Animals rights

As long time readers know, I'm, well, crunchy-ish. I make my own yogurt, I fret about global warming, and I only eat certified humane meat. I don't care about killing farm animals, but I do think that their lives, however long they are, should be worth living on sheepish or piggy or . . . er . . . cowese terms.

So obviously, I've been following with avid interest Jim Henley's attempt to generate a libertarian theory of animal cruelty law, as well as Julian Sanchez's declaration that there isn't one.

Julian takes what I would say is the typical libertarian view, which is that only rights should be enshrined in law. I shouldn't try to steal someone else's husband, but I am legally forbidden from stealing their car, because they have a property right in the car, but not in the husband. That leaves a boundary question: are animals rights-having creatures?

As with abortion, there's no inherently libertarian answer to that question. But Julian and some of Jim's commenters seem to be taking a fairly hard line: rights are binary (you have them or you don't); and animals, which don't have agency, cannot have rights.

I'd say that there are different classes of rights-holders; babies are persons, but they can't vote, and they do have the right to be supported by the state. (Of course, some libertarians would disagree with that latter, but I'm pretty firm that they do.) So it seems plausible to me that animals could have limited rights--a right not to suffer for our pleasure, say--even though none of them will ever master the lute.

Should animals have that right? Obviously, both Julian (who is a vegetarian) and I, who will only eat animals that are not industrially farmed, have both decided that the suffering of animals matters, morally. But should it matter, legally? Creating new rights is a big deal.

Okay, I'll bite the bullet. As a first principle, you shouldn't be able to burn a sheep alive because it's fun¹.

¹ I mean, assuming you are a member of what I take to be the very small class of people who would find something like this fun.

Comments

I'm glad you raised the abortion issue, since it also seems to attract people who insist that there are just persons and non-persons, and only the former have any rights at all. Such people can be extreme pro-lifers who see no difference between a first trimester abortion and infantacide, or they can be extreme pro-choice types who would (at least in theory) allow abortion up to the moment of birth.

The question is why anyone would insist on these binary distinctions when we know scientifically that evolution and development are continuous, and not discrete, and when this kind of binary thinking doesn't really seem to match up with common moral intuitions.

Posted by Pithlord | August 22, 2007 8:34 PM

Not sure where this falls in terms of libertarianism (not being a libertarian, that's not my concern), but I think a distinction can be made between any rights an animal may or may not have and our obligations toward them.

I do eat meat, but I also have pets and I have an obligation to feed my cats and dog and provide them with any other needs they have despite my position that they do not have what we would call 'rights'.

The locus of the issue is with the animal owner, not the critters. Of course, I may be wrong, as I have not given this matter much thought since I tend to spoil my pets.

Posted by dan | August 22, 2007 8:49 PM

Obviously, the law has to impose discrete rules on continuous processes. But why do we have to go along with it?

Posted by Pithlord | August 22, 2007 8:55 PM

Pithlord-
Well, that's the rub, right? Different organisms have a variety of morally relevant traits in different degrees and combinations, and indeed, both the degree and combination may vary with the development of a single organism. And once we've decided these ground an enforceable claim, we can reflect that complexity to some extent by grading punishments: Torturing a squirrel is bad, torturing a chimp is worse, and torturing a toddler gets you locked in a small, awful place for the rest of your life.

But the question "what does it take to get to the point where there's any enforceable claim?" (I'm taking "right" as a shorthand for "coercively enforceable moral claim" here) does demand a binary answer, so even if there's inevitable fuzz, you need to try for some account that explains which traits define that inflection point. I don't actually hold the silly position that "rights are binary" as a set--you've either got none at all, or the full complement possessed by competent adult humans. But they are individually binary: The moral claim an organism has to be treated (or, as in this case, not treated) in some particular way is either coercively enforceable, or it isn't.

All that said, I've updated my original post and backed off my tentative conclusion until I mull it a bit more.

Posted by Julian Sanchez | August 22, 2007 9:11 PM

I don't see any logical basis for deciding what should be enforceable rights of animals. Should we be allowed to kill small mammals with warfarins and glue traps? To shoot them for sport? Is it wrong to let sea creatures asphyxiate? To keep pets for companionship when we don't even know if they like being pets? To kill them because they inconvenience us rather than because we enjoy it?

I do, however, believe that society has an interest in discouraging blatantly sociopathic behavior and that the state can criminalize it. It's wrong for us to be cruel to animals, but because we shouldn't be cruel, not because they're animals.

