This question is directed towards those who say that all animals have rights, but anyone is welcome to respond.
If all animals have rights, why stop there? Why not argue that all eukaryota have rights? Why can’t fungi, amoebozoa, plantae, chromalveolata, rhizaria, and excavata have rights?
My question to those who believe in animal rights is: Since animals have rights, will you put lions on trial for murder?
How is this one for an equivalent argument: "If all humans have rights, why stop there? Why not argue that all animals have rights? "
Because humans have characteristics that other animals do not such as free will, the ability to communicate, and to troll internet forums.
It depends on what each person’s reasons are for assigning animals rights (or for enforcing/exercising inherent rights).
For instance, if Person A assigns all animals rights because seeing any animal needlessly harmed affects Person A’s sense of empathy, then it’s perfectly logical for that person to exclude fungi if Person A does not feel empathy for fungi when they are needlessly harmed.
A right implies a raison d’être. Every person who adopts a right must have a reason why they find that right appealing. They must have reasons why they feel that right is worth enforcing.
If their reasons center on their sense of empathy, which I assume is true of most animal rights advocates, then your question is more relevantly (for them) stated as,
“If you feel empathy for all animals, why stop there? Why not feel empathy for all eukaryota? Why don’t you feel empathy for fungi, amoebozoa, plantae, chromalveolata, rhizaria, and excavata?”
If you want to start a new thread on that topic, go ahead. Please do not derail this thread. Thank you.
Nice trolling, yes.
So ? What new information do you think you are providing ?
Yes, animal rights advocates ‘feel’ that their nonsense is right. Also, they feel no empathy for humans who are not willing to follow their orders. People like Rochester don’t mind using violence against humans who don’t share their touchy-feely ideas about dogs.
Because that’s not useful for justifying their power-mongering.
Depends on the reason why the person wishes to enforce animal rights. If the person’s sense of empathy really is severely offended by every single act of coercion - even in the wild - then logically that person may indeed wish that they could put lions on trial, although they may see the practical infeasibility of that. A believer in animal rights may be more nuanced as well, perhaps deciding that we should for practical reasons leave non-humans to fight amongst themselves, but should enforce laws against needless human cruelty to animals.
In other words, the fact that animal rights seems to lead to absurd situations is more a problem with the notion of rights (or the peculiarity of each person’s reason for adopting said rights) than with the idea of whether animals have (or should have) them or not.
uh oh. So you think that IDIOTS misusing a system proves the system is absurd ?
No new information, just pointing out something that the OP, from the way it’s phrased, appears to have forgotten. In particular, the point of contention appears to be…
…that their sense of empathy is screwed up. In other words, we are acting as if the point of contention is about the more complex concept of rights, when it’s really just the simpler concept of sense of empathy.
Yeah, so you’re saying their sense of empathy is distorted, that they really should feel more empathy toward humans than animals. I prefer to phrase it this way because the point of contention now is crystal clear, and Rochester can now argue why his sense of empathy is or is not messed up, or alternatively he can try to argue that it doesn’t matter because it’s all up to the individual. But at least this way the argument is down to simpler concepts that invite less misunderstanding.
Are you saying that rights are based on “feelings”?
I think anyone building an argument around ill-defined (or unagreed-upon) concepts will invite absurd conclusions.
Or, again, the problem is not the concept but people who fail to grasp it.
I’m saying some people do in fact use feelings to determine whether to believe in or adopt rights.
Okay. Wait and see =]
True, many people believe in nonsense based on feelings.
Do not your senses of empathy and justice figure into how appealing you find your own conception of rights?
Why should it? Anyway, we are going off topic.
I’m not saying it should, just asking. And I think this is very core of the topic you originally raised in the OP.