Do you believe that animals have or should have rights? If so, what would those rights include?
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Do you believe that animals have or should have rights? If so, what would those rights include?
The right not to suffer at mankind's whim.
Can't think of anything else offhand.
But what is a whim? One man's whim could be another's need.
I prefer to see it from the opposite direction, not the rights of animals but the responsibilites of man ie not the right of animals not to suffer but the responsibility of modern man not to inflict unnecessary suffering. And as custodians of the planet we have a responsibilit to preserve and protect the planet and wildlife for future generations.
We are striving to become more civilized so the focus should be on how far mankind has progress since the cavemen. Not too far I would suggest, young boys still pull wings of butterflies for fun and leaders see war as a solution to problems. In bygone days there was the concept of noblesse oblige; it beholds those with power and influence to defend and help those without.
An advantage in the responsibilty vis a vis rights approach is that instead of just punishing the few who infringe on animal rights we are making all of us responsible for their protection. The "its nothing to do with me I never hurt the animal" defense no longer holds. Yes it is, you are wearing the mink coat.
No, animals have no rights.
But I have the right to know they don't have to suffer needlessly, and especially not for the pleasure of human "entertainment" nor for most human needs of comfort or luxury.
It's about human rights on behalf of pets and wildlife and even some practices used on domesticated animals.
I don't think animals have rights, or the need to not suffer. We do all kinds of things to animals for the sake of human progression. Animal testing anyone? I am not going to be nice to an animal if its suffering will lengthen my life, do something to promote health, keep me warm, or any other such form of progress. Animal suffering for entertainment has no value in our progression, so isn't really ethically meeting the above.
I do believe they should be protected but not have more rights then human beings have.Quote:
Originally Posted by Saucie
No man needs to torment any animal. Ever. He might need to eradicate dangerous, disease carrying vermin, but he can do it humanely, as befits the conduct of a human being. He might need to kill animals for food or clothing, but he can do that swiftly and painlessly. He can tame an animal and treat it as a pet, but he must not then abandon it if it is unable to fend for itself in the wild.Quote:
Originally Posted by Saucie
An animal's right not to suffer is the corrollary of mankind's duty to treat all living things considerately and with human compassion. It is not the same thing as falling victim to a cat which will torment its prey; cats know no better. We do. And we feel ill-at-ease when we learn of mistreatment, which is why we punish people who do neglect or abuse other creatures.
TYWD
I've thought about it a bit more. It seems to me an animal has a right of self-defence, a right to hunt and the right to roam wherever it may. Those are its natural rights which cannot be taken away. Other "rights" are, as Ozme says, granted by man for his own conscience's sake.
TYWD
What about animal testing? Do animals have the "right" not to be experimented on?
I say no. "Rights" is something that gets thrown around an awful lot without full consideration of what it means.
While I think testing on animals for cosmetic purposes is incredibly vain and immoral, I dont believe animals have any rights in that dept nor do I feel testing on animals for medicinal purposes is immoral or vain.
I don't believe in animals having "rights." However, there should be some consideration given to those animals which you have turned into pets. If you need to kill an animal for food, fine. If you must kill to protect yourself or other people, do it! If you kill just to watch the animal die, or torture for thrills, then you should be tossed into the zoo with the other animals. Preferably into the lions' den.
As for testing, using animals for testing cosmetics is just plain bad. They should use something really worthless, like Britney or Paris. But for medical research animal testing is sometimes essential. Sure, much can be done with computer simulations, but in order to get the data to design the simulations you have to have live testing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thorne
altho I do beleive in animal right myslef, i agree with you 100% when you say that anoyne who kills an animal justtowathc it die, for the "Thrill Of The Kill" should be placed as you suggested, just do not know if i would want to subjectthe animals to them
1 question I do have,,if you are oppsed to using rats ,mice ect for lab tests, what do you seriously suggest science use to test possible medsication, you have to use something that lives and breathes and to me logical mice, or similar woud be ideal
I would not want to suse either Britnet or Paris for this, as i would view that as a complete waste of tsting material let's sue smething of scientific value, fot testing ,the question is what??
