Do you maintain that all animals have rights? If so, please explain.
No, I don’t really subscribe to the notion of “rights” as a useful concept*, but many people do, and I believe we are speaking about them.
*Besides in the purely legal sense
so you are a legal positivist ?
Warning: nerd alert.
That reminds me of this one StarGate SG1 episode, “Pretense”. For those of you who don’t know StarGate, there are certain beings called Goa’uld, larva-like parasites, which take unwilling humanoids as hosts. They then use these humanoids to act and communicate, forcing their will unto them.
In “Pretense”, there’s an alien trial on whether a Goa’uld, Klorel, or an original host, Skarra, has the higher claim to the body. Here are some transcripts:
Skarra: I was born to this body. Free of the demon Klorel. He stole my body. On Abydos [his home planet], I would have married, had children, grown old, and died. But the Goa’uld took more than my body. He stole my life.
Goa’uld lawyer: Tell me, did the people of Abydos hunt?
Skarra: Yes.
Goa’uld lawyer: Do you also eat the flesh of humans?
Skarra: No! Never!
Goa’uld lawyer: Then you make judgment that animals have a lesser value than humans. […] but you keep them to do your will. And you kill them to survive. […] As we do with humans. When we have the need. If a human has the right to take an animal’s body as he pleases because he is a superior being, so does a Goa’uld. And by that argument alone, the Goa’uld has priority.
Jack O’Neill: Humans are self-aware. Animals aren’t.
Goa’uld lawyer: Animals are not, because you deem them not to be. Just as we deem humans not to be.
…
This episode reminded me a lot of the whole natural rights debate. So much depends on perspective.
I thought that science-fiction was, well, fiction ?
Ah but what are these humans doing in front of the Goa’uld? Like O’Neil and Carter. They are not Goa’uld but capable of rational deduction. It is not as if humans have so blindly deemed aliens unable to be self-aware like the Goa’uld have.
Very nice reference! The source of an idea does not determine its validity; we may learn much from this as a thought experiment.
Whether this is relevant to each reader depends on how they define rights and what appeals to them about their definition. Since this matter is highly splintered still on this forum, some will find this example illuminating and some won’t.
So how do you define “rights”?
Full marks for Stargate reference. Very well done.
I’m not convinced rights are a useful concept beyond their legal usage. I remain open to convincing if anyone is so inclined.
evasion much eh ?
No, I’m not a legal positivist (sorry I missed your question earlier).
And if you mean about rights, I do not adopt a rights system, but many people here do - my point in all this posting is to understand their conceptions of rights and what they hope to accomplish by adopting such rights systems. If you’d like to know what I think, as I said before, I am not convinced rights can even be usefully defined, but others seem to be and I am interested in knowing why.
Damn, I cant believe nobody said it until now…oh well, here I go then.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
That is nonsense.
Well, it seems as if no one is stepping up to my challange. I suppose it was worth the try.
So the concept of rights is useless and you personally wouldn’t even bother defining it ? Fine. Yet you also said
So you do subscribe to rights ‘in the purely legal sense’ ? Or am I misreading you ?
I wasn’t entirely clear. To be clearer, I wouldn’t be surprised if rights have could be usefully defined for legal purposes, but I would be somewhat surprised if they could be usefully defined in the “natural rights” sense. At least, I have not yet seen a convincing conception of rights. I’m all ears if there is one out there.
No. Rights are not something that are given, they are something that arise from nature. In order to be fully logically consistent, a defender of animal rights must argue for the creation of kangaroo courts, literally. All rights stem from the right to life, making the right to life the most important right. If animal rights activists do not wish to enforce the right to life, they are fools. If they do wish to enforce the right to life, they are fools.
Indeed, my post was quite relevant. And anyone will agree, if he just spents some effort to reflect on what has been said here.