Do Animals Have Natural Rights?

[thasre]

What is a society?

What I'm saying is that we, as social beings, are laying claim to something, and if we expect others to respect our claim to it then we have certain obligations amongst ourselves to agree upon acceptable terms for delineating that respect. I would argue that animals have a degree of autonomy that other forms of property obviously don't. They have the freedom to move about, they have the mental faculties to seek food for themselves, etc., and for us to take away or restrict those behaviors, and to prevent other people from telling us we don't have the right to prevent those behaviors, then we have a social responsibility to compensate the animals for their value to us by treating them properly.

I'm not even necessarily arguing that there should be laws to enforce this sort of thing. I kind of see it the way I view intellectual property. I can write a book, and the book exists in its own right, free to move about and be exchanged in human society, but I still should have some expection of some kind of attribution or compensation for the book's dissemination. Animals seem to deserve a similar expectation of respect. [EDIT: I'm also against intellectual property laws, so part of the reason I make the comparison is that I feel intellectual property and animal rights don't necessarily entail government protection, but that humans have a moral or social obligation to respect them if they expect to remain in good standing in their communities.]

 

[brandon]

Whence do these "rights" derive?

 

[pcosmar]

Do Plants have Rights?
That is the real question.

 

[krazy kaju]

Whence do these "rights" derive?

I already explained:

Free will grants us an axiomatic, praxeological basis. We know that humans act. To deny this, you would have to act, proving yourself wrong. As a corollary to human action, we know that humans have free will. Without free will, human action would not be purposeful or meaningful. In order to deny this, you would have to use your free will to deny the existence of free will, therefore proving yourself wrong. From free will, we know that there must be an originator of free will - what we shall call the mind. The mind is the originator of all thoughts of a given being, making it the legitimate owner of it. So because of the existence of the mind, we know that every being with free will is a self-owner. From this, we can deduce that all property homesteaded by such beings is owned by the homesteader, since this property ownership is a natural extension of self-ownership.

From all of the above, we can deduce that anyone who coerces or uses violence on another being capable of free will essentially enters a logical contradiction: by denying the free will/self-ownership of a being capable of free will/self-ownership, the action-originator denies his own free will/self-ownership. The action-originator implicitly allows any other being capable of free will/self-ownership to exact justice for the victim against the action-originator by using force.

So there we have it. A value-free system of justice that establishes certain "rights."

 

[thasre]

The problem with most ethical systems is that they rely on subjective value judgments. For example, you assume that psychological pleasure is good, which is why we need rights to ensure freedom. This assumption, however, has no justification. It is unprovable.

Free will grants us an axiomatic, praxeological basis. We know that humans act. To deny this, you would have to act, proving yourself wrong. As a corollary to human action, we know that humans have free will*. Without free will, human action would not be purposeful or meaningful*. In order to deny this, you would have to use your free will to deny the existence of free will, therefore proving yourself wrong. From free will, we know that there must be an originator of free will - what we shall call the mind*. The mind is the originator of all thoughts of a given being, making it the legitimate owner of it. So because of the existence of the mind, we know that every being with free will is a self-owner. From this, we can deduce that all property homesteaded by such beings is owned by the homesteader, since this property ownership is a natural extension of self-ownership*.

From all of the above, we can deduce that anyone who coerces or uses violence on another being capable of free will essentially enters a logical contradiction: by denying the free will/self-ownership of a being capable of free will/self-ownership, the action-originator denies his own free will/self-ownership. The action-originator implicitly allows any other being capable of free will/self-ownership to exact justice for the victim against the action-originator by using force.

So there we have it. A value-free system of justice that establishes certain "rights."

You claim to have a "value-free" system, but I've asterisked sentences that have value judgments. Believe it or not, the ideas of "mind" and "free will" are contested by some psychologists, who argue that what we perceive as "mind" is really just the very complex series of processes the brain generates in order to keep and organism functioning, and that the idea of "will" is just an illusion generated by the fact that we have self-perception. I don't believe those claims, but I'm just illustrating the fact that even making statements about "mind" and "will" have value judgments attached to them. And definitely the claim that life without free will is meaningless and purposeless is a value judgment. How do you define meaningfulness? Or purposefulness? Any definition of those must have value judgments.

Also, illustrating that free will and the mind prove self-ownership doesn't prove a lack of self-ownership among creatures assumed to be lacking free will or a mind. It would be like arguing that proving that roses grow in sunlight proves that they don't grow in the dark. You can't say "Self-ownership grows under these conditions, therefore it doesn't grow under those conditions."

