Should Animals Have the Same Rights as People?

Necessity and Misery ...

Well, as I indicated, assuming one wishes to continue living, there is no escaping the clear necessity to take the life of another in order to continue one's own - plant, animal or otherwise. As I also indicated, ownership of one's own life is not something that can be given or taken away. Each life belongs to itself and no factual or consistently reasonable argument can be made to the contrary. Nevertheless, in the end, rule number one always confronts us - consume or be consumed. For continued living, killing is a necessity regardless of the form of life and that necessity precedes any considerations of the fact every life owns itself.

Still, although to take life in order to keep it is an inescapable necessity, our own misery and the misery we inflict on other life is NOT a necessity. To inflict misery simply because one is too ignorant or lazy to do otherwise or because one loves the misery of another has nothing at all to do with inescapable necessity. To inflict misery on another or to remain complacent regarding one's own misery is choice. It is at those times necessity no longer precedes the fact of an individual life's ownership of itself. It is at those times one has an alternate choice to be compassionate or not regarding another life and to be happy or not regarding one's own. One's survival is not at issue.

It isn't madness to want to survive, however, to want to survive while experiencing as much misery as one can endure and while inflicting as much misery as one is capable is surely madness.

In the end, this question "Do animals have the same rights as people?" is a disguise for the real question - "Ought human beings grant liberty to other forms of life to exercise the right of their own lives?" I happen to take animal rights as a given because, if I hold as true I own all rights to my own life, I must maintain that every life owns itself for the same reasons I use to support my own claim. What is truly at issue is whether I'm willing to grant other life the liberty to live as it chooses because I too value that liberty. I love my life. If I assume other life values itself, I must grant that life the liberty to live it, otherwise my love of my own life and my value of its liberty is a sham should I attempt to use one argument for myself and a different argument for the value of other life.

A life's ownership of itself is a given. I grant other life liberty of self-determination because I too value such liberty. Nevertheless, if I am to survive, no matter how much I value my own liberty or the liberty of other life, rule number one is the final arbiter - consume or be consumed. What I will not do is impose myself on other life beyond my own necessity. I will not inflict misery on another out of laziness or love of misery.

That is not necessity, it is madness.