Animal Rights

Economics Political Theory
161

You are arguing animals have rights. Then prove it. I could just as well state “well how do you know machines don’t have wills and souls, so why shouldn’t they also be self-owners?” Do you extend your analysis to microbes? Plants? Why not? Prove that they don’t have rights!

No, I am saving time. I will not proceed until you establish your argument. Your verbosity gives me even less inclination to do so.

Why? Are you arbitrarily excluding other animals, inanimate objects, machines, microbes, plants &c.?

This is utterly false. Do you mean to say it is impossible for members of these tribes to learn how to reason as members of civilized societies do? Do you deny they have this potential? On what grounds? The fact that they do not so reason (arguendo) does not preclude the possibility of their doing so, once shown how. I want to know how an animal in principle can even be made aware of such concepts, and thus why it should be treated as a human both in punishment as well as in respecting its supposed rights.

-Jon

162

It’s starting to be a waste of my time being here.

I said I start with mammals and bird because it’s easy, then, when we agree on it, we can move forward the discussion.

You haven’t said anything usefull, you talk about plants, microbes… why? you think this is a joke? I’m trying to explain concepts to you and you escape and appear with plants?

Have you prove humans have rights? prove it, and then I will explain to you that the basic core arguments for them apply to this kind of animals, when you do you will discovered that IQ doesn’t matter, nor written language or any of the bogus defenses you have given.

Its you the one who has to prove that you can own slaves. The most logic and coherent view is that in a very delicate discussion like this you should stay neutral and away until you reach a veredict or a conclusion, remember innocent until proven guilty?

Stop lying with ‘they do not reason’, it’s false, they reason on a different level, they use rocks, sticks, even basic phisics to achieve their goals, they build their ‘homes’, what right do you have to destroy the nest of a bird? why should your right to destroy them above their right to own their bodies and the fruit of their labour? why is more importante your right to eat a banana than the right of an ape to eat it? shouldn’t it be for the one who first homestead it? why do you throw out of the window everything you believe in when animals are applied?

163

Great post. Of course, if animals have self-ownership, then they cannot aggress against one another. This changes everything for carnivores. If they can’t survive or digest plant matter efficiently, HELLO EXTINCTION!

164

Player, Do you think that ‘animal rights’ can be enforced ? For instance, are you willing to use coercion/violence against humans who raise and eat cows ?

165

Lots of people said the same thing about slaves, about women, about indians, about blacks…

If it’s wrong, it’s wrong. It’s not my problem that they initiate the use of force against innocents without a reason to jusfify their actions, its their problem, they should have thought what they were doing because the do have the ‘potential’ to understand that they are taking advantage of the weaker, maybe one day society won’t allow it and will look down on those industrial farmers as nazis who jailed thousands of sentient and self-owners beings in brutal conditions, I just wanted to point that however you look and read and interpret libertarian tradition, liberalism or natural rights, it has never followed that animals are our slaves, it never has been a core part of it, it’s just a tradition, our parents treated them this way and so do we…

166

Irrelevant again.

Animals can be owned because they do not have rights. They do not have rights because they do not have the capacity for rational thought and communication, and thus liberty is not necessary to their natural end. Humans have rights because we do have the capacity for rational thought. Thus, our natural end is, in a very large part, self-directed, which necessitates a right to liberty, from which all other rights are derived.

There are some animals (great apes and bottlenose dolphins) that may have a sufficient capacity for rationality as to have rights; I’m not sure on this part. It can even be said that there are moral obligations that we have towards animals, and that industrial farming, animal testing, etc. violates those obligations (not endorsing, just stating). However, these obligations are not enforceable by means of force (a bit awkward, but I don’t know how else to say it [:)]).

I’m sure something like this was said earlier in the thread.

On a side note, I think that this issue points toward a weakness in axiomatic self-ownership. An Aristotelian approach based in eudaimonia clears up the issue nicely, I think.

167

Austrians have a couple problems surrounding this issue. The first is the issue of rights, which do not, it seems to me, have anywhere near as solid a philosophical foundation as one such as Rothbard seems to think.

Second, and probably more important, is the concept of property (on which “rights”, for many, are based). Austrians seem to think that either something is your property, and you can therefore do absolutely anything to it or with it and nobody has a right to interfere, or something is not, and you therefore have no right to do anything at all to it without the express permission of the owner. It’s very black and white, and, to my mind, neither philosophically justifiable nor remotely practical, and leads to truly horrific consequences for anyone or anything that might be considered “property”. Such absolutism may be comfortably simplistic, but does very little to lead one to an ethical life.