 

[Xenophage]

What I'm saying is that we, as social beings, are laying claim to something, and if we expect others to respect our claim to it then we have certain obligations amongst ourselves to agree upon acceptable terms for delineating that respect. I would argue that animals have a degree of autonomy that other forms of property obviously don't. They have the freedom to move about, they have the mental faculties to seek food for themselves, etc., and for us to take away or restrict those behaviors, and to prevent other people from telling us we don't have the right to prevent those behaviors, then we have a social responsibility to compensate the animals for their value to us by treating them properly.

I'm not even necessarily arguing that there should be laws to enforce this sort of thing. I kind of see it the way I view intellectual property. I can write a book, and the book exists in its own right, free to move about and be exchanged in human society, but I still should have some expection of some kind of attribution or compensation for the book's dissemination. Animals seem to deserve a similar expectation of respect. [EDIT: I'm also against intellectual property laws, so part of the reason I make the comparison is that I feel intellectual property and animal rights don't necessarily entail government protection, but that humans have a moral or social obligation to respect them if they expect to remain in good standing in their communities.]

Your arguments are well reasoned. I'm half-inclined to agree with you.

But I'm not sure I do.

A social contract requires an agreement on behalf of both parties. Animals are incapable of grasping the social contract, or communicating it. An animal cannot conceptualize what a "right" is.

Nevertheless, there are social animals that cohabitate with humans. There are animals that respect and love humans as well as each other. There are animals that demonstrate the use of rudimentary logic, and the exercise of conscious choice.

 

[JK/SEA]

what does 'natural rights' mean?

its subjective. Do un-armed humans have natural rights in the jungles or the savannas of Africa? do silver back gorillas have natural rights? or how about whales, do they have natural rights? who decides who gets natural rights?

Does this natural right come from a piece of paper? or is it just a matter of respect for a species? who decides what a sentient being is? and how is it determined, and by what rule?

The bald eagle is protected species by several determinations, one being spirtual, and the other beacause its the National symbol. Why can't we just kill them and eat them?

I lean more to just respecting a species based on the fact we do not really know the level of intellect, or spritual level that all species have. They all contribute something to the planet, and to the unknown.

 

[Scofield]

^ Well where do those rights come from? What is there basis?

The concept of "rights" is merely an abstract idea created by human beings. In order to make our lives better, we created a notion of "rights." We believe we have rights from God or Nature, but in all honesty, you only have rights because you believe you do. Like I said earlier, the only rights you have are those which you defend.

If you want a right to have butt-sex with monkeys, you have that right...as long as you defend it (by shooting those who try to stop you). Animals have a right to rip your face off, provided they kill everyone or everything who tries to stop them.

Government, another human creation, was put in place to protect the rights we created, without having to shoot people or having to resort to ripping off faces.

So, in short....rights come from reason. Humans have the ability to reason, thus they created government to protect their rights. Animals don't have the ability to reason, but they still have rights, they just defend them individually (unsuccessfully a lot of the time, as evident from the amount of extinct animals) without a government. I have a right to live, so does the average cow. I merely have a government to stop farmers from butchering me, the cow has to rely on it's own means to secure that right of life.

 

[thasre]

Your arguments are well reasoned. I'm half-inclined to agree with you.

But I'm not sure I do.

I can live with a half-inclination towards agreement.

In the end, I don't really feel compelled to make people agree with me in regards to this particular question, because I don't feel terribly strongly about it, and I think it's kind of ridiculous the way libertarians will tear each other apart over arguments about things like "animals' natural rights" when we agree on 98% of everything else.

But I still like to argue my perspective... :o

 

[krazy kaju]

You claim to have a "value-free" system, but I've asterisked sentences that have value judgments.

Value judgments are judgments that incorporate value: i.e. "this is good" or "that is bad." I did that nowhere in the paragraph.

Believe it or not, the ideas of "mind" and "free will" are contested by some psychologists, who argue that what we perceive as "mind" is really just the very complex series of processes the brain generates in order to keep and organism functioning, and that the idea of "will" is just an illusion generated by the fact that we have self-perception.

Yes, the mind is simply a direct extension of the physical brain. Where do I argue otherwise? It possible, however, to have a brain and not a mind: animals, for example, lack free will and therefore must lack a mind. Metaphysically speaking, I'm defining the mind as the entity that provides you with thoughts and other inputs.