Quote:
Originally Posted by IDCrewDawg
So we're pretty much in accord. I basically agree with your boundaries.
Do the boundaries change? For example. In the past, people harvested furs such as mink, to keep themselves warm. Now, there are ample substitutes that work as well or even better. (But let's not debate 'better'. Let's just go with that presumption in answering the question.) Is it still acceptable to harvest furs because we see them as a luxury?
Do we need to define what is a "natural right"?Quote:
Originally Posted by ThisYouWillDo
The human definition is that it is something I'm entitled to and cannot (meaning should not) be taken from me. If you apply that to animals (as you imply...)
...then it should be illegal to stop a wolf from roaming the city streets, hunting your pets, and that if a person tries to kill said wolf and gets killed by the wolf instead, the wolf should go free... after all, it was self defense.
Or are you saying these things are just the nature of animals and we can't change them... and does that mean we should allow animals to exercise these rights unfettered?
We do many things in the name of luxury. When you come right down to it, abortion is a luxury, and we as humans have the right to do it. I can't see giving an animal more rights than a fetus (potential human or human depending on your particular view).Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozme52
I have no opposition to using animals, of any kind, for MEDICAL tests. I don't consider testing of cosmetics, except in very rare circumstances, to be medically related. I do think that a lot of animal testing can be eliminated by proper use of computer simulations, but eventually you MUST perform animal, or human testing before finalizing your research.Quote:
Originally Posted by mkemse
Remember, though, that they rarely use wild animals for these furs anymore. Most real furs are from farm raised animals. (There are, of course, exceptions.) Those animals would not have been born if it weren't for those farms. I don't believe that real furs are necessary, anymore. The faux furs are quite realistic. But I don't have any objection to using the real ones if someone is silly enough to pay the price.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozme52
But the question is rarely as black and white as the boundaries you have set out here. Rarely is the choice between the animal suffering and some form of progress. Usually the choice is between animal suffering and progress costing a few pennies more. Should animals be forced to suffer when a viable but slightly more expensive alternative exists?Quote:
Originally Posted by IDCrewDawg
I agree with you to some extent. Because I view rights as contracts (you agree not to murder, so you get the right to not be murdered, etc), I do not believe animals can have rights, because they can't knowingly accept the coordinating responsibility. I support animal testing (fuck yeah, I'm an insulin-dependent diabetic, and guess how commercial insulin got developed), and as long as an animal isn't endangered and there's no cruelty involved (cruelty defined as unnecessary infliction of pain), then I'm fine with hunting, food production, and fur production.Quote:
Originally Posted by Moonraker
My big trouble is when a person's property rights conflict with an animal's interest. As a Social Contractarian with very strong Libertarian leanings, I take property rights very, very, very seriously. But I hate animal cruelty... I don't want to be inconsistent in my ethics, but on the other hand, I'm not heartless. And so I think about it, and think about it... :)
Let's not go there at all. Abortion a luxury. Even as a pro-choice advocate I can't agree with that statement.Quote:
Originally Posted by IDCrewDawg
But you've implied that animal suffering in the name of luxury is okay. How does luxury differ from entertainment? I need you to elucidate.
I'm confused by what you mean when you say "right". Would you clarify?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozme52
Good point. I usually think about furs in terms of trapping, which I don't care for... but farm-raised. Yeah. It's the same as eating meat.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thorne
Edit: And then this question popped into my mind...
So... What if you raise the dog specifically to be fought? Then why not for entertainment. Where do you draw the line? What defines cruel and unnecessary?
I agree with you almost completely. But what about property rights? Would you agree that property rights have been critical to our social progress? And if so, what happens when a person's property rights conflict with society's overwhelming emotional response to an animal's pain? (ie, the Vicks dogfighting scandal) Which do you prefer when in conflict, the owner or the animal?Quote:
Originally Posted by IDCrewDawg
What is a "natural right"? Where would it come from? Whose responsibility would it be to enforce those rights? Can they be taken away for any reason, and if so, how? People use that phrase all the time, and to be honest, I have no idea what it means in concrete terms. Would you clarify?Quote:
Originally Posted by ThisYouWillDo
I would say yes, it is acceptable. I believe that once we start claiming things are luxuries and then claiming they're unnecessary, and then claiming that we shouldn't have them... I believe it would become a slippery slope. A guitar would be a luxury for a starving refugee, but it's a necessity for someone who loves to play. Can we tell him he can't have his guitar because it means cutting down a tree?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozme52
Quote:
Originally Posted by Saucie
Rights are strictly a concept born of our self-aware, intellegent minds.
