Making Sense of the Question
While the topic is called "Should Animals Have the Same Rights as People?", the poll question asks, "Do Animals Have the Same Rights as People?" These are two rather different questions. The first question is prescriptive, i.e., asks us what ought to be done. The second question is descriptive, i.e., it asks us to make an empirical assessment. Of course, both questions suffer from the lack of distinction between moral and legal rights, a distinction that would make more clear how this really ought to work, so I will answer each of them in terms of both kinds of rights.
Do Animals Have the Same Rights as People?
Let's start with empirical observations by phrasing the question more specifically as, "Do Animals Have the Same Legal Rights as People?" Because animals are legally classified as property, and only legal persons (e.g., humans, corporations) have legal rights, then we must observe quite simply that animals do not have the same legal rights as people. That settled, let's turn now to moral rights.
Do animals have the same moral rights as people?
In my previous two arguments, I made the case that both legal and moral rights protect interests and that the only characteristic morally relevant to possessing at least some basic rights is sentience (i.e., the right not to be deprived of one's existence, to not be caused pain, etc.). Insofar as humans possess these basic rights and nonhumans share these basic rights, it can be said that animals have the same moral rights as people.
Like humans, nonhumans have a demonstrable interest in continued existence, in not being caused pain, and so on. If we believe that humans possess the moral right to exist and not to be caused pain or suffering, then it would be arbitrary to claim that nonhumans do not, because they have the exact same interests in these particular cases.
However, as similar as we are in certain fundamental, morally relevant respects, we are different in many other morally relevant ways, and this means that there are moral rights that some beings have that others do not possess. Humans have moral rights that may not be shared by nonhumans, and some nonhumans may have rights that are not shared by humans, so it would be untrue to say that nonhuman animals have all the same moral rights as humans.
Should Animals Have the Same Rights as People?
If we determine that animals have any moral rights, as defined in Argument 1, then the question "Should Animals Have the Same Moral Rights as People?" makes no sense, because we have already found that they do have moral rights. Instead, we'd be compelled to say that we should protect animals with legal rights that mirror their moral rights.
So, let's look at the question phrased as "Should Animals Have the Same Legal Rights as People?" The question is still not entirely intuitive, because animals and people do not have all the same moral rights (as discussed above, they do not all have the same morally significant interests that merit legal rights protection).
If, as suggested, nonhuman animals do possess some moral rights, it stands to reason that, like us, they should have those like interests protected with legal rights. This does not mean that nonhumans should have all the same legal rights as humans. As mentioned earlier, nonhuman beings simply do not share all the same interests as humans.
For example, nonhuman animals have no comprehension of--and therefore no interest in--voting in human elections. Therefore, they do not have an interest to protect in the case of voting--No interest to protect, no right. A right to vote would be meaningless to a toad.
All of this leads us to answer the topic question with a firm "no," despite the popular notion, perpetuated here at O.V., that animal rights advocates (ARAs) would want to say "yes." Thoughtful animal rights advocates recognize that it makes no sense for nonhuman animals to have all the same legal rights as humans, of course, but it is a testament to the widespread confusion over rights that so many people think this is their goal.
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sorry but are you totally bonkers?
with rights always come responsibilities. and they have to be fulfilled by the subject that demands the rights. if he/she doesn't do that, he/she will lose these rights. simple as that.
please try to tell a cat or dog or even dolphin to clean up after he made a doodoo. or make him/her/it pay taxes . or even obey simple rules of society like not crossing a red light.
if you can produce only one animal that understands that, i am all for animal rights . but before that....that just sounds stupid.
that doesnt mean animals should be treated with no respect. every living or growing organism deserves that. but all in the right measurement.
i think you are not asking for animal rights, but for human common sense. and with that my friend, good luck.
When did she (the sow) give humans the *right* to permanently confine and impregnate her and then take her children after she gave birth to turn her children into sausages, and when did she give the *right* that when she stops producing enough children to then take her and turn her into pork pies....If you can produce only one human that recieved that *right* then I am all for No Rights for NHAs.