In order to deny free will, these psychologists must necessarily use free will to do so, thus showing that their claims are wrong. Hence, free will exists.

I don't believe those claims, but I'm just illustrating the fact that even making statements about "mind" and "will" have value judgments attached to them.

Which I never made any such value judgments...

And definitely the claim that life without free will is meaningless and purposeless is a value judgment. How do you define meaningfulness? Or purposefulness? Any definition of those must have value judgments.

No, they're definitions. A purposeful or meaningful action is, by definition, an action where you consciously seek certain ends by using certain means. Animals, as far as we can tell, lack such ability.

Also, illustrating that free will and the mind prove self-ownership doesn't prove a lack of self-ownership among creatures assumed to be lacking free will or a mind. It would be like arguing that proving that roses grow in sunlight proves that they don't grow in the dark. You can't say "Self-ownership grows under these conditions, therefore it doesn't grow under those conditions."

Now, a nice false analogy to top your argument off. In order to have self-ownership, you must be able to partake in conscious decisions. In other words, you must be able to have free will. If you do not have free will you cannot own yourself, by definition. If someone else controls your thoughts, how can it be said that you control, and therefore own, yourself? Likewise, if you do not have any thoughts, how can it be said that you own yourself? You clearly do not.

Hence, we arrive at the value free ethical system I described earlier. Clearly, some beings have self-ownership and free will. Any encroachment on free will or self ownership by another being is clearly self-repudiation of these assets, therefore allowing others to bring justice to the action-originator for violating free will/self-ownership. It is value free because it doesn't engage in calling something "good" or "bad."

 

[Xenophage]

The problem with most ethical systems is that they rely on subjective value judgments. For example, you assume that psychological pleasure is good, which is why we need rights to ensure freedom. This assumption, however, has no justification. It is unprovable.

Free will grants us an axiomatic, praxeological basis. We know that humans act. To deny this, you would have to act, proving yourself wrong. As a corollary to human action, we know that humans have free will. Without free will, human action would not be purposeful or meaningful. In order to deny this, you would have to use your free will to deny the existence of free will, therefore proving yourself wrong. From free will, we know that there must be an originator of free will - what we shall call the mind. The mind is the originator of all thoughts of a given being, making it the legitimate owner of it. So because of the existence of the mind, we know that every being with free will is a self-owner. From this, we can deduce that all property homesteaded by such beings is owned by the homesteader, since this property ownership is a natural extension of self-ownership.

From all of the above, we can deduce that anyone who coerces or uses violence on another being capable of free will essentially enters a logical contradiction: by denying the free will/self-ownership of a being capable of free will/self-ownership, the action-originator denies his own free will/self-ownership. The action-originator implicitly allows any other being capable of free will/self-ownership to exact justice for the victim against the action-originator by using force.

So there we have it. A value-free system of justice that establishes certain "rights."

Your entire argument is founded upon illogic.

All ethical systems require value-judgements. The concept of a right, as a moral concept, requires value-judgements. Choices require value-judgements, or they're simply arbitrary. Free-will requires value-judgements.

Your own concept of a right incorporates value-judgements, and you have in multiple cases made value-judgements.

Human beings are value-seeking creatures. Any definition of what it means to be human has to include this.

By saying that the self-owned human who engages in an act of unprovoked violence against another self-owned human is "denying their own self-ownership" you are implying something that defeats your entire argument: That someone can choose not to own themselves, or to defeat the recognition of their self-ownership from a societal standpoint. For this to be a negative would mean the self-owner values his self-owned status.

Therefore "self-ownership" is not axiomatic. Free-will is obvious, but this does not automatically lead to the concept of self-ownership. Its a choice. To choose not to own yourself is, of course, self-destructive and illogical - but human beings have the unique capacity to engage in self-destructive behavior by choice.

A human can choose to become a slave to another human. A human can also choose to commit suicide. Therefore self-ownership is a choice, not an axiomatic fact. At any point a human can choose to own himself, or he can choose to let someone else own him, or he can choose to let society own him. The self-actualized human that thinks for himself and refuses to let anyone own him does so because he has made a value-judgement: he has judged his own life as valuable. It is entirely possible to judge one's own life as worthless - we see it every day - and to abdicate any responsibility of ownership over your body and mind.

Of course, self-ownership is special. At any point in time you can reclaim it, because you ARE yourself. You can't stop being yourself. But to actually OWN yourself requires cognition.