If man didn't exist, there would be no entity on earth (as far as we know) to contemplate animal rights. Carnivores would prey on smaller carnivores and herbivores. Including stealing and consuming new borns, the elderly and weak. No right to live, no right to pursue happiness, no right to "liberty" lol, no concept of liberty, let alone rights.
Rights are strictly human, a human construct and in my opinion strictly about us dealing with each other. That's why "animal rights" is about my personal sensibilities with regard to what is and isn't acceptable treatment of animals.
Perhaps. If testing on animals means that a certain medication is less expensive, and the woman with no insurance can afford to buy it, then wouldn't that outweigh an animal's suffering? I say let the testers do as they will, and those labs that use animals less, or more humanely, or whatnot, will make certain that consumers know about it. (Case in point: organic groceries.) Then, consumers can choose products based on their own personal ethics and incomes.Quote:
Originally Posted by fantassy
That question only mattered "the day after" society's response to animal pain, (when inflicted by dogfighting,) first became illegal. Perhaps those who already had property raised specifically for dogfighting deserved some kind of compensation. Thereafter, there is no excuse, you know the law, owning for that purpose is illegal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Saucie
No more than I have the right to drive my property through a schoolzone at highspeed.
Ah, the state of nature. :D I'm such a Hobbes/Locke/Rousseau groupie. Anyway, I agree with this post completely. For some reason, in your other post, I thought you were saying something else entirely. My mistake.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozme52
But I'm asking a different question. I'm asking if it was ethical, or politically justifiable, to make it illegal in the first place.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozme52
Quote:
Originally Posted by Saucie
Only if you also believe in "plant rights" and feel it is cruel to harvest a tree... presuming it wasn't specifically planted to raise wood. :rolleyes:
It really isn't an appropriate analogy.
Well, there are some who actually feel that strongly about cutting down trees. Granted, there aren't tons of them, but they do exist.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozme52
I could agree that it isn't the best analogy. But what do you think about the point I was arguing?
Was the Emancipation Proclamation ethical or politically justifiable? Even though before that, slaves were property? Of course.Quote:
Originally Posted by Saucie
All laws, including those protecting our own human rights, are ethical by definition.
LIKE "rights", "ethics" is also a human construct. Sometimes we're wrong... or perhaps it would be better to say sometimes our sense of right and wrong changes.
You were arguing the issue of the necessity of luxuries and who defines it. But you were arguing against my specific question to ID. I happen to agree with your point. (but not with using the guitar v. tree analogy. LOL)Quote:
Originally Posted by Saucie
The philosopher Janet Radcliffe Richards mentioned in an interview I heard that if we accept the theory of evolution, there's nothing specific that sets all of humanity apart from animals. As research, (and time) progresses the known differences will be less and less.
This makes making different laws governing humans and animals impossible. Making special laws for humans gets stuck on purely superficial properties.
Animal Rights people seem to be more into which animals are the fluffiest and have the cutest eyes. Where is the organisation fighting for the rights of endangered insects? Bats? Sharks? Who cares about respecting the privacy of earth worms when they mate? And then where the difference between animals and microbes? Do we have to care about the "feelings" of bacteria.
We cannot empathise with a cat or a dolphin. We live in completely different perceptive realities. Their universe is different from ours. They love differently. When they come and rub up against us, we have no idea what it means to them. We have no idea how they suffer and why. We have no idea how they perceive pain. If they remember it and if it is traumatic for them.
Assuming humans alone have consciousness and saying our actions are guided by free will which makes us different, is making things way too easy for oneself. This is an extremely difficult subject right now.
Is the computer program:
If stimuli > 10
then computer = pain
...experiencing real pain? Is pain simply a information feedback system? Why should we care?