Posted by Kwyjibo | August 22, 2007 9:30 PM

The answer is Bambi. Ever since Walt started anthropomorphizing the forest critters there is a mass sense that animals are like us.

Vick's legal troubles center around charges about state lines and gambling. The cruelty to animals bit is the media's reaction to a country that spends more on its pets than the entire GDP of Finland. That's good ratings.

The average person can wipe out their pet at the neighborhood Vet for a small fee. The question becomes what right does society have to imprison someone who's methods differ ?

Posted by Eric Sundwall | August 22, 2007 9:51 PM

Here's a question I've always had on this topic: is it possible that eating animals, something humans had to do for many thousands of years to survive, is morally wrong?

I don't see how that could be.

But I'm asking seriously: what's wrong with that reasoning?

Posted by theologian | August 22, 2007 10:26 PM

Eric--remember, the same arguments used to be used when talking about what a man could do to his wife in chastising her. He could beat her and no one would say anything.

If we ever do run into aliens, our fittness to join the greater galaxy out there may be judged by what we have done to those weaker than us and in our power.

Posted by grumpy realist | August 22, 2007 10:27 PM

We do have cruelty to animals laws. It seems that much of what goes on in the livestock industry would be illegal if it were done by private individuals.

Farms can cut off a chickens beak, so that it doesn't peck other animals. But if I did the same to a parrot, just for fun, it would be criminal.

Perhaps part of the solution is applying the same laws across the board.

More complex may be the hieracrchy of animals. I can swat a mosquito that bothers me or poison cockroaches. But what about pigeons? Or squirrels? A deer or rabbits eating my garden? I don't even know.

Posted by Jack | August 22, 2007 10:53 PM

"Since there are slightly more versions of libertarianism than there are libertarians" -Henley

This? Made me fall off my chair laughing...

I think I'm in the camp that says that critters don't have rights inherent in themselves, but we as a community are well within ours to grant them protection... IF we wish to do so.
Even what we consider rights for ourselves do not exist outside the construct of our community, because rights must be accepted and enforced. In "The Wild" as the saying is, there is never a status quo where the right of existence applies by nature. The existence is based on strength, and is taken away when someone stronger comes along. There is no right that resides within existence, unless we as a community make it so.

So, when we move down a level from human [assuming the dolphins haven't left already] it is entirely up to us to present guidelines or laws, because the critters have no more rights than they would in the external world, which is to say, none. The laws against cruelty are framed by us, because we can see cruelty to lower life forms often doesn't stop there. When it reaches the level of cruelty to other humans a price has already been paid, so it is worth it to stop it sooner. This is quite appart from the pain it costs other humans to watch the cruelty, which doesn't reach the level of law. It COULD if we were all willing to agree that it SHOULD. You'd have a hard time with that consensus, because there would always be a group that would want to push it down a level, and eventually no-one would be able to breathe for fear that they would kill an airbourne virus... [See Bloom County, and tie yourself to a tree branch...]

That also leaves critters as property which further wraps a law around them, because they are protected from others' being cruel to them, because they belong to you.

The whole "Pet Guardian" thing would be the over-reaching slippery slope that I would think most libertarian, and many others would fear : Pet Guardians because each step is a step towards a right for them that isn't there. How long till there is a "Vermin Rights Front" ... but rats are cuuute... until they bite you and give your rabies

or somethin'

Posted by D | August 22, 2007 11:27 PM

Look, domesticated animals live in the equivalent of concentration camps, where they are housed and fed until they reach prime slaughtering time, then they are dismembered for human consumption. You, Meghan, who eat meat, want to pretend that while it's okay to end the lives of animals for your dietary satisfaction, that it's not okay for them to suffer. Typically, it is worse to kill something than merely to make it suffer, except in some instances in which we might imagine torture endless and excruciating. If you care about animals as feeling (perhaps thinking?) beings, you should have to care about them as LIVING things too. Until you stop eating animals and pretending to yourself that it's okay because they lived happy productive animal lives all the way up to the moment they were slaughtered to fill your belly, any argument you make on behalf of the animals that you feast upon will ring hollow.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 22, 2007 11:48 PM

I think animals themselves decide what rights they are willing to live by, and it is reflected in how they treat each other.

It is not our place to impose upon them the type of rights which they could not follow if left to their own devices and impulses.

