Last year Leona Helmsley left $12 million to her dog, Trouble, setting off a heated courtroom battle. California just passed a proposition that says farm animals must be humanely caged. The legal line between humans and animals is blurring further everyday. When it comes to "animal rights," should your cocker spaniel be entitled to the same freedoms and protections as your kid?
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Animals Should Have Rights Similar To the Rights We Have
- From Bob Torres
By Bob Torres - Author
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People are Animals!
Really, it seems most of us forget this very simple point- we are "human" animals.
The one thing that really separates humans from our fellow critters is us saying we are separate. We cannot prove human-animals are more intelligent, more capable of love or sorrow, or even more apt to enjoy life.
- M3house
November 18, 2008 11:09AM
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Yes, but Animals are Not People
People are animals, true, but the notion that it is impossible to prove that humans are more intelligent with more complex emotions is absurd. The human brain has been proven vastly more capable of thought, emotion, reason, language, and ability to understand life than other animals. Even chimpanzees, our closest relative in the animal kingdom, are far less capable than humans. Arguing that just because humans are also animals means that all animals are equal is ridiculous, and driven purely by emotion.
- richardsonkr
December 3, 2008 2:53PM
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Hostile Environment
I think the question itself is antagonistic and combative. People who frame the animal rights issue in this way do not want to deal with the real aspects of responsibility involved with this issue. By asking this question they are attempting to trivialize the subject and subjects. Most of them knowing full well that it is a subtle form of hostility to ask such a ridiculous question. These people who ask if animals should have the exact same rights as humans are the same people who ask...Should carrots have rights too?
- Phat P
November 18, 2008 8:07PM
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Animal Rights
I believe that animals should have rights, you don't know what you're talking about when you say "These people who ask if animals should have the exact same rights as humans are the same people who ask...Should carrots have rights too?" Carrots are NOT sentient, animals ARE sentient... they think, they feel happiness, sadness, love, fear, infact the only thing they lack is the ability to vocalise with humans!
I have chosen 'yes' on here, but I believe that animals SHOULD have rights similar to Human Rights
- veganpanda
December 3, 2008 2:06PM
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Animals are not sentient!
The brains of many animals are incapabable of any emotion at all! Any perceived emotion by humans is a projection of self onto them by humans. The few that are capable of emotion are hardly capable of the complexities of the human brain, displaying only the very primitive emotions of fear, anger, and excitement. Some animals, such as fish and worms, don't even feel pain! Animals think little, feel little, and are not sentient beings. This is not emotion talking, this is science.
- richardsonkr
December 3, 2008 4:13PM
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They are!
I've met numerous animals in my live. dogs, cats, horses, etc.. and everytime i've met one, i tried to communicate.. and hey, there was no problem. EVERYONE who ever had an animal KNOWS that every animal has its own personality, habits and even opinions... but even if this wasn't true, you said, that they have "primitive emotions" as fear.. well, that's true. They fear death, pain and torture the same as humans.. for me, that means that we should not kill or harm an animal..
- Lo0m
December 8, 2008 12:45AM
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Wrong Question
I think you're right. The way the question is being presented doesn't really address the issue properly.
Of course there are differences between human beings and animals. The question should be simply stated as "Should animals have rights?". I'm sure many of the responses would be different.
I am without a doubt very concerned about animal rights, but I am realistic enough to know that there is a difference between human beings and animals.
My concern is that we need to abolish the acts of cruelty that exist with respect to the treatment of farm animals, as well as our domesticated pets and research animals.
- LORIMAR10
March 3, 2009 8:02AM
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Come now..
Do animals pay taxes? Write novels? Bake cakes? Study law and discover laws of thermodynamics?
See the thing is that if animals should have 'similar rights' to us then they should be like us themselves. Which obviously..they are not.
- zebrakin
November 23, 2008 6:31PM
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Put it in the correct context.....
Zebrakin,
The rights that should be afforded animals have nothing to do with writing novels or studying thermodynamics. You are also missed the ways that they are similar to us in the ways that they have have emotions, feel pain. are sentient, live individual lives with individual experiences.