I think there is confusion about the word "rights". Rights could mean the right to prosecute someone for stealing your car, for fraud etc but rights also mean the right to life,freedom and self-determination. It is true that some rights can only apply to people, since they are relevant only within the context of human society . However, there are other rights that are universal. The right not to be enslaved to the needs of another being is universal.I think we can all agree that while there are no animals who file prosecution claims against other animals (nor do we want this to happen because imagine what the court system would be like then!), there are also no animals who enslave other animals. Animals do not intensively farm other species, breed them with a view to profiting from their lives, or conduct experiments on them. So, that at least is one right animals do have, even if one considers that rights must be reciprocal- the right to freedom. There are no aniamls who take away the liberty of entire species of other animals in this way. Only humans do this. It may be because other animals simply haven't learned to do this. However, whatever the reason, it is exactly because humans uniquely can do this, that they must create a concept of animal rights - where the one right they cannot violate is interference with the freedom of animals to be of and for themselves and not of and for our benefit.
I agree it is an excellent analysis. Moral and legal rights are two different things.
Animals moral rights are important and protecting endangered species is as well. But legally they do not deserve the rights we posses. I dont think animals have the rights of humans as legally presented under the Constitution.
Pedro,
Of course nonhuman animals do not have the same legal rights as humans. That was my point. The abolitionist AR movement seeks to change that by encouraging humans to recognize what you yourself suggest you believe: that animals have moral rights.
It would seem immoral to me to recognize that nonhumans are morally relevant yet exclude them from protection under the law, don't you think? What valid argument can you present to suggest that nonhumans do not deserve basic legal rights, such as the right not to be be property? Humans have that legal right, and I have yet to find a non-arbitrary justification for withhodling that legal right from nonhumans.
That said, as I believe I mentioned way back in November, nonhumans have no interest in certain other human rights. Moreover, they may have other moral rights that merit legal protection that we do not possess. While humans and animals share some fundamental interests in common (e.g., avoiding pain, continued existence, etc.), that doesn't mean that all our interests are the same, and that of course means that nonhumans would not necessarily be granted all the same legal rights as humans if we they were given the legal right to be protected by legal rights in the first place (for instance, it would be absurd to speak of the 'right' of dogs to vote).
This argument is completely logical to me. The only point I find difficult is- that nonhumans do not have an interest in protecting the rights of humans or other nonhumans- so therefore why should humans have such an interest? This is the most crucial response one gets from those who argue against granting basic rights to animals and one I have never been able to argue except to suggest that we have a 'duty of care' to animals which they do not have towards us.
Contractualism: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contractualism /#ConProAni
This is a bit simplistic for the sake of time, but we don't ignore the interests of human babies, the infirm, or the mentally incompetent even though they may (or do) not have an interest in respecting (or even the ability to understand) our moral or legal rights. Similarly, there is no justification for us to ignore the interests of nonhuman beings simply because they are unable to consider ours.
Yes, this seems logical to me. But what about Tibor's argument that because animals do not act morally (in the human definition of moral) towards other animals, animals are not moral agents, while the concept of rights only applies to moral agents.
I think you'd be interested in Tom Regan's The Case for Animal Rights. He deals at length with this question, so you'd probably be better off reading his explanation than whatever summary I could drum up.
1. Eric Prescott links to a portion of the SEP article on contractualism. But why? Contractualist moral theory has very little to do with what sor666 asks, unless Prescott (or someone else) is assuming that contractualism is the correct moral theory. Since contractualism has never been mentioned (and nothing anyone says even hints at contractualism, really), I'm at a loss. The reference comes out of nowhere and seems to explain nothing.