Thus, if you are a croc in the river, and thousands of caribou pass through on their migration to the plain and you manage to injure and eat a few, then you, lovely croc, ought not to be overly concerned when your derriere is walking down the street as a Coach purse, or you are the feature attraction of an OUtback "Taste of the Wild" dinner platter.

And if said croc is making no moral judgements about the rights of the caribou it is about to consume, ought we to be imposing a set of arbitrary situational rights on its behalf? As in, humans ought not to eat meat, but lions in their natural habit can eat meat? Or, African croc can beat the daylights out of baby caribou but Mr.Vick can't beat a dog? Are we willing to harmonize the value judgements into a set of universal rights, or some lesser arbitrary set of rights that by virtue of being arbitrary, become suspect.

Animals are not owed what they do not give, nor what they cannot understand, and unlike human babies (often equally helpless, living slacker lives of tits, milk booze, peeing all over, looking cute and pooping), the animals will not evolve or learn a code of morality.

Now I agree with "D"s comments that we can grant rights, but I don't imagine we can make those rights carry any sort of moral weight or uniform application. It's an arbitrary construct.

It's like giving a monkey (not a dog) a bone. All he will do is put that it in wrong places and use it to fling things at your little Ashley, Shaquananisha, Yen Shu, or Jose when you are taking them to the zoo.

Posted by Finn | August 22, 2007 11:55 PM

Megan, I'd like to know something, seriously. How long have you known that you're a sociopath?

I mean there must have been a time when it dawned on you that you are not like other people. There was something missing even if you couldn't quite put your finger on it. Surely by now you have figured out what you are. When was that? Was it liberating for you? I'm curious.

Posted by noen | August 23, 2007 12:17 AM

SIS!
BOOM!
BAH!

Describe the sound of an exploding sheep.

Posted by Mumblix Grumph | August 23, 2007 12:30 AM

Wait, is Megan a sociopath because she's a carnivore? You better just call me Ted Bundy, then.

While I agree that wanton cruelty towards animals should be punished, let's not get carried away here. It's perfectly acceptable to be speciesist. We eradicated the screw worm because it was a nasty pain in the ass. If we have to wipe out mosquito populations to ease malaria, so be it. And if animals have to die to advance medical research, then that's what has to be done. If we go about assigning rights, we need to be careful that we don't do anything that would prevent us from protecting our species in the future.

Posted by Cain | August 23, 2007 12:37 AM

"you shouldn't be able to burn a sheep alive because it's fun"

There is no room in libertarianism to pass laws that require judging a person's intent instead of their actions.

You would propose that I should not burn a sheep alive because it is fun.

But I retain the right to burn a sheep alive because it is an efficient way to heat my house. I also retain the right to burn a sheep alive for purposes of providing light.

I am sure I could come up with a hundred reasons for burning a sheep alive, other than "because it's fun". But your proposal would require judging the intent of each and every sheep burning to determine if it fell into the single prohibited category. In effect, you are proposing creating thought crimes, and that is incompatible with freedom.

Posted by Ali | August 23, 2007 12:49 AM

There is no room in libertarianism to pass laws that require judging a person's intent instead of their actions.

Wow. So in a libertarian society, either identity fraud would be legal, or it would be illegal to misstate your identity regardless of the purpose? Telling someone "I am Keyzer Soze" in the expectation that they will give you money intended for Mr. Soze would be no different from entering your name as "Keyzer Soze" in the registration form of an online discussion group?

Good thing we don't live in a libertarian society. It'd be fraud paradise -- like Nigeria squared. Or else really boring and coercive.

Posted by brooksfoe | August 23, 2007 1:03 AM

"But I'm asking seriously: what's wrong with that reasoning?"

It assumes that anything that's morally permissible when you have to do it for survival is equally morally permissible when you just sort of like it?

Posted by Julian Sanchez | August 23, 2007 1:22 AM

There is no libertarian justification for the enforcement of animal rights. Only human beings have rights. Animals are either free in the wild, or they are the property of human beings. Libertarians view property rights as sacrosanct to the extent that such use of property does not infringe on the natural rights and the property of other human beings. The rights we have extended to animals is purely arbitrary.

Posted by Yancey Ward | August 23, 2007 1:30 AM

Since there is disagreement about the nature of rights and, moreover, about whether ascribing moral rights is the most useful way to approach ethical issues in the first place, the question of whether animals have rights is perhaps less important than the question of whether their interests (e.g., in not being made to suffer unnecessarily) should be accorded equal weight with the similar interests of humans.

