Animal Rights?

[Saucie]

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 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?