The rights that should be afforded to animals are the basic rights to live on their own terms without being enslaved, abused and tortured.
Rights to live their own lives without being used for our purposes.
- Jadedshade
December 1, 2008 2:43AM
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Rights to live their own lives without being used for our purposes
Jadedshade,
If we humans would do as you ask and give the animals - ..."Rights to live their own lives without being used for our purposes." - it will cause their extinction.
Given the fact that for thousands of years we humans have been domesticating these same animals for various purposes - in the food chain - think meat , cheese, milk and butter, wool, leather, next to the pets we keep at home, what will happen to all these animals when we stop their use in our lives? Let them starve and let them take care of themselves? And perhaps castrate them all so that they cannot procreate?
And yes, we made the choice so long ago - to take care of these animals while using what they could give us - food and loving pets. It's more abusing than using these days - I agree with this, and am absolutely against many practices of mass production and awful way of existence today, but, than still - should we let them all die, and from today on declare the entire world vegan?
- Panther
April 1, 2009 4:47PM
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Zebrakin
Quote:
"Do animals pay taxes? Write novels? Bake cakes? Study law and discover laws of thermodynamics? See the thing is that if animals should have 'similar rights' to us then they should be like us themselves. Which obviously..they are not."
Can babies, some mentally challenged people, or the severely senile? The answer is no. It would follow, then, that these humans should not have "similar rights" as you and I - to vote, for example. You are stating a fact, which is derived from the nature (e.g., intellectually) of the individual being considered.
Re-read Mr. Torres' and Mr. Prescott's response to this question (and my challenge to it as a straw man) and you will better understand why your argument doesn't carry the critical weight that you believe it does.
- Alex M
December 1, 2008 8:24AM
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ANIMALS ARE NOT PEOPLE!!!
Animals do NOT have signifigant emotions, do NOT sentient, and do NOT have any kind of understanding of self! The only generalization that is made about animals to justify the idea of animal rights that has any kind of merit is that they feel pain, and that's not even true for all species! The fact that animals sometimes react to stimuli in a way similar to humans does not mean that the process they took to get there was the same. Humans are the dominant species of the planet for a reason, and the fact remains, that if humans did not use animals for their own purposes, they would probably be exterminated. Common Cattle and American Bison, for example are very similar, except that cows are more useful to humans. Therefore, Cattle numbers are very high in the United States, while American Bison would have gone extinct without human intervention. This intervention came because they were still useful to humans, in that they could make humans feel better about themselves when they saved another species from destruction at their hands. We can debate whether animals are sentient or not all day long, (even though they are not) but the reality will always remain, that animals will survive alongside humans only so long as they are useful.
- richardsonkr
December 3, 2008 4:27PM
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A question
Your response, richardsonkr, is more of a statement than a coherent argument. You should begin with a defense of your statement that cows are not sentient, seeing as it conflicts with evolutionary biology and all indicia that we use to justify the assumption that human animals are sentient. We can then tackle your other mere statement that animals not being people, which is baseless as an ethical matter, and your defense of interventionism.
- Alex M
December 4, 2008 5:24AM
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where does this lead?
please just think about this. If killing animals isn't alright because they feel pain. (and im not excusing how the kill the animals and how they treat before they die...because it IS cruel to anybodys standards..) THEN what do we do about animals that the majority of the population hates? insects. Shall we not squash them? Shall we let droves of fruit flies eat up our fruit just because they 'deserve equal rights'? What about spiders? Lets be rational.
If you say that we must pick and choose which animals have rights you go against your own agruments. If you say ALL animals should have rights your undermining the popular opinion of most americans and most likely the world.
To say animals have rights makes an argument that they should be dealt with like they have rights. And the most basic right is to live. Do you have any idea what your argument implicates?
- zebrakin
December 12, 2008 12:40PM
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There are other ways.......
Zebrakin,
Your argument seems to be slowly slipping away from you if you need to clutch on this idea. If you research it they are numerous methods of "pest control" that for example use frenquencies to cause insects to leave your dwelling or even not enter it at all.