Many humans are not moral agents, and many never will be. Many humans are less rational, less autonomous, less sociable, less communicative than many non-humans. The pig that Megan happily condemns to death is smarter than many humans whose deliberate death she would presumably consider a horrendous crime. What's the logic here? What's the difference between saying that we can do what we like to pigs because they are of a different species, and saying the same about individuals of another sex or race?

Here's a libertarian response to the idea that animals don't have rights:

http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Philosophy/A%20Libertarian%20Replies%20to%20Tibor%20Machan's%20'Why%20Animal%20Rights%20Don't%20Exist'.htm

Finn: I'm glad to see that you apparently disapprove of eating cows, sheep, pigs, and deer -- animals that do not kill and eat other animals.

Posted by mijnheer | August 23, 2007 1:36 AM

As long time readers know, I'm, well, crunchy-ish.

Only in the middle. The outer portions, I found, were quite flaky and light.

Your pal,
Idi Amin

Posted by brooksfoe | August 23, 2007 2:13 AM

mijnheer,

Graham's argument is fatally flawed because, when applied, it logically extends rights to all living organisms. In order to not reach the absurd result that I cannot exterminate pests in my house, one has to draw an arbitrary line as to what constitutes a creature with rights to not be killed by myself. And one also has to find a way to avoid the absurd result that animals be prevented from killing each other in the wild because a right must be enforced by those agents capable of doing so- us.

Posted by Yancey Ward | August 23, 2007 2:14 AM

mijnheer... OK, I'll bite. What group of animals are we talking? All animals? What about insects? Fish? Is it bad news to kill norway rats infesting a building? At what point do we stop? dust mites? ameboea?

By what system or measure do you delineate? You kill thousands of mites every time you wash your sheets. Are you violating their rights? Why do they have fewer rights than your pig? This very moment your body is killing whole colonies of biologics inside you, for shame!

You start headin' down that slope, and the act of living is also the act of killing something else. For food or defense, when does it make a difference?

I guess vegetables are screwed either way aren't they? Nobody is going to defend the carrots...

Posted by D | August 23, 2007 2:16 AM

I guess vegetables are screwed either way aren't they? Nobody is going to defend the carrots...

http://www.voices.com/blog/uploaded_images/wallace-gromit-were-rabbit-interactivevoices-blog-739186.jpg

Posted by brooksfoe | August 23, 2007 2:25 AM

For what it's worth, the libertarian approach to the issue of animal rights is about as crucial a topic as the counter-Remonstrant approach to net neutrality.

Posted by brooksfoe | August 23, 2007 2:35 AM

Have the animals submitted a petition? Organized a boycott? Formed a caucus? I've asked my dogs about their rights, but they don't seem to have an answer.

Being a vegetarian is good for your health, but has little impact on the welfare of animals. If cows weren't prized by humans as food sources, they might be extinct. Think about it. What species don't you see on the endangered list? Chickens, pigs, cows, etc., are not endangered. Also, mink and chinchilla are not endangered. If an animal is useful to humans, we'll not only preserve it, we'll farm it, breed it, and sell it by the ton.

If we really wanted to "save the spotted owl," there would be commercial spotted owl farms in Arkansas ....

Tyson's Cajun BBQ Spotted Owl -- right next to Mrs. Paul's Blue Whale Cakes in your grocer's freezer section!

Posted by Robert Stacy McCain | August 23, 2007 2:40 AM

"Wait, is Megan a sociopath because she's a carnivore?"

No, we have now a fairly clear pattern from Megan. While all the topics that she has discussed recently could, in theory, be discussed in a clear and academic manner she has not done so. There is one thing glaringly absent from Megan's posts, nowhere can one find an ability to empathize with other people. There is not the slightest hint that the needs and demands of others might exist. This last post where she tosses in the grenade of "burning sheep alive" completes the picture.

No normal person would have this kind of "discussion" or conduct it in this manner. They would be sensitive to the feelings of her audience and of her own feelings. Megan displays no such sensitivity. She is in fact openly hostile to any demands save her own.

The animal thing confirmed it for me, it always starts with the animals with them doesn't it? What bothers Megan is any kind of tax or any hindrance at all that she does not benefit from. Insurance? It's an abomination! Everything else including torture is up for grabs.

