Animal Rights

[Wildbore]

Would getting a pet spade or nudered be animal cruelty, because we are invasively revoking the animals genetic duty to reproduce. Since we need to protect our society from mass flocks of cats, dogs, and porkipines, and the animals cannot tell us why they need to reproduce, even though its obvious, we see ourselves as god and deem it fit to take away there ability to have babies.

Would having sexual intercourse with an animal be any different than with a human? A consenting Caucasian and African have the right to do as they please behind close doors as long as it is legal. Why is this different with animals, if we are all gods creations, what makes us different? Would you break up a Caucasian and animal from sex if you saw it? If the animal is not being abused, or is rather enjoying sex, you would have no legal grounds, to my knowledge, to break up the activity. I think this is wrong, and should be addressed based on moral grounds because im almost sure it happens somewhere.

 

[yoshi74]

Rights are nothing someone or something has inheritly. The nature does not know a right to live. It knows only the right of the strongest. Thats the only natural right.
All other rights are given from the ones who have the right of the strongest. Not every human has the basic rights we see as substancial.
As for animals: They get their rights based on culture and usefullness. Also religion plays a role. We in europe (and other continents) eat cows, while they are holy animals in india. On the other hand their is almost always an outcry by many europeans when we see a kitten or cute dog is going into the wok in asia. Bees get their rights because they are usefull to us, while wasps are a pain in the ass.
Animal rights are given by humans. A lion in a desert near a human without weapon has again the right of the strongest, but mostly this resides in our hands.
Is this good? Or bad? I'am quite happy that i'am at the top of the food chain. We are no nice rulers, but others would not be any better.

 

[Mise]

Again, other humans can assert rights for that human.

Can't humans assert rights for animals? I don't get the difference between the right of an animal to protection from abuse and a human responsibility to protect animals from abuse.

 

[addiv]

1) All humans have the potential for the same intelligence level.

Um, no.

2) You're comparing "lesser-intelligent humans" to dogs?

No I'm not. The point is where to draw the line.

Wow you're racist.

Sure, you obviously don't know what racism is.

 

[Akka]

If it can feel and have emotions, then it deserve at least decent treatment, like not being subject to suffering and not being killed needlessly.

 

[WillJ]

Again, other humans can assert rights for that human.

No, these people I mentioned have legal rights even if no one asserts these rights.

Or perhaps you want to stress that word *can*. Perhaps these people have rights because other people *can* assert these rights, even if they don't? Well then insects must have rights, because people *can* assert these rights.

 

[newfangle]

Its absurd for animals to have rights.

The purpose of rights to begin with is to protect conscious life from other conscious life.

Animals do not possess such volitional consciousness (yet), and therefore assigning them rights is necessarily arbitrary and useless. For example, if a lion is hunting an antelope, its not as if the Lion gives a flying monkey turd whether or not his prey has rights.

In the jungle, it is rule of muscle, not the rule of law.

That, of course, does not make it ethically acceptable to torture beasts, or partake in any other unsavory practices against our furry friends. It does not make it evil or wrong, however.

 

[Mise]

@newfangle:
I don't get that last sentence: It's not ethically acceptable to torture beasts, but it is not wrong either? It's either acceptable or it isn't.

BTW, I think "animal rights" are supposed to protect animals from humans, not animals from other animals, so that thing about lions and antelopes is irrelevant. Also, I don't think that rights are there to protect conscious life from other conscious life alone. Maybe it's just semantics, whatever.

 

[CivCube]

newfangle is saying that there is no such thing as evil or wrongness.

 

[newfangle]

newfangle is saying that there is no such thing as evil or wrongness.

Don't do that. I said no such thing.

Though my last sentence was unclear. Replace "ethically unacceptable" with "sick/twisted/whatever."

 

[CivCube]

Don't do that. I said no such thing.

Though my last sentence was unclear. Replace "ethically unacceptable" with "sick/twisted/whatever."

I'm sorry; I thought that was the intent going by what you say about your ideology. You're right, I shouldn't put words in your mouth.

 

[IglooDame]

Rights (since we're bandying about that word) are inherent but they imply an equality among those that have them - you have the right to (say) free speech but you in turn are expected to respect my right as well.

I do not expect an animal to understand the concept of rights, and therefore it will not have reciprocal respect for my rights and thus does not have any. "But what about small children, they don't have the necessary higher brain functions to understand rights" - true, but they will someday. Humans as a group DO understand and respect rights, and we incarcerate the exceptions. I'm not aware of any other species that can say that.

I still will only hunt for food and not for trophies, and I think people that inflict unnecessary abuse on animals are utter slime, but I'm not going to send them in front of a firing squad.

 

[amadeus]

Can't humans assert rights for animals?

No. Humans are not bears, boars, or beetles. If a beetle can learn to speak English and say "hey, man...you gotta lighten up a little bit." - Maybe then I'd reconsider.

I don't get the difference between the right of an animal to protection from abuse and a human responsibility to protect animals from abuse.

If animals had declared rights, wouldn't it be the responsibility for the state to protect those animals from other animals?

 

[Mise]

Regarding animals not being able to understand what a "right" is.
I think it is unfair to say that animals don't understand what rights are, because I don't think many people really understand what they are. The fact that we are debating whether some animal deserves rights means that they aren't inherent to nature, but that they are flexible and can be given and taken, e.g. womens' rights.

Perhaps "right" is too strong a word for the protection animals deserve. And they do deserve protection from cruelty and abuse; most people have said that they find animal cruelty to be a bad thing. So would a law preventing animal cruelty be acceptable, even though I dont' see the difference between animal rights and laws against animal cruelty (it seems purely semantic to me)?

If animals had declared rights, wouldn't it be the responsibility for the state to protect those animals from other animals?

Well, don't we protect endangered species from extinction already? But I suspect you're talking about the "natural order" of things, e.g. a lion eating an antelope. In that case, the right should be of the animal to protection from (human) cruelty. As far as I am aware, cruelty to animals is a uniquely human thing. I don't think it happens in nature.

 

[Norlamand]

Animals can claim their rights when they can, of their own accord, mount a legal campaign to secure them. Barring that they get what we give them. They shouldn't be treated in a cruel manner but certainly shouldn't be extended anything akin to the rights of humans.