So would you primarily defend rights on the basis of pragmatism?
In your argument, you are assuming that “wrong” is defined by the ability to perceive a lack of consent. You are just defining away the problem.
I am sorry, but I do not understand what you mean. I am defining “wrong” as doing something to someone that has the ability to consent to it, yet does not.
Correct. That is how you define wrong. Why should your definition be accepted? is the next question.
impartial question to move the debate onwards: what are rival definitions of wrong?
Some animal lovers think it is “wrong” to round up animals and treat them like, well, animals. They think we have to treat them like humans. For them, the ability to express consent has nothing to do with it.
Why should they accept our definition?
Personally, I am a Christian and I am very comfortable accepting that man has dominion over the entire Earth including all animals. I take that as an article of faith, though. I have a hard time convincing vegans.
i think the onus would be on them to explain way things that are A should be treated as though they were B’s, if its accepted that they are not B’s.
if it has nothing to do with consent, what does it have to do with?
this is not yet a criticism, it is a challenge for an argument to be presented.
Permit me to play the devil’s advocate and argue on their behalf.
As an animal lover, I can simply refuse to accept humans as a separate group from all other animals. I could say: “All animals should be treated with equal rights.”
The ability to feel pain, is one that the vegans could use.
Personally, I do not think it matters because adopting human rights is ultimately a subjective choice. We could have this argument with cannibals too and cry for our human rights while they eat us alive.
here then is a potential problem for ‘painists’
http://www.drugresearcher.com/Emerging-targets/Genetic-defect-causes-inability-to-feel-pain
or the idea that one might cease to be a rights holder if one gets put on pain suppressants…
Likewise, one might cease to be a rights holder if one gets put on pain suppressants and lapses into a coma thereby not being able to articulate consent.
Bottom line is that the ability to give consent is no more convinincing than attributing rights to animals.
i dont think that spiedy was proposing that consent be communicated, but that a mental act of consenting could possibly occur. this is somewhat different, and perhaps wouldnt be so open to your crtiicism.
i.e. if a mouse could be hooked up to a universal translator would it think thoughts like i consent, i dont consent, etc. or would it lack such mental concepts ? putting aside its ability to communicate that it has such concepts
Well, is it not true that if someone is harmed by another, and the person has the ability to consent, and consented to the harm, that no rights have been violated?
And also, is it not true that if someone is harmed by another, and the person has the ability to consent, and did not consent to the harm, that their rights were violated?
You can say that, but you have to have a premise as to why animals have rights in the first place. If animals have rights, then what should the punishment be for humans that kill them? What should the punishment be for animals that kill other animals? And how do we know the other animal that got killed did not consent to it?
When I say “ability”, I mean mental ability.
And yes, when someone lapses into a coma, they do lose their ability to consent, and therefore lose their rights. It is why people have to decide whether or not to keep someone on life support that is in a coma.
– of which the observation will always depend upon our abilities too. For instance, if I was mentally retarded and I thought that the partly-comatose person said: “Kill me!” when he actually mumbled: “Cure me!” then, we are all messed up. So, the rights of the partly-comatose is determined by 1) my medical diagnosing abilities 2) my bad hearing 3) my low level of intelligence. Anything else? I do not think we need to say more to demonstrate that this “ability to consent” criteria is ultimately subjective in its application.
So, in the end, it comes down to pragmatism, right? If the outsiders do not interpret any action of consent, then, the person has no rights.
Summary: an individual(human or any other animal)'s rights are decided by other individuals. That is the core of what your basis of rights entails.
Answered here. The choice and model of punishment is irrelevent to determining whether a right has been violated. Like I said, I am a Christian and I believe in forgiveness, in turning the other cheek and in all of that other wacky stuff that most people reject.
We do not. However, I would be curious to know whether it fought back. Then again, if you shoot the thing in the head cleanly from a mile away and the animal dies instantaneously, I guess you would never know! Hey, maybe if we drop an atomic bomb on it, we could dismiss any need to determine consent, right? For all we know, the folks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki offered themselves up as kamikaze sacrifices.
Yes, I am being sarcastic to make a point that the “ability to consent” is not very rigorous nor is it always and everywhere very objective.
Well, that is typically how we libertarians define harm: a violation of rights or consent. If the action is consensual, then it is not harm. It can not be both by the way we define things.
You are assuming your premise to be true in your argument. Try to answer this: How do you determine whether someone is harmed?
If you use the “ability to consent” as the basis for your rights, you are implying that an outsider (i.e., someone other than the hypothetical victim of aggression, that outsider may be the hypothetical aggressor) needs to make a subjective judgement over the interaction between the two parties. Since you can never know the motives of an other person, that judgement may simply arise out of sheer malice and yet, still fit your criteria. The only way around this is to have an all-seeing omniscient entity that defies all natural science as a final arbitor or objective criteria.
OK but it is still open to my same criticism. Either way, we have no way of knowing whether the animal consents – or at least not yet. Maybe in years to come we will figure out a way to speak with animals or read their minds.
All I know for sure is that if I poke a mouse with a stick, it recoils. My best guess is that it is not too happy with my invasion of its body. Then again, it might be enjoying the poke – humans seem to entertain themselves with weirder things.
Why can’t animals consent? Sometimes my cat consents to being pet, sometimes it doesn’t, and it’s pretty clear about which it wants at any time.
Because when it does not want to consent, it cannot decide to consent. And vice versa, when it wants to consent, it cannot decide to withold consent.
For example, female cats wail during sex. Obviously, the female cat does not want sex. But, if it were rational, it may realize that reproduction is vital to the species, and that she should concede to it anyways. But, it does not.
Or, maybe an even better example is that animals never, ever commit suicide. They try to live no matter what. They cannot go against that instinct.
So what? I could say the same for you.
Charles,
Rights are not absolute, which is why humans came up with courts, to settle disputes. It depends on many factors as to whether rights were violated or not. This is why we do not punish someone for killing another out of self-defense.
Your post comes down to you are just harping on the fact that rights are not absolute. It does not mean we do not have rights, just because they are not absolute.
You could say that, but we know it is not true. Now you are just asking how do we know what reality is? If you believe there is no reality, then why have this conversation?
We know scientifically, that humans are human. We know that we have higher brain functions than any other animal on the planet. We know that animals can only do what their instincts tell them to do.