Animal Rights?

[Ozme52]

I would say yes the Emancipation Proclamation was justifiable, because before the slaves were prevented from making contracts, gaining rights, etc., which they were mentally capable of. Disallowing them rights was an initiation of force, in the same way as if a man with a shotgun prevented people from going into a polling booth.

No. The guy with the shotgun was going against the law (at the time) and was being unethical. Those who owned slaves were 100% ethical within the belief system at that time. We believe today that those beliefs were wrong. Our ethics have changed. They are malleable based on knowledge, culture, and beliefs.

And yes, the Emancipation Proclomation was ethical... and if not for the civil war, if it had been passed beforehand, compensation to "property" owners, (i.e., slave owners,) would have been part of the new law. It was or had been under discussion in Congress. Owning slaves, prior to the civil war was considered ethical in the south.

I would completely disagree with the statement that all laws are ethical by definition. Unless, of course, we have radically different ideas about ethics, which is plausible.

I think you're arguing what is and isn't ethical... and I'm arguing about the defintion of ethics.

(Though I admit I raised the question 'was the Emancipation Proclamation ethical' in the prior post... but that was in response to your previous post.... the threads or the conversation grow fuzzy in my mind. lol)

Well sure, rights and ethics are both human constructs. But what does that change? Why is that so significant?

It's significant if you believe in innate 'animal rights' as opposed to whether any rights they have are at our descretion.

I went back and looked at your intial question.

Do you believe that animals have or should have rights? If so, what would those rights include?

I don't think we can get to the question "should have rights" until we agree whether or not they have innate rights... and that's what the thread is churning over.