Obviously if an animal was for example attacking you, you would need to take action out of self presivation just as you would with another human being.
The main issue at hand with animal rights is the fact that they are enslaved by us and caged enmass and left without anything that is natural to them.
We can be both rational and compasionate.
- Jadedshade
December 22, 2008 8:47AM
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Free will
I think the issue here is who has free-will? Morality and ethics are only meaningful in the context of freedom. If someone holds a gun to my head and forces me to kill someone else, then that would not be murder on my part because I would not have acted out of my own free will. So moral accountability depends on the degree of freedom which the agent has when executing an act.
Interestingly, most seem to agree with the notion that humans have more of this thing called free-will than do animals (who often act out of necessity or instinct as opposed to choice). Does not this also then mean that humans are more accountable for what they do?
As we climb higher up the evolutionary progression of species, those more evolved species are perceived by us as having more free-will. Eg a dog is more free than an ant. Therefore a dog is more of a moral agent than an ant. This is where the argument leads to humans. Having the greates degree of free-will of all the animals, humans should have the greatest sense of accountability. It is not reasonable therefore to expect humans to act towards animals in the same way that animals act towards each other or humans, because humans have more choice, whereas animals have less choice. It is therefore perfectly logical to not to hold animals accountable for their actions, while holding humans (provided they are sane) completely accountable.
Coming back to where to draw the line- the answer is again all about free-will. We do not have the free-will to avoid stepping on ants or to avoid protecting ourselves from parasites eg insects by killing them. It may be that it is an unavoidable necessity to kill insects. Perhaps one day we will find anothe way. But, where we do have a way ie a choice, then we should not make animals property or kill them. And when it comes to eating animals, we most certainly do have a choice because we are omniovres and not obligatory carnivores.
- sor666
August 31, 2009 7:18AM
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Explain This Then...
If animals are not sentient and are limited to experiencing only three primal emotions (fear, anger, and excitement), can you explain this 45 second video to me?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgjyhKN_35g
Thanks.
- opiper December 9, 2008 3:23PM
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Show Us Your Facts Please!
Sorry Richardsonkr,
Droning on with the same point over and over doesn't make it true, there is a gigantic body of research that shows animals to be the sentient beings that they are, forming complex relationships, feelings and emotions.
The idea that animals would be exterminated if we didn't use them is ridiculous, and why should they exist just for our purposes anyway? If it came to that I would rather they didn't.
Another ridiculous point you have made is the statement that some animals don't feel pain, this is preposterous.
If these ideas you are so aggressively pushing are true where is the research and proof?
There are many people still debating this issue so you having come to such a firm and aggressive stance seems dubious at best to me.
The very fact that animals react in the same ways we do to the same situations outward manifestations of stress, pain, fear, enjoyment, excitement etc, says a lot to me.
- Jadedshade
December 22, 2008 8:39AM
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A Moderation in Light of New Evidence.
The fact that animals would cease to exist as a more dominant lifeform filled or so modified their specific niches that they could no longer function is not an idea, it's fact. The fact that the current dominant lifeform has a use for other species is the only thing unsuring their continued survival. Your feelings mean nothing.
In light of new evidence, I have to moderate my opinion on the ability of animals to feel pain. This is not because of the validity of your argument, because there is none, but simply because new evidence seems to suggest that not only animals but also plants are capable of feeling stress, pain, and other basic emotions.
The fact that animals seeem to feel the same complex emotions that humans do is a result of projection of your feelings and (semi) logical nature onto their instintcual response. Again, your emotions mean nothing.
- richardsonkr
January 23, 2009 5:09PM
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Typo
Ensuring, not unsuring. That is all.
- richardsonkr
January 23, 2009 5:10PM
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Testing on Animals
Would you rather test an unknown substance on a family member or a family "pet" that could be replaced? I’m not saying that we should treat animals viciously; however, I am saying that I would rather my favorite “pet” be tested on rather than a loved one whom I could never replace.
- Tanya Tye
January 25, 2009 6:31PM
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Preferences made in self-interest
The fact you would rather- does not make it right. That is just your preference. I would rather my mother was tested on than my pet rabbit.
