They already show their own preferences, they are constantly making choices, running their lives as they so see fit.
So, the use of force against them is an agression against a sovereign owner. It can only be justified in defense.
You can use orwellian language to excuse your behaviour, hide in the masses, ‘they all do it’.
They don’t own you anything, they don’t have to speak your own language so you can understand, native indians did not speak your languages, neither do chimps, from this point of view they all are groups of self-owners who live their lifes with a language barrier, why you give rights to one tribe and not the other? As far as I know, libertarians believe native tribes of indians have rights, even when they do not write nor even have writen contracts.
Where is the point, this line that separates slaves from owners?
It’s not consciousness, lots of animals have been shown to have it. Is it language? Just because we are unable to understand theirs doesn’t mean they don’t have one, dolphins have their own names. We are falling again to the cuantitative argument, we don’t know or can’t clearly put a line, but we are clever, which is a wide concept and very difficult to explain, if we define it as the ability to solve problems, the difference is again hard to draw.
Is it the owning of a body and using it for your own benefit? kangaroo have sex alone for pleasure, chimps use tools or other small animals for oral sex.
Bonobos have been discovered even atempting trade and prostitution, sex pleasing for food.
That we are clever does not mean that we are the only ones with rights. If we are clever, good, but how does logic follows that we are the only ones?
We put the rules of the game and then judge who wins? Isn’t it partial? A conflict of interest? We should try harder to be neutral and objective. From the point of view of someone who is watching the moment of the capture of an ape inf the jungle, and this person saw how the ape was scared, screaming and trying to run, calling form help in his language and calling for his family, would you consider this act a legitimate use of force? would you accept that this ape had no owner and therefore could be kidnapped, beaten, taken away and later tortured and experimented upon? The reality is that this ape had no human-owner, that’s the reality, you are trying to slave those weaker than you and use propaganda like language to excuse it. It doesn’t work, animals are their own owners and as long as they do not harm others, they should be left alone.
Then if they are their own owners, they also must face the corollary of responsibility for their actions, and thus be liable for criminal actions on their behalf. There is no escaping this.
-Jon
Ok, no problem, if a bear attacks you or enters your kitchen to eat from your fridge, you can shoot him.
But how do you justify the massive industrial farms of cows, pigs and chickens?
With whay you have said you can’t, if I agree that if they attack you, as I do, you can defend, you agree that they are self-owners and cannot be attacked or kidnaped. And even if they had to face criminal charges, how do you justify jailing a chimp and burning his skin again and again for experimentation? If you bring criminal charges, bring them here! Tell me the process of how the ape ended being tortured because he steal a banana from you. And I’m helping your point and I’m not starting with the most typical scenario of chimps being hunted in the jungle for no reason and before comiting any ‘criminal act’. In fact when the crime is against them.
Irrelevant. If a dog chews up my lawn chair, can I take it to court seeking restitution? If not, why, if they are self-owners.
Evasive. I asked, do rights come with the concomitant responsibilities in the case of animals, not whether you may defend yourself against one. This entails the possibility of the animal advancing a case in its defence, against your claims. Do you argue animals have the mental capacity for this? Can they even in principle recognize what a right is at some stage of their development? Should they be trialled as human beings, dealt the same punishments &c.? You’re not “helping” my point at all (or yours, for that matter), because the entirety of the rest of your post is assuming what it is meant to prove.
-Jon
I’ve never posted on an animal rights thread before, so here goes:
Here is a basic list of rights:
If non-humans are self owners and possess the right to life, then there’s no more killing them and eating their flesh. Vegitarianism for us. We couldn’t tether dogs to leashes, let alone fence creatures inside enclosures. We couldn’t milk cows or steal chickens’ offspring from under them. If we wanted to we would have to obtain their consent, consent which they obviously can’t give us.
I know that someone could just as easily refute this by discussing the benefits of slavery, like cheap textiles. But animals can’t enter into agreements with us.
The problem comes between confusing rights and morals/ethics. I think it’s immoral to treat animals inhumanely. That’s probably why I don’t participate in cock-fights or kick around stray dogs.
*EDIT: the board won’t let me post the word C O C K. I chose to keep it there, even though I could have easily substituted the word ‘dog’
You are also asuming they do not have rights and start from there.
Please, someone explained to me what ‘agression’ or ‘crime’ has commited a cow and how they ended in jails with machines attached to them, being raped and having their babies stolen from their mothers?
