If an animal makes a decision to run away from its owner, is it a violation of its rights to take it back?
I don’t really consider this a big issue, but does a dog that runs away from its owner have negative liberties? Or is it incapable of making a choice to free itself?
It doesn’t own itself. Mother earth/God/Randomness/the Universe made animals for our use. When’s the last time you saw a wolf thinking about the rights of it’s prey? When’s the last time a wolf thought about self ownership? These concepts don’t exist with other animals, only humans.
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Morality is that set of principles of action that state that you cannot hurt other agents, or their property, who participate in society; for doing so must be detrimental to society.
Agents that can participate in society are so-called ‘moral agents’. An agent is a being that can act. The second quality is that the agent should be able to understand the consequences of its actions. Finally, and most importantly, it should be capable to act in such a way as to not hurt other moral agents (other participants of society), or their property.
http://www.vforvoluntary.com/wiki/MoralityFromASocietalPerspective
Dogs aren’t capable of understanding the consequences of their actions to the degree that prevents them from hurting members of our society. For example, it will run into the street and cause accidents.
So a dog, like most other animals, can be owned, even if they want to run away.
Humans aren’t capable of understanding the consequences of their actions in all situations either. By this logic, beings of higher intelligence would be able to legitimately own us if they could predict our actions better than we could.
I prefer Hoppe’s AE on this issue btw.
Note the bolded.
Dogs aren’t capable of understanding the consequences of their actions to the degree that prevents them from hurting members of our society. For example, it will run into the street and cause accidents.
But that would mean that people with some sort of mental disorder, say down syndrome, could be treated like dogs and it would be morally justifiable.
No;
Many children with Down Syndrome who have received family support, enrichment therapies, and tutoring have been known to graduate from high school and college, and enjoy employment in the work force.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome
People who are so unintelligent that they need to be escorted through traffic and-the-like are actually owned. Someone else takes over the responsibility for them and become responsible for them. In the same way young children are owned.
So the question is whether or not animals in general think about self-ownership?
Animals think. They also try to defend themselves. They also have a sense of possession and need to protect their young and their own species. If animals see their offspring as their property, why can’t they also see themselves as their property?
The issue is that they don’t see you as owning yourself (let alone your property). Do you think a wolf is capable of having a peaceful stroll around a shopping mall?
People who are so unintelligent that they need to be escorted through traffic and-the-like are actually owned. Someone else takes over the responsibility for them and become responsible for them. In the same way young children are owned.
So, since a dog can be considered property and from a libertarian perspective we’re allowed to treat our property any way we please, would it be morally justifiable to put a dog down if it, for example, hurts a child? And would the same count for a mentally challenged human?
I don’t presume to know what a wolf is thinking. Enough of this ethics dribble; but that’s just my preference.
But if you want my serious answer, when a creature becomes capable of what we think of soley as human action, then I will recognize it.
So you’re talking about the ability to avoid harmful accidents. But humans make mistakes all the time.
A computer makes calculations.
My calculator makes calculations.
Why can’t I go on the internet using my calculator?
Making absurd generalizations never helps your cause. Of course humans make mistakes and of course animals can think. This does not mean that mistakes or thinking are on the same level or happen at the same frequency between different species.
The internet was an invention, self-ownership is not. I’m not asking whether basketballs or popsicles own themselves. I’m asking whether distant relatives of the human race do. And if it’s purely a question of thinking, or intelligence, then can we put dumb animals in zoos but not intelligent ones?
There is no doubt that many animals are treated with cruelty. So shouldn’t advocates of freedom question the justification of this?
The thing that dogs are missing is the ability to conceptualize property rights and self-ownership of others. Dogs can’t even understand a language.
(Bonobos actually can understand a language
)
The reason humans can conceptualize these things is because it is useful to them, because they are capable of being part of a society.
Re: accidents,
Causing potential harm to others is actually criminal ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangerment ), and in a free society people would contract against it and they would be economically punished for it otherwise too.
What about a human being who didn’t even think about rights, but by coincidence posed no harm to others?
But understanding rights is what you propose is a precondition for having them?
I know there are pragmatic things you can do about it. I’m focusing on its relationship with rights.
You have dual criteria - understanding rights, and understanding how to abide by those rights “well enough”. I’m a litle concerned because the latter is fuzzy.
That would make for an interesting science-fiction story. 
/off_topic
And I claim that what differentiates them from us is not their origin but rather the functions their organism can accomplish. Dogs are not self-owners because they can’t even conceptualize this notion in the same way my calculator is not generally considered a computer because of its limited functions.
It is useless to agree some organism have rights and abilities they cannot understand or possess. If we agree dogs are self-owners, they won’t act as self-owners.
I don’t think it would be morally justifiable to destroy someone else’s living property unless it’s in self-defense.
This. I couldn’t have said it better myself.