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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Making Sense of the Question
- From Eric Prescott
By Eric Prescott
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Excellent analysis, Eric.
It's refreshing to read clear thinking on this topic.
- dan November 19, 2008 9:54AM
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Side: Yes
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Making Rights of the Question
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.
- Phat P
November 20, 2008 1:11AM
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Agree
I agree it is an excellent analysis. Moral and legal rights are two different things.
- Tanya Tye
January 25, 2009 7:35PM
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Rights
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
February 11, 2009 9:41AM
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Immoral to withhold legal rights from moral rightholders
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).
- Eric Prescott
March 6, 2009 6:37PM
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sor666
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.
- sor666
May 6, 2009 4:43AM
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Contractualism
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.
- Eric Prescott
May 6, 2009 5:25PM
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Moral agents
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.
- sor666
May 11, 2009 5:48AM
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Read The Case for Animal Rights
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.
- Eric Prescott
May 11, 2009 7:31AM
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animals? rights?
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.
- Silvio
April 22, 2009 2:48AM
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The right to feedom
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.
- sor666
May 10, 2009 2:11AM
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