Part of the problem Austrians seem to have is a suffocating rationalism that discards the value of intuition (this discarding itself being hypocritical, since intuition and natural conscience are part of human nature, and thus the natural law on which “rights” are supposedly based). I’ve yet to see anyone actually make a full, logical case for an actual system of ethics, outside of utilitarianism, which swiftly leads to the worst of depravity.

If you look through the posts here, you will see a number of people saying they would not themselves torture animals, nor stand by if one were tortured, even though they might then accept consequences for interfering. That is because human morals, actual morals, are intuitive, compassionate, emotional, and cannot be contained or restrained by intellectual excercises. And this is as it should be. We all understand truths we cannot explain. Morality exists, shared, yet subjective. It can be overridden by obsessive logic or any other religious dogma, but everyone who is not themselves deeply spritually injured or born evil knows that torturing a dog is wrong.

168

That’s not true.

Of course if you say you don’t recogniced their rights you may say you can ‘own’ them. Technically you would be slaving them, because they already are their own owners, that fact can not be disputed, you can debate whetever they can be slaved or not, but they do choose their lives, their goals and control their own bodies. So, they already have an ‘owner’, you can say they don’t have a ‘human master’ or a ‘human owner’.

They do have rational capacity and they do communicate, they do have languages, less complex than ours, but they even have names for each of them, words to express emotions, situations around them and so on. So you are lying, they do think, and they do speak, in a way you don’t understand. They can solve small problems, opening bottles, moving chairs, so they do have abstract and geometrical thinking, they do cry for their family members, depress if their sons die… Their emotions are the same, it’s only a matter of bigger abstract thinking.

“liberty is not necessary to their natural end.” How can you say that? How can they feed, move around, mate with the one the like, choose and that agrees, have their family and achieve their goals if they are in a jail in a laboratory for experimentation? What’s their ‘natural end’? being your slave? Well, they appear not to like it, they ran away from you, cry when you experiment on them, so it doesn’t seem to be their ‘natural end’, whatever this expression means.

“Humans have rights because we do have the capacity for rational thought” Please explain in detail and draw the line so we can judge who is apt and who isn’t, once you say that, if a human fails, he fails, he has no right, you can’t go back and change the rules and say, well, he has rights.. because.. he’s human and that’s all!!

“Thus, our natural end is, in a very large part, self-directed, which necessitates a right to liberty, from which all other rights are derived”

Self-direct yeah, that’s why 90% of adult humans have babies, a wife and a home to sleep confortably in.

When a dolphin decided to risk their life to save a human from a shark it’s just pure instinct, never a rational decission.

So, birds cannot have a nest for their children, but you can have a home for yours, you both modify nature to achieve it, but you are the one with ‘rights’ and can destroy their home/nest, steal their eggss and eat them. Because… well, both try as hard as they can to live better and feed and take care of their families and protect them, but only one of them is granted rights, you, well, because you want to and it’s usefull to you, so you can continue abusing them.

169

Player, should violence used against humans to stop the ‘enslavement’ of animals ?

170

This whole “animal rights” and animal self-ownership argument is becoming absurd. When a pride of lions brings down a gazelle, is it murder?

171

Should violence be used to stop an ongoing agression and only to stop it as according to the theory of legitimate self-defense?

I won’t, I never have, for the same reasons I never have used force against the state and never will.

They are other ways, like the battle of ideas, legitimate social disobedience, boycot, propaganda, education…

But yes, I do consider it legitimate, as long as it’s used only to stop the enslavement.

It’s either a violation of rights or it isn’t, if it is there is nothing to discuss, it’s an agresion, end of discussion, if it isn’t, the only remaining option would be the battle of ideas and morality as I said before, boycot, propaganda just like we do with the things we don’t like.

By the way, violence is already being used. So, the question is if we can come to the defense of weaker ones who are being abused.

waywardwayfarer, that’s not the question, don’t bring another different discussion here, we are talking about the relations between humans and animals.

172

Don’t hide from the question. It’s entirely relevant. If animals have rights which must be respected across one species boundary, there is no rational reason why they must not be respected across all other boundaries between species. Why does the gazelle have a right to self-ownership which is enforceable only against human beings but not against lions? If you can’t address this discrepancy, then your entire argument falls apart.

173

It does not, what others do is not a justification for you to commit a crime, no matter how many others commit it.

It can be easily address, you can protect the gazelle if you want, you can go the jungle and protect it from lions if that’s your wish. You should have discovered this using logic. That follows that I could also protect cows from you and your farmer. The thing is, there are more cows than europeans, and they all are very close to our homes, in industrial farms, so, it’s easier to protect them or better stop others from harming them than going to africa to adopt a gazzelle. I would not accuse you of hunting a lion if you shoot him at the moment he was attacking a gazzelle. See, I’m 100% coherent. Now it’s your turn. Answer all my question in my various posts please.

