Seems you are mixing rights with ethics. Rights are the rules that help men to settle conflicts about scares resources. Scarce resources from the perspective of human beings, not any other lifeform. Following this approach animals can not have rights at all, because you can not communicate rules to settle conflicts over scarce resources with animals using a method that relies on the human mind - which rights are.
He does not say killing animals is ok, that is an ethical question and has nothing todo with rights at all. He said animals have no rights.
To us animals are a resource we destroy if required to survive, and vice verca for some species. Rights have no meaning in such a relationship. Rights are an interhuman concept to provide non-violent or minimal-violant ways to settle conflicts over scarce resources.
Uh, I don’t know why I am doing this. Either you are sadist, or you are joking or you are just trolling.
No, I am not mixing those two, or rather - yes and no. The discussion was first about law , but then turned into ethics.
But anyway, I don’t subsrcibe to that definition of rights and to be honest - no one ought to. A right is possibility to act in a certain way, it may or may not relate to scarce resources. Limiting rights to property is absurd. Or do you think that punching a human in the face doesn’t violate any rights? You should think so, if you insist on your definition of rights.
Ok, given your native language is not english, neither is mine, I will look over the ad hominem argument that I should think before I talk. Guess what, I thought a lot and, even more, I read a lot about what others thought. So bear with me I am not just throwing ill thought sentences into threats -most of the time
Now, it is liberalism 101 that each human being is a self-owner. You own yourself, I own myself. That have property in myself as well as you have property in yourself. Now, guess what happens if you would try to punch me in the face? Right, you have or are threatening to harm my property. You have no right to do so, because my face is not your property but mine. We learn it in the kindergarten over here, “mine and thine”.
As you can see, I do not have to think punching another human being is not violating rights. In fact it is the most serious violation of rights one can think of, because the scarcest resource you have on earth is yourself. You, as every other human being is the most scarce thing for themselves.
Loosing the property onyourself is another word for death-literal. This I think is meant with the word inalienable. You can not give up your self-ownership unless you kill yourself. Others will try to make you act for sure, but the very fact that they have to use violence as a last ressort show they can not make you do something. If they could, no need to aggress. If I could you make me hand your money I would not need to put a gun on your head to try to convince you to give it to me
- The United States has sharply reduced air pollution levels, despite large increases in nominally “polluting” activities - Areas in the United States with the highest pollution levels have improved the most - Air quality in the United States will continue to improve - Regulators and environmental activists exaggerate air pollution levels and obscure positive trends in the United States - Air pollution affects far fewer people, far less often, and with far less severity than is commonly believed.
- People around the world are becoming healthier, wealthier, better educated, more peaceful, and increasingly connected and they are living longer. - Net forest loss continues to decline globally and has been reversed in Asia. - Net deforestation in Brazil has fallen by two-thirds over the last four years. - In the eastern United States, recent EPA data show a 60-percent reduction in sulfur-dioxide levels since the year 2000. - In Los Angeles, air-quality regulators reported a significant decline in health risk from air pollution. - The United States is now gaining wetlands. - Rare fish species have been observed returning to the Detroit River for the first time in nearly a century.
Giles, what that article doesn’t consider, is that nowadays many resources are misallocated, due to the socialization of most natural resources (land, air, water). We could conclude that the prices of polluting goods are lower that they would be, ceteris paribus, in a private-property driven world. What government don’t realize is that they are, somehow, trying to counter-balance this effect.
I haven’t written much on how a private market would curtail the emissions of pollutants. I have written extensively, however, on how private property prevents deforestation (please see: Forestation through the Free-Market), since I have first hand experience with the topic. It’s important to remember that businesses aim to lose the minimum possible as waste, and therefore in the long-run there would be a self-imposed effort to reduce on waste emissions because it would be far more profitable to utilize resources in the most efficient manner possible. Government regulation is retarding that effort.
Belive it or not, it was not an ad hominem, or at leat not intentional. Nevertheless, if it offended you, I am sorry.
Frankly, I have never gotten to grisp with this…habit of explaining everything in terms ownership and property. It produces exactly the kind of twisted binary mindset “owner-property and nothing between” I wrote about above. Not to mention that it is a legal contradiction in terms to own self, but nevermind, I guess everybody is entitled to his own terminology.