Megan believes in only one thing, power. Nothing else exists or if it does then it's existence is only justified as it is subservient to the interests of power. Not morality, ethics, compassion etc. Her only desire is to gather as much power and wealth to herself as she can and no one has the right to demand from her what she is not willing to give and she will only give if it is a direct benefit to her.

Those are the politics of a sociopath.

Posted by noen | August 23, 2007 2:42 AM

rights? no. (un[re]solvable can of worms.) rather: a utilitarian/consequentialist framework. within that: do not cause, or contribute economically to, unnecessary pain/suffering. clean kill of an animal; no suffering; no depriving the creature of a future that it conceived for itself: OK. farming practices that cause sustained suffering: not OK, and support thereof should be withheld.

but it's not really possible. even the strictest vegan cannot wholly avoid lending economic support to the practice of causing animals to suffer. the question is then where to draw the personal line. i, myself (not prescribing for others!) take a quasi (or pseudo) kantian "universalizability" approach: i act such that, if everyone acted as i did, the practices that cause the animal suffering would be economically starved out of existence. specifically, among other things, i eat very little meat, and never ever spend money at fast food restaurants.

that's me, just a report, not an exhortation, scolding, or anything else.

Posted by scr | August 23, 2007 2:48 AM

I think David Graham explains quite clearly why ascribing rights to animals does not commit us to protecting animals in the wild. The duty of moral agents is simply to not harm wild animals except in self-defence.

Do carrots have rights? No. Why not? You really don't know? Because carrots are not sentient: thus nothing we can do to a carrot can matter to it.

If animals have rights, what animals are we talking about? Sentient animals who have an interest in not being harmed. Does a banana slug qualify? I doubt it very much, though it's an empirical question, subject to scientific investigation as well as philosophical analysis. For anyone who's interested, I recommend David DeGrazia's Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status (Cambridge University Press).

But as David Graham emphasizes, you cannot legitimately treat individual A differently from individual B unless there is a morally relevant distinction between the two of them. To deny this is to be irrational. The "argument from marginal cases" makes a very strong case that we cannot exclude all animals from the moral community without excluding quite a few humans; conversely, we cannot include all humans within the moral community without including many animals too. Logical consistency demands this.

Posted by mijnheer | August 23, 2007 2:52 AM

"Those are the politics of a sociopath."

or a 5 year old, although Megan is kinda tall for a 5 year old, according to reports...

Posted by D | August 23, 2007 2:53 AM

"Because carrots are not sentient"
and you can prove this how? Just because it can't move to get away from you?
"Sentient animals who have an interest in not being harmed."
Flies are pretty hard to kill, because they will avoid your hand. They move actively. But then most critters that are preyed upon in the wild do that as well, don't they? Introduce DDT to mosquitos, and they will avoid it, even if they aren't killed by it.

Does that make them sentient?

Posted by D | August 23, 2007 3:04 AM

Noen,

I think we can safely assume that the FBI's criminal behavior unit will have no use for your skills.

However, your comments were the funniest I have read all week.

Posted by Yancey Ward | August 23, 2007 3:05 AM

mijnheer,

Graham draws arbitrary lines on enforcement and which animals have rights. Rights of human beings are properly enforced within the laws. To exclude the enforcement of animal rights in the wild is not a libertarian argument.

In summary, I am saying that Graham's is not a libertarian argument for animal rights.

Posted by Yancey Ward | August 23, 2007 3:11 AM

"Her only desire is to gather as much power and wealth to herself as she can"

Most people would have taken a more obvious approach...I dunno, start a software company or something. Blogging about economics and public policy seems like a pretty unconventional way to accumulate wealth and power, but I guess that's why Megan is an evil genius, and I'm not.

Posted by Rob Leder | August 23, 2007 3:36 AM

"As long time readers know, I'm, well, crunchy-ish. I make my own yogurt, I fret about global warming, and I only eat certified humane meat. I don't care about killing farm animals, but I do think that their lives, however long they are, should be worth living on sheepish or piggy or . . . er . . . cowese terms."/

I don't believe a word of this. No, you don't "make your own yogurt", although you may have once. Or twice. You pretend to "fret" about global warming, you know, for "cred". And when you're out for dinner with Justin, Clarence, Muffy and Taylor does anyone really believe you demand certificates from the chef? Oh, please.

You are a fraud and a phony, McArdle.

Posted by Steve Kelso | August 23, 2007 6:32 AM

On what basis do libertarians draw a distinct line between humans and non-human animals? Shouldn't the rights we give be based on morally relevant criteria, and shouldn't likes be treated similar to likes?