2. In the relevant part of Scanlon's book (i.e., the parts the SEP article is referencing), Scanlon in fact *rejects* the idea that we have moral obligations to non-human animals but *accepts* the idea that we have moral obligations to human infants. (For Scanlon, morality, in the relevant sense, is the domain of 'what we owe to each other'.) Scanlon believes that there is a principled distinction between the cases. So now I'm extra baffled by what purpose the SEP article/contractualism could be serving in Prescott's argument. Isn't Scanlon's position exactly what Prescott wants to deny? (And, again, why is he talking about contractualism anyway?)
3. Then, in nearly the same breath, Prescott requests that sor666 read Regan's work. But this (unintentionally? intentionally?) suggests that there is at least some sort of connection between Regan's work and Scanlon's work. (Why else should sor666 read both the SEP article and Regan's work to find Prescott's answers to deeply related questions.) Of course, there is no tight connection between Regan's view and Scanlon's view. So why is Prescott picking from both theories without ever explaining the relationship?
4. More importantly, why isn't Prescott *explaining* anything about the ideas to which he is referencing? Simply dropping names and buzzwords, and telling people to go and read a book, does not seem very helpful to me. Indeed, it strikes me as an act of avoiding response while making it appear that one has responded.
Contractualism is relevant here- because it does not explain the wrongness of hurting an animal- and that is because-"Contractualism captures the central sense of wrongness, one that plays a role in how individuals understand what they are accountable to one another for. The case of animals shows that this is not the only notion of wrongness. But, once we reflect on the differences between the two cases, we see why our obligations to one another are so different from any obligations we might have to animals — precisely because we cannot meaningfully justify ourselves to them. Animals are not a special problem for the contractualist, but rather an opportunity to explore what is distinctive about the contractualist approach."
of course the reason we cannot justify ourselves to animals is precisely because we have more accountability ie free-will than they do.
I do see why contractualism is important here. Once again as I mentioned in my entry above on free-will. Free-will is in fact a bit of a paradox. Currently, I am looking at the Kantian Critiques and especially the causal antinomy in Kant. Briefly summerised it is the problem of how humans come to have free will. Since for Kant there are two kins of causality- natural causality (necessity) and that which arises from free-will. Both co-exist in Kant, yet the two are really mutually exclusive. This problem itself arises from the way Kant has defined time- not as something that flows, but something that is static. From this stems an important conclusion - being and time are interconnected and inseprable and there can be no being without freedom, conversely- wherever there is being (ie whenever something is alive) it is necessarily to some extent endowed with free-will (whatever that is).
Contractualism would suggest that it is ethically acceptable for us to do to others as they do to ourselves. But this assumes both parties have the same degree of free-will. But surely the main difference between animals and humans is precisely that animals do not have the same degree of free-will as humans do. Animals act out of the necessity to survive and out of instinct to a much greater degree than humans. This makes animals less free and if they are less free they are less accountable morally. Even in law , loss of freedom is used as a defence for committing a murder eg if one was forced to do so or was mentally handicapped etc.
So, contractualism is relevant to this argument because we cannot argue that we can do to animals as they do to us- we have a much higher degree of accountability than they do.
Conversely, it is also true that where we do not have free - will eg in choosing to protect our lives from disease -than we can kill bacteria if we have no other way to survive- or we can eat plants (even if they are sentient) because otherwise we will have nothing to eat. However, when it comes to eating animals and owning them as property we surely now have other choices and we are omnivorous.
As an ethical vegan and an animal rights supporter I think the question itself in this debate is actually antagonistic and combative. People who frame the animal rights issue in this way with a question like this do not actually ever want to deal with the real aspects of responsibility involved with this issue. The problem here is if one should answer yes to the question you will most likely be perceived as not living in reality and deservingly so. If you answer no you will merely appear as a statistic at the side of the page and will be probably lumped in with arrogant insensitive human chauvinists. The people who ask the question if animals should have the exact same rights as humans are to me... pretty much the same type of people who ask......Dude, should carrots have rights?.... when confronted with questions regarding animal abuse, animal advocacy or animal rights.
It's refreshing to read clear thinking on this topic.