174

I’m not sure I understand. You won’t use force in self-defense against the state ? But it’s OK to use force to stop the ‘enslavement’ of animals ?

Well, either human rights are above imaginary ‘animal rights’ or not.

175

So presumably you would also support trials where lions, tigers, leopards etc are brought to justice for their repeated crimes? Maybe some baboons will testify on their behalf?

176

Let me be clear.

You abusing animals is a POSITIVE RIGHT.

For you to use animals products, animals have to be abused.

It’s exactly the same argument used against ‘free state-given education’.

177

Gonna have to respond to this later, I have to go and oversee arbitration between the family of a fly recently killed by a local spider…

178

Then leave.

No, you see, you stridently asserted animals have rights. Now, you’re attempting to get me to prove men have rights. Again, however, you’re evading my question. I never mentioned IQ, I never mentioned language. I asked you to answer a very simple question.

No. You said “prove that animals don’t have rights!”, to which I could just as easily retort “prove that machines don’t have rights!” See? It’s that easy.

Now, when you answer my question, I will continue. Until then, I will ignore your positivist-scientistic whining.

To JCFolsom’s statement, yes, it isn’t as easy as Rothbard thought it is. When libertarians take the time to actually read up on some ethical justifications for rights (ironically enough, ones that Rothbard himself recommends), it’d be easier to discuss these topics.

-Jon

179

I think the science of human biology can be of help in this situation. Daniel Dennet and Patricia Churchland who are both neuroscientists (and atheist) have pointed out that our large frontal cortex is a huge help in the creation of our reason and cognition. Any book you can read by them might help you understand the huge difference between human nature and human reason and animal nature and animal reason.

Some animals can use a type of reasoning that is essentially what a human would call motor skills but it is hardly cognition. Also Richard Dawkins and the people I have mentioned above have constantly expressed the human ability to override our very strongest instincts (for instance we have many people who were celibate over the centuries) something animals overwhelmingly fail to do since they are so very instinct driven. Our brains can formulate abstract concepts that have little to no relation to our environment or survival. Outward expressions of this can be seen with art, philosophy, physics etc etc.

Another species I think that would have characteristics to cognition such as ours would be the Neanderathal who where a seperate race from us and whom we did not actually evolve from but lived side by side with, sharing a common ancestor with them. I am certain they would retain “human” rights or more properly, the rights and autonomy of cognition.

Another thing that should be pointed out is that children, mentally handicapped and animals are not held responsible for their actions since the lack the proper capacity to be held responsible. Children and the mentally handicapped are not allowed to do certain things like the rest of us. So why are children and mentally handicapped treated better than animals? Because children have a potential to develop high levels of cognition and the mentally handicapped overwhelmingally still retain far higher levels of abstract thought than animals. Human rights need to fit the proper recipient and the mentally handicapped are not capable of retaining all of those right but are usually capable of retaining some of those rights.

Now if the mentally handicapped are so retarded that they are totally screwed well that leads to other discussions on the issues of euthanasia and the value individuals, such as relatives, place on their life. For instance my grandmother had totally lost her sanity (totally screwed by my definition) by the time of her death but she was still capable of abstract conceptualization far more than my dog is capable of and she expressed a higher emotional self awarness than any non human.

Unfortunately I must go for now and cannot continue this discussion tonight.

180

First, humans are animals, I’m refering to the other mammals and to birds.

I asked you to explain the proccess of recognicing rights in humans so we can start there, with this points and arguments and see if they appy also to other animals. Answering a question with another question is not an answer, it’s an evasion. Leave machines alone and come to discuss what I have been writing a lot of times already and all of you avoid answering, you continue writing unrelated comments so hopefully it won’t be seen what I post before and will be lost in an infinite long thread of pointless discussions and jokes, like ‘haha, and what about plants, and virus? and machines? and aliens? and relations beetween other animals and other animals?’.

Please, only three points.

  1. Explain self ownership, and explain how animals by your standards ended up with no self-ownership of themselves, contradicting the evident reality.

  2. Explain the proccess of how an ape ended from being in the jungle to being tortured in a jail in a laboratory.

  3. Explain how ethics, whose goal is to avoid conflict are being used by some to justify massive initiation of force against innocent selfowners.

Libertarism has never rely on the enslavement of animals, it does not follow, it is not coherent, it’s against logic that an ethic that is designed to avoid conflicts ends creating them when the two groups can coexist and resolving the conflicts on a one per one case.

You just never gave it much attention and apply what was ‘typical’ and what everyone does without thinking to much on it.