- sor666
May 6, 2009 12:40PM
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similarity
animals shouldn't have voting rights and so forth because those things don't really affect them. The rights that do though, should be the ones that matter and should be concerned.
I agree though, they should however have rights that are SIMILAR to our humana rights.
- pioneerlinh
February 3, 2009 9:20PM
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Why do animals have these rights?
This seems logical, but should animals only have rights to life (not being killed by us) and freedom from us- (not being used by us) if they are moral agents?
- sor666
May 6, 2009 7:18AM
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Freedom and Being
In the course of one hippie dinner (vegan of course) we had to pray before eating for "the poor vegetables who had died for us" (exact wording). Several of the hippie guests burst out laughing when they got to this sentence. Yet some of them actually avoided eating some types of vegetables eg only ate fruit because this meant not breaking a branch off the tree or pulling out a root etc...Until we can clearly distinguish between sentient and non-sentient ' animals ' we will never be able to argue for animal rights convincingly- since we have not defined who we consider to be 'sentient' animals and why exactly would we not include insects (if we do?) and plants? This is because the concept of freedom is inseprable from the defintion of 'being'. In fact, we cannot argue that animals have a right to freedom until we have decided exactly what kind of beings they are and what does it mean when we say that they 'are'.
- sor666
May 6, 2009 7:55AM
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Free will
Proving that animals are or are not qualitatively different to people to decide if they should have a right to life and freedom is a waste of time. In the past such proofs were sought to decide in favour or gainst sexism or slavery and the proofs were contraversial. We still cant agree on all the ways in which different races differ from each other or how the sexes differ- and we dont need to in order to protect differnt individuals of all races and sexes from murder, slavery etc. So, why do we feel we need to prove that animals are like us (moral agents, intelligent being etc) in order to grant them basic rights? Is it not enough that we know for sure that they are alive and therefore they are beings and not things. It is important to establish that animals are beings and the question of rights resolves itself. All beings implicitly have a right to freedom because 'beingness' is a condition of freedom (positive freedom - ie free will). It is not possible to be alive and not to have free will.
- sor666
May 6, 2009 12:31PM
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Taking a step back.
The fact that we even have to debate this question implies, not that we are intelligent, but egocentric.
In the same way that animals can "communicate" with us, we can't supposedly stoop ourselves down to their level to communicate with them, either. Evolutionary advances have nothing to do with rights. No other animal conquers a different species, or even gives thoughts to 'rights'. Not necessarily because they can't, but because there is no need to. Our species has evolved the beautiful problem of not being able to leave anything alone. For those people that wish to compare and say that we are animals too, that we are part of the wild, then fine. I will concede and say that it is okay to kill animals for survival, if you can kill it like an animal. The truth is obvious. We can't. Our bodies were not designed to outrun a deer, take down a cow with our bare hands, or catch a fish without some type of device. We had to invent ways to kill animals because we are not able to. No other species on this planet has to do that. Bodies are designed accordingly. Carnivorous teeth to the ones with speed and agility, and plant chompers for those of us that don't have the evolutionary capabilities to survive in the wild on a meat based diet . The bottom line is that we don't know what animals think, but we do know they feel. Sadly enough the joke will be on us when animals will outlive the human race . The sick part? We'll die by our own hand, and not natural selection. How much we "know" will mean nothing if don't take a step back from our own egos.
- levi944
August 19, 2009 10:58PM
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Love and Freedom for all animals!
Absolutely agree! Animals have right to live and to be free!
- SL70
September 2, 2009 3:12PM
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for what it's worth
I honestly can't even believe this topic or that I am commenting. I think when the animal is 100% self sufficient, like a human, then we should consider his or her rights. I mean when they earn their own living, pay for their own home, go to the grocery store and buy their own food !!! then they should be treated as human!! Come on, really!! Don't get me wrong, I love animals , but there are laws in place to protect animals. And most of the animals I know are treated better than a lot of humans!
- karens
September 23, 2009 2:41AM
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