So, here’s what Rothbard thinks about human rights and why animals don’t have them: "They are grounded in the nature of man: the individual man’s capacity for conscious choice, the necessity for him to use his mind and energy to adopt goals and values, to find out about the world, to pursue his ends in order to survive and prosper, his capacity and need to communicate and interact with other human beings and to participate in the division of labor. In short, man is a rational and social animal. No other animals or beings possess this ability to reason, to make conscious choices, to transform their environment in order to prosper, or to collaborate consciously in society and the division of labor."
I can acutally agree with that*.* That’s exactly why animals don’t own themselves and don’t have property rights. And why on the other hand they cannot be responsible for their behaviour. What Rothbard probably didn’t realize is that by such statements, he actually advocates the right of animals not to be treated cruelly. Just as the ability to make conscious choices logically entitles a creature to self-ownership and property rights, so the ability to feel pain entitles a creature to be spared unnecessary cruelty.
The animals’ inability to go to courts which Rothbard cynically taunts_: There is, in fact, rough justice in the common quip that “we will recognize the rights of animals whenever they petition for them.” The fact that animals can obviously not petition for their “rights” is part of their nature, and part of the reason why they are clearly not equivalent to, and do not possess the rights of, human beings.[3] And if it be protested that babies can’t petition either, the reply of course is that babies are future human adults, whereas animals obviously are not._ has nothing to do with the existence of the right. Analogically, I could say that anarcho-capitalists do have the right to seceed, why of course, as long as they can defend against the armoured division we’re sending there. Haha, rough justice, shit happens, right Murray? And by the way his second argument is void anyway. Children may eventually grow up to being able to fullfil his criteria, but what about seriously retarded people? He should have considered them things since they are not and never will be able to make conscious choices or participate in the division of labour, if he wanted to be consistent.
Rothbard clearly states They are grounded in the nature of man: the individual man’s capacity for conscious choice. So, being a member of the same species as creatures that is capable of those things doesn’t entitle you to anything. It’s individual.
And I am pretty sure that any neurologist or psychiatrist will tell you that under certain IQ level , there is no chance of bringing the person to normal life. They are educable to limitied extent, even a person with very low cognitive abilities can be brought from mindlessly staring to clapping hands more or less in rythm when listening to music, but that’s about it. He will not be able to make conscious rational choices or to participate in division of labour.
I’m not talking about “entitlement”. I don’t know where that’s coming from and why that’s even coming up.
The person is, well, a person. You don’t know what they are or not capable of seeing that they are human. To conflate what presently happens (according to your example) with “never will happen” - a future contingent event is to not delineate logical boundaries between what is and what potentially is.
Entitlement, well, the natural rights, the famous self-ownership. Rothbard derives them from the abilities to that stuff.Ok, doctors may discover how to perform brain transplantation, or a miracle can happen or whatever, but at the moment they do not meet his criteria. Seems to me he made the stuff about “potentially able to do that stuff” in order to avoid looking like the actual beast.
Nowhere, he “just” says, “well if you can’t really help it, no big deal, they’re just noise making rocks.”
Kind of like “No, I don’t tell people “enslave/murder others”. I am just saying they have a right to do it.” Completely immaculate. Really, the more I know about this Rothbard guy, the less I like him.
No. potential and actual is logically based upon human nature/action that has been discussed by Aristotle, Aquinas, and others. It’s nothing new. I suggest you learn a common, general logic term: contingent.
that doesn’t say “be cruel to animals”.
The problem is - you’re making up stuff that can only originate in you. So since Rothbard didn’t say “be cruel to animals”, but you pretend he did. I can only assume it is your desire to be cruel to animals. We can innocently call this projecting or ignorance of a subject, either one.
So, where is the line in this potentiality/actuality scheme? The animals undoubtably posses the potentiality to evolve into more conscious forms of life. Well, unless a part of Rothbard’s doctrine is strict creationsim. Why did he draw the line where he did? Kind of arbitrary, no?
