Animal Rights?

[Ozme52]

Okay, you want to use natural rights to mean animal behaviour. That's a totally different conversation.

If you mean there are certain animal behaviours that man should acknowledge as a right that should be protected... well... I'm willing to go down a list if you want to discuss which ones I think should and shouldn't be conferred.

I believe man has a duty to treat all animals compassionately

All animals?

Are you including mosquitos, ticks, chiggers, fleas and bedbugs? Do you yourself treat them with compassion>

Are you including tunicates, sponges, and barnicles? Why must I have compassion for a sessile sea creature?

[ThisYouWillDo]

Okay, you want to use natural rights to mean animal behaviour. That's a totally different conversation.

If you mean there are certain animal behaviours that man should acknowledge as a right that should be protected... well... I'm willing to go down a list if you want to discuss which ones I think should and shouldn't be conferred.


All animals?

Are you including mosquitos, ticks, chiggers, fleas and bedbugs? Do you yourself treat them with compassion>

Are you including tunicates, sponges, and barnicles? Why must I have compassion for a sessile sea creature?

That's right, animal behaviour: their (and our) natural right.

I don't believe animals should have any legal rights because it would be pointless. I do believe mankind should be forced by law to observe certain standards of behaviour towards them, however, which gives animals "reflected" legal rights, if you like. I expect we would be in broad agreement what those should be.

Yes: ALL animals. If a mosquito is squashed for biting you, or because it is a malaria risk, that's one thing, and we can kill it for our own self-protection; but if its proboscis, wings and legs are torn off while it lives, for idle amusement, that's quite another.

One should have compassion for any living thing one is able to empathise with.


Quote: by Tom:

Originally Posted by ThisYouWillDo

This bring me back to the beginning of this thread: do, or should animals have rights: I believe man has a duty to treat all animals compassionately, and where laws have been passed to protect animals from abuse, this is a good thing and the laws should be enforced.

This brings up the constant question where this duty comes from? A duty is something we're bound moraly or legaly to do. Who's law are we talking about? who's morals? If it's up to humans to decide it isn't a duty, but your opinion.

I stated a belief: I believe that ...

But where a formal jurisdicition imposes laws, or where convention applies a moral code to protect animals, then it is to those laws and conventions I allude. I am not questioning their validity.

TYWD