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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Elevating Animals
- From Tibor Machan
By Tibor Machan - Author/Journalist/Professor
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Wrong Assumptions
It is a mistake to claim that, because another form of life does not or cannot hold similar or same values as human beings or to the same degree, it therefore has no values at all. It is quite clear that every form of life values one thing over another either consciously or unconsciously. If morality is simply one's set of values, I believe it quite easy to show that every form of life has a morality of sorts and is therefore a moral agent. Every life chooses among available options. There is always a basis for such choices. There is no doubt one animal form or another does not make choices the same as a human being, however, it is human arrogance to claim they must do so to qualify in a human mind for rights of their own.
Unlike those you name above, I make make no claim to a lack of fundamental difference between human beings and other forms of life. To make such a claim is an error of far broader scope than the issue of animal rights. Nevertheless, in the face of fundamental differences, we ought not put our very human expectations regarding rights onto species that have no obligation whatsoever to meet our expectations. On what basis do we require other species to meet our needs without any such obligation in the reverse? Any bases I'm aware of are decidedly humanocentric, not universal.
Whether human beings intellectually grant "rights" to other species is a matter for human beings. We debate such things to justify or suppress our own predatory instincts. I happen to believe the ability to value one's own life and the desire to go on living is hardly unique to our species. If a lion decides you may be a particularly tasty treat, your assumptions about your rights and his will be rather irrelevant. It is from that point of view any real truth in this "animal rights" debate will be found.
- Naumadd
November 11, 2008 6:10AM
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but where do you draw the line ?
I agree that animals should have rights. I believe that MOST are thinking, feeling, sentient beings. Many of the species we keep as pets , mammals, reptiles, fish, and birds, definitely (in my opinion) are sentient.
It weird because I believe that reptiles are sentient, but not amphibians. The only reason that I can think for that belief is that I've never had a pet that was an amphibian. I've never formed an emotional bond with an amphibian, never spent enough time observing them to witness intelligent or emotional behavior.
I believe that invertebrates like octopus are sentient, but not clams, snails, and insects. But what about arachnids? I'm sure that spider enthusiasts would state that (at least some) spiders are sentient.
Are ALL animals sentient, from the lowliest bug to the mightiest mammal, and if not, WHERE do we draw the line, or, more importantly, HOW de we decide WHERE to draw the line?
- gatorgirl7563
April 17, 2009 4:33PM
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sor666
We include all animals and exclude plants.
- sor666
May 6, 2009 4:29AM
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We'd still be forced to value the lives of some animals over others
So we can never again use pesticides to protect our produce.
- gatorgirl7563
July 20, 2009 11:29AM
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I agree the line is fuzzy
While all of my pet have always been reptiles I wanted to share a fun fact. Most if not all reptiles are on there own from birth and of all animals I feel they have one of the strongest instinct drives for survival. Frogs (mainly most arrow frogs) after the male and female do their little dance which leads to reproduction, I say reproduction because no actual copulation occures, The male will carry tadpoles one at a time and place them in a pond or water source where the feel their child will have the best chance of survival. I feel all creatures have the right to dignity and fair treatment but am not oppossed to agriculture , hunting ,or controlled collection of species provided they are treated as such.
- Mcdowelli76
June 1, 2009 8:03PM
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Why do we discriminate against those who are not moral agents?
I have no problem agreeing that animals are not moral agents (meaning not that they have no morals- but have different morals to humans- ie lions have territorial laws which they all agree on- and we have no idea if they are acting instinctually or reasoning). I have no issue with the comment that animals do not behave morally towards each other - in a way people would consider to be moral. But I do think it is impossible to prove that animals have no sense of right and wrong-defined according to their own rules. This would of course mean that animals are categorically differetn between species of all sorts.
However, if humans are moral agents (which we all agree with)- then this automatically gives animals rights. Here is why- humans as moral agents hold it to be wrong to kill, enslave, or profit from the suffering of others. "Others" in law means other humans, hence the urgency of Tibor I think to demonstrate an existential difference between humans and animals. But if humans are moral agents this itself means they should not be drawing this immoral distinction. Ie it is not moral according to human law to discriminate based on intellectual capacity, appearance or even moral agency. The last point is important- human criminals who have violated the moral code are tried in just trials before they are convicted- ie they are treated with moral discretion and are preceived to have moral value- so if humans are moral agents with free will - why shouldn't they bestow basic rights to animals who also either have not moral agency or have a different one to humans?
- sor666
May 6, 2009 5:56AM
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The operative word is "same"
It is obvious that most commenters don't understand the literal meaning of the question. Humans allow (bestow the right" of other humans to own animals .... conversely, they do not allow (bestow the right) to animals to own humans.
A righ is an abstract expression of what one livimg creature allows another!
- CitizenZebra
October 25, 2009 3:19AM
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