No, but he justifies it. If he at least said? “It’s wrong, but we have no title to intervene.” then I could go with it. I would disagree, but I would go with that. But no, he directly justifies it by saying that animals are things.
I haven’t said he said “be cruel to animals”. Tho closest I came to such statement, was when I said that Daniel thinks it’s okay to kill animals. Which is actually pretty far from it.
Edit: also, how about adressing my main point instead of this?
It stops with humans or any life form that can intellectually realize, maybe AI someday who knows, maybe monkey’s will evolve into a new species and an addition of another Homo genus will be added to the Linnaeus system. If you think evolutionary biology, natural history, and the Linnaeus system is arbitrary then continue that line of argumentation down at the biology department at some local university.
No he doesn’t.
Your problem is with people that do.
You’re conflating known natural law (ie. property rights, liberty, etc…) with Rothbard. When you come up with your own interpretation/insight of what negative/natural law (as opposed to positivism), and use logic that doesn’t deconstruct but is constructive, then you might have something - but you currently don’t.
It’s a question of law. Your beef is with natural/negative law or the failing of humanity in general to gain the insight into what negative justice (liberty) there is, not Rothbard.
Rothbard is of the neo- Aristotle tradition in which natural law is understood not only of human nature but the natural order, that Linnaeus made even more accurate than Aristotle or Aquinas, is understanding of species, genus, and any other biological pursuits. “things” is vague. I am a “thing” too. Everything is a “thing”. You are reaching for straws. No need for me to continue. I have more to learn and I suggest you do the same. I am being polite in suggesting this.
very good. Free-will still exists with somebody other than myself in this discussion.[:)]
I don’t know what your main point is. I think you went upon a tangent to blame a person about something he, as far as I know, never said. Rothbard may have been an animal lover. Saved cats from trees, who knows. Have you read his biography? I haven’t.
This is actually you justifying being cruel to animals based upon Rothbards authority.
I love my animals. I protect them, I feed them, I given them attention, and punish them. They still have no rights. Rothbard doesn’t justify cruelty he simply says animals have no rights. In this he is correct. When I can talk to my dogs about their rights I will set them free to live their own lives, until then I will do as I please with them, for they are my property, and as such I am responsible for their behavior.
How can my animals have rights when if they harm another person, I am liable for the damage? This also holds true for wild animals as well, since no one can be held responsible for the damage they might do.
I would protect a dog that was being tortured, but that doesn’t mean the dog has rights, it just means that I value a dog more than a human that is torturing it.
If I rescue the dog, guess who becomes responsible?
That’s a fairly bizarre conception of what a right is.
As has been previously pointed out you are conflating rights with ethics. I may have a right to protect my kin or property with lethal force, however it may not always be ethical to do so depending on circumstances.
Put another way something merely being unethical is insufficient justification for initiation of force to prevent it.
As well, something merely being ethical is insufficient justification for the initiation of force to compel it.
This is a necessary consequent to the fact that we all do not agree on every facet of what are valid ethics.
That said I think that torturing animals is horrible, and unethical.
I would even go so far as to suggest that the expression of pain, which I do not find convincing is inadequately communicated, is enough to demonstrate volition and lack of consent. Similarly I think the fact that they voluntarily seek and seem to enjoy ‘slavery’ indicates being owned isn’t a problem for them.So, hypothetically, enslaving an animal doesn’t violate the NAP wrt animals but torture does. As a consequentialist libertarian I think consent is the key and it must be communicated, and I think it may be a bit specious to act as if we don’t understand animals consent or strenuous expressions of non consent.
But unless I can convince all humansof this, the issue of animal rights is a non start, and I think the far greater wrong is to err against clearly demonstrable denied consent of humans.
The issue does get a lot more uncomfortable when the animal can be reasonably observed to have language, like chimps.
In an anarcho-capitalist society, where courts are private, I imagine that damages would include not only the immediate market value of the goods, but some recompense for its value to the future as well. In other words, a man whose trees died could receive money for the lumber that could’ve been produced, and damages for the future trees that could’ve been grown from the present stock and harvested at some later point. This is only speculation, though, as courts would rule based on what consumers find to be just.