The reason only humans can be given the right not be killed should not be based on the fact that each of us are human and we don't want to be killed, so we'll simply say humans have a right not to be killed. Just because we can procreate together, how is that morally relevant?

Consider when we were evolving and there happened to be another species of hominid that we couldn't procreate with, but still had the same capabilities as us. Shouldn't similar moral rights to given to them too?

In the case of determining which humans have a right to life, whether we draw the line at sentience, ability to plan for the future, etc, we should be consistent and only give rights to individual (human or non-human) that possess the trait. If we choose a trait such as ability to plan for the future, that leaves those mentally deficient people without that ability without the right to life. Sentience seems the better choice here.

Posted by Jeff Boghosian | August 23, 2007 7:38 AM

A human fetus should have more rights than any animal. Right now a fetus does have more rights than animals, but if animals are given more rights, so will the fetus gain more rights.

Posted by Matt | August 23, 2007 8:36 AM

Raja,your comments are wildly off topic,not to mention disingenuous.What about Half-white,Half-Brown men?Doltish.As far as this discussion, I must comment that if we (homo sapiens)
are just another class of animal as we are typically classified in biology texts,then our rights must
in theory have roots in our animal past,correct?

Posted by rita albin | August 23, 2007 8:36 AM

I don't believe a word of this. No, you don't "make your own yogurt", although you may have once.

I can attest that she does. It has a rich body to it with an almost electric tartness. The secret ingredient is the suffering of the proletariat.

Posted by Kwyjibo | August 23, 2007 8:45 AM

I think this sums up a majority of the arguement....

Jules: I don't eat dog either.
Vincent: Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?
Jules: I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy but they're definitely dirty. But, a dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.
Vincent: Ah, so by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filthy animal. Is that true?
Jules: Well we'd have to be talkin' about one charmin' m'f'n' pig. I mean he'd have to be ten times more charmin' than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I'm sayin'?

Posted by flypay | August 23, 2007 8:46 AM

The question of animal cruelty laws is about the justice of the punishments. Animal cruelty laws basically say that animals that are harmed deserve justice, and that the person who harmed them should forfeit some part of his life (jail time or loss of property) as punishment.

There's a very real question of value there. Once the penalty becomes meaningful (i.e. not a $5 fine or something like that) you run the risk of devaluing human life by elevating animals.

Human life is valuable in ways beyond the value of animal life. It's not 10 times more valuable or 1000 times, so that if a large number of animals needed justice, we'd kill the perpetrator and feel we'd done something just. Human life is comparatively priceless.

And therefore, no human ought to be punished for harming an animal unless it's a property crime against the animal's owner. Animals can't be afforded justice.

Posted by Ben | August 23, 2007 8:47 AM

Humans, like all other animals, exercise the natural inclination to act in their own self-interest. Humans killing other animals and using them as food is done to promote our own self-interest, even though some humans might choose not to do it. Exterminating pests is our right because it is an act that promotes our own self-interest. If humans lived in the wild, they might easily be killed by other carnivores or trampled by a herd of elephants or deer. Animals naturally act in ways that promotes their own self-interest without regard to the rights of other animals. Only humans, with their ability to reason and exercise a form of free-will spend any time deciding what rights exist among them and other animals. Some human societies eat cats and dogs as part of their normal diet. That is their right. Our society chooses otherwise and often grants special rights to such animals that we esteem with some higher degree of respect than we do other life forms. But, such rights are granted on a case-by-case basis and could, in fact, change with circumstances. For example, humans normally protect and do not eat horses, but when meat supply is threatened this norm can and has been changed. Animals other than humans only have the rights that we choose to give them. They have no inherent rights.

Posted by Darrell | August 23, 2007 9:09 AM

You are not a libertarian but simply a neocon corporate apologist.

So many clues from this morning's Washington Journal:

"Most people who are against illegal immigration are also against immigration".
Total crap. You don't even have contrived data to support that. You should be ashamed of yourself.

"China products will be controlled by the free market, no need for more US regulation"
More crap. The purpose for gov't is to provide a level playing field and rule of law for competitive activity. Lack of regulation allows secrecy, criminal opportuntism.

I suppose if you die from poison from China your last words will be "I won't buy that again!"

"FEMA had bureacratic constraints during Katrina", is nonsense. This is the neocon excuse. Facts show that Brownie and the rest worked purposefully to allow this disaster. Mrs. Bush the Elder saying, "well, this is working out quite well for them" as they were herded into concentration camps in stadiums.