Deef people can not defend themselves, and? They hire others, so are victims that can’t protect themselves, caring people can join their defense.
1.I said they are self-owners, which is absolutely evident by any standards, they own their body, move it, and choose among several options to achieve their goals.
2.It’s also obvious that they are not as clever as we do and their brain is not as faster or as powerfull chosing and managing mediums.
You have to acept #1. The #2 point is cuantitavie and as such doesn’t matter in this discussion. We can add a third point,
3.Their actions, like everyone else have consequences, the discussion of their consequences is hard because of the language barrier and because of #2.
Still by nature, most of them try to minimize damage to others and usually try not to start conflicts of agression.
This is clear in cows, pigs and birds that do not attack humans and therefore whatever ‘legal’ excuses you make, restitution could hardly explain or justified the massive industrial farms of hundred of thousands of animals jailed for life and their babies latter in their place.
And this is the part of the case that is helping you, I’m accepting you point that they ‘may’ harm humans, like a cow walking through your garden or eating your grass.
The other part of the point is where you, or people you pay, go to the forest and kidnap animals. Clearly starting the use of force.
How do you justify that? If we are going to discuss which kind of rights they have and if they are selfowners, how can you justify their kidnapping for no reason and before comiting any agression?
I’m not confusing moral and ethics, I’m trying to explain that according to ethics of self-ownership it never follows that animals are our slaves.
You could discuss for days the secondary implications of this, like how the relations should be, and what kind of restitution if any and things like that, it could be a nice academical chat, but first, animals are not your property, they are already theirs, they do not wish to trade, well, that’s their choise, but it’s not true, you can trade with clever mammals if you explain the concept easily in a way they can understand.
Yes, you should become vegetarian or only eat meat of animals that have already died of natural causes, you cannot use force against them except in self-defense, is that hard to understand?
Player, I accept your idea that animals are self owners and therefore can’t be agressed by us - nor of course one another.
Currently I’m occupying a house which was built on the previous property of a great number of ants, caterpillars and spiders. Obviously, having realised the error of my ways I would like to return what is quite rightfully theirs. I won’t destroy my house but just leave it to be homesteaded by them when I move out.
My real passion are the Antelope of Southern Africa whom I have great interest in. I plan to start a protection agency in that area which will defend, voluntarily, all of these self-owned animals - from Wildebeest to Springbok. Naturally any aggression of these animals can be repelled with force, so I will kill any humans, leopards, lions, hyenas etc which transgress the Non Agression Principle and attempt to murder these great creatures.
Of course, these predators will lose a nutrition source - that is obvious. But surely this means that they will have to divert their resources into different methods of food production rather than murder of other animals? I fully anticipate seeing newly vegetarian lions setting up homesteads and farming plots, and possibly even engaging in trade with other animals eventually as they realise the benefits of free trade and the NAP. Maybe they will eventually become my clients too.
No, I am assuming that it remains to be proven. So far you’ve just evaded my question. If you base rights on rationality (morality without it is mere nonsense - Mises’ instrumental sense of rationality is also insufficient), you must demonstrate they have a (potential) understanding of concomitant concepts. But you haven’t. You keep on bringing up self-defence, which is not the same as demonstrating this.
-Jon
Why can’t it be the other way around, they do have and you have to show why they should be treated as slaves instead of selfowners who should be left alone as long as they don’t harm others.
And you haven’t answered my questions, it’s you who is evading, please explain the logical process of cows, pigs and chickens being born already as slaves in factories and how that can be related and/or justified and how ethics whose purpose is to avoid conflicts ends with massive slavery and constant initation of force against innocents.
And I specify clearly before that I only refer to mammals and birds, once these is clearified and agreed, we could continue moving on.
Native indians and amazonian tribes also do not have these potential, nor did they when they were ‘discovered’ by the europeans, but their rights are defended, why should these backwards and middle-aged tribes of humans be granted non-agression axiom while other tribes of apes don’t, both will only attack you in defense, they both will prefer to be left alone in their own way of life in the jungle, what makes them different? speaking? a parrot can speak and understand its meaning? that they are humans? that’s a void point, humans have rights because they are humans? or because we accept and agree to respect our rights and each other? the rest of the animals are weaker so we don’t respect them? that’s it. We are stronger and clever, therefore we can do what we want, we make excuses like they can’t sign contracts or they don’t respect our property, well then as long as they do respect it and stay away of it, they should also be left alone, but you don’t.