Example: a rock is itself, but it does not own itself. Ownership implies and requires choice.

To make any choice requires values. Value-judgements are therefore necessary to any self-owned human, and necessary to the concept of a right. The self-owned person values his life, and chooses to own it.

 

[Xenophage]

I edited that last post a lot.

 

[Kludge]

It is disputed whether or not some species of animals are self-aware. Those that are, should definitely be protected by law. While I personally oppose the killing of other animals (less self-defense and food), I think it would be too costly to protect "intelligent" animals who do not contribute to society (huh... that sounds pretty bad out loud).

 

[SWATH]

Sure I think they have natural rights as in the right to life and all that. I would not fault an animal who killed a human in self-defense or for food to survive, just as I would not fault a human for the same. I hunt for food but I do so fully aware that I am violating their right to life so that I may enable my right to life. To me, my right to life trumps theirs, I'm sure they have the same notion too but in reverse. This is the law of nature. Is it fair? No. However I have an obligation to this organism I inhabit to survive. When we live in a perfect world then I will regard the rights of different species the same as mine.

Having said that, I personally detest any forms of cruelty to animals. I saw a poor cat get rocked by a car yesterday and was upset about it for a while, even now. A few years ago I saw a dog get nailed by a car in front of me and as I drove passed it on the street I could hear it whimpering. It upset me so much that it was still alive and suffering, I turned the car around a few miles later to come back to shoot the dog and put it out of it's misery, I didn't care if it was in the middle of the city or who saw me do it. To my great relief the owner had found the dog and took it to the vet before I got there. It ended up making a full recovery. Being in those situations makes me very angry that I can't do anything to help the animal or at least ease it's pain short of killing it. It makes me wish I could have morphine in my med kit, but thanks to the stupid government we are all forced to endure the pain of trauma without the permission of bureaucrats.

This greatly upsets me, and I've killed at least a few thousand animals (a few from hunting, but most from performing experimental surgeries in a research lab at UK). I went above and beyond the DLAR requirements to prevent the animals from experiencing any pain.

 

[Rael]

If being able to enter social contracts gives rights, does this mean minors don't have rights since they cannot enter into contracts? What about retarded people who don't have the capacity to enter into contracts? It has been said that a dog has the intelligence of a 3-4 year old, but no one would deny that a 3-4 human has rights. If my dog can understand that performing a service (fetching the paper) will get him a payment (a treat or praise) does that not constitute a contract? Since my dog guards my house while I am gone, does this not onstitute a service to me that requires compensation(providing food, shelter, medical care)?

 

[Xenophage]

I can live with a half-inclination towards agreement.

In the end, I don't really feel compelled to make people agree with me in regards to this particular question, because I don't feel terribly strongly about it, and I think it's kind of ridiculous the way libertarians will tear each other apart over arguments about things like "animals' natural rights" when we agree on 98% of everything else.

But I still like to argue my perspective... :o

Here I agree with you 100%

 

[sdczen]

Both animals and humans have the right to eat each other.

 

[Xenophage]

If being able to enter social contracts gives rights, does this mean minors don't have rights since they cannot enter into contracts? What about retarded people who don't have the capacity to enter into contracts? It has been said that a dog has the intelligence of a 3-4 year old, but no one would deny that a 3-4 human has rights. If my dog can understand that performing a service (fetching the paper) will get him a payment (a treat or praise) does that not constitute a contract? Since my dog guards my house while I am gone, does this not onstitute a service to me that requires compensation(providing food, shelter, medical care)?

Its necessary for children to be legally protected from abuse and extreme neglect, but to argue that they have "rights" in the way I've defined them is a bit difficult. I would argue the same for pets. Adults are rational producers and traders and have a necessity for rights - but children's rights necessarily have to be more restrained.

To say that a child is afforded all the liberty of an adult is absurd. Parents give everything to a child, and restrict a majority of their action. As children grow and start engaging the adult world, they ought to be afforded more freedoms.

Children are becoming rational beings, and for this they should be respected.

Dogs, on the other hand, are not rational nor are they becoming rational. Like children, they should be protected legally from extreme abuse, but its ridiculous to consider that you have a "social contract" with a dog. What you might have is a mutually loving, affectionate relationship.

 

[Bman]

I voted for animals. Since we have the ability to choose and animals do not, they are the truly innocent of the world.

 

[Angio333]

Humans have rights, animals don't.