That said, I'm playing the hypocrite card. I just don't care enough about them... and lamb is so very tasty. As far as animal rights are concerned humanity has always been on the level of might makes right, and most people, (including me) seems to be cool about that. Maybe it'll change, maybe not? But I'm adamant about not giving up my fillet because some tree-huggers hypothetical theory on the feelings of animals. Maybe I'm just a negative Nancy? Maybe I'm just greedy and want to keep my tasty fishes? Maybe might gives right? Maybe?
There are no inate rights. Historically almost all rights have been granted after a struggle of some form and rights can just as easily be taken away. Yes, it's impossible for animals to have rights since they cannot come to the bargaining table and consent to the "contract". It's possible I guess to appoint a body as their spokesperson with "power of attorney" as another poster implied. But we are going into murky legal waters and begging the question by what right does this group speak for animals. What next, the right of trees not to be cut?Quote:
Originally Posted by Saucie
This is why I prefer to approach the problem from the other side of the coin and agree with Ozme, that we should have the right to have a clean conscience and to pass onto our children a world with animals . We pay taxes for governments to pass the laws we want and create the society we want to live in.
It seems to me that there is a tendency to take a word, make it fashionable and then misuse the word in another context. Animal "rights" being the case in point. Democracy is another word that seems to be a recent fashion word. Maybe a simple thing like using different terminology could clear up much confusion regarding many issues.
Personally I can see no need for any cruelty to animals. I once read that the total cost of the space program over the first decade was less than what american women spent on cosmetics in any single year. If we can develop technology to put a man on the moon I can't see it as beyond our ability to make animal testing a thing of the past.
And while we're at it, let's broaden the topic of animal cruelty. If somebody burned your home and crops you'd find that pretty cruel. So what about man encroaching on animal habitat and food supplies. And the converse of course, what about your right to defend yourslef from animals eating your crops and living in your home. I mention this one because it is often used by fox hunters in my country, ah the foxes eat the chickens so we have to chase after them in our finery on horses to kill them and smear their blood over out childrens faces.
oops posted same post twice. Trigger happy. How to delete a post I wonder?
Another things is that capitalism will sort all this out anyway. When we reach 60 billion people on earth, (should be around 2050 or so) eating meat will be so expensive that nobody can afford it. Meat takes 10 times the resources than a vegetarian diet. An other alternative is growing muscle in in vitro, without any connection to any conscious brain. I'm certain this will not only be doable, will happen soon, but also be so much more cheaper and tastier, living animals won't be able to "compete". They'll all be zoo and wildlife park attractions.
That's at least my vision of the future.
BTW I have several relatives who are not only scientists but have worked with animal experimentation. It's cruel, it's horrible for them. But they go to extreme lengths to minimize the suffering. And rather them than me having to suffer through some horrible medicine experimentation. One of the research projects was researching a type of muscle in the mouth of the mouse lung, which corresponding muscle is responsible for infant cot death. I'd like a animal rights activist look a parent in the eye who's lost their children to this, and say that research should seize. The same research on humans would of course be illegal, and without animal experimentation, it wouldn't be possible.
There are many who have no qualms about looking people straight in the eye as their bombs kill hundreds of thousands and they send people of to possible death. Perhaps an activist will come up with a come up with a slick term like collateral damage or friendly fire. The key difference being the cot death is nature at work and the other case is man at work.Quote:
Originally Posted by TomOfSweden
Yes death is sad and it's hard to look any grieving parent in the eye but the world is full of tough choices. My problem with your example is it justifies cruelty if for a good cause. Parallel arguments are used for torture of prisoners. Perhaps "No" should mean No and not "No unless".
Animals raised for their fur or meat are, we would hope, killed as humanely as possible, not made to suffer through long hours of vicious biting and clawing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozme52
But if you are going to stop raising animals for entertainment, what about race horses? They are bred for one purpose, so humans can gamble and be entertained. Even worse, what about circus animals? There are many animals which are treated poorly, if not inhumanely, by mankind. This doesn't necessarily imply that they should have "rights." It only underscores man's inhumanity.