You claim to be a knowledgeable media participant, but haven't seen the movie Sicko, which has been out for months. Then you spew statistics that are either meaningless or inaccurate, about France and England's costs. Get with it.

Posted by mike green | August 23, 2007 9:12 AM

I think I'm in the camp that says that critters don't have rights inherent in themselves, but we as a community are well within ours to grant them protection

Communities/collectives don't have rights, only powers, that should be exercised only to the extent that they do not interfere in an individual's rights (including property rights).

This approach (which is basically your classic minarchist libertarian approach) avoids the unanswerable question of whether animals have rights. It repositions the issue as two new questions:

(1) Does the collective/state have the (legal) power to prohibit the individual from doing X (torturing animals, killing game animals out of season, etc.)

(2) Does an individual have the right to do X?

As for wild animals, they traditionally do not belong to the individual, even if they are on his property, and so he has no right to do anything to them except in self-defense. The state may grant the privilege of hunting them on whatever terms and conditions it pleases.

As for domestic animals, they are traditionally the property of the individual. I think people (by which I mean city folk) are questioning some of the implications of this, as they now mostly encounter animals as companions rather than as future meals.

Posted by R C Dean | August 23, 2007 9:19 AM

The concern for animal rights comes from Jeremy Bentham's great line, that the question is not whether animals can reason but can they suffer.

You might want avoid that trap, or anyway clear away the brush before deciding that that's what's bothering you, with Vicki Hearne's fine old essay ``What's Wrong with Animal Rights'' from an ancient Harpers, hmm... I'll find it...

Here thanks to the wayback machine.

Posted by Ron Hardin | August 23, 2007 9:22 AM

There is no room in libertarianism to pass laws that require judging a person's intent instead of their actions.

This is quite wrong. There is a world of difference between accidentally and intentionally shooting someone, a difference that can and should be recognized by the law, even in a libertarian utopia.

Posted by R C Dean | August 23, 2007 9:24 AM

The people who relate to illegals only in terms of servants--e.g. sweet, cheap, and humble Rosa who cleans up after them and also teaches their brats Spanish before private pre-school; or hard-working Manual, who cuts their lawns and tips his hat as they pass--pat themselves on their back for their humanity. They don't have to send their kids to schools half of which are filled with kids who speak none or limited English. What effect do you think that has on the education of a kid who is already is poor? My wife, until recently, was a L&D nurse in rural Central California and she has estimated that a third of the new borns are born to illegals. And as a former resident of Costa Mesa, right on the border of Santa Ana, I could go on and on about this. This is deforming the face and economy of our nation.

Posted by Sean Smith | August 23, 2007 9:31 AM

OK, first time really visiting the blog here... is this huge troll infestation normal?

(Related topic: do trolls count as sentient animals?)

Posted by kevin r | August 23, 2007 9:33 AM

Typo in the second sentence of the post: an extra "e" on "human."

Posted by Muskrat | August 23, 2007 9:34 AM

Where does it end? Do all living things have rights?

How about trees? We 'kill' them for shelter
We steal and devour the unborn children of grain, fruit and nuts
Virii need us to live
Bacteria...

Well, you get the picture

I do not believe animals have rights ebcause they do not have ethics. Nature is nature, mankind is mankind. Two magisteria

This does not mean we should be jerks about it. WE have the awareness, we have the obligation to not be unnecessarily cruel

If you honestly believe otherwise, please feel free to discuss conversion to veganism with a pack of Hyenas. Tell your heirs to let me know how it went

Posted by GW Crawford | August 23, 2007 9:40 AM

I've actually had similar wonderings myself of late as to whether animals have rights or not. I've always been of the belief that they do have limited rights... but also whether there are different classes of animals with different sets of rights.

Do we ascribe more/better rights to animals that we think of as "companion animals" (like dogs and horses) compared to livestock? Is the nature of their relationship to humans what makes them worthy of having rights?

Posted by Nick | August 23, 2007 9:51 AM

Here's McArdle's watercarrying for Bush's Katrina failure (in which some not-very-important, never been to the Upper West Side humans died). She cleverly ignores the Bush dismantling of the previously highly effective FEMA and how he handed the agency to his old buddies Anspaugh (sp?) and Brownie. Read it and retch.

Hey, Atlantic, you must be feeling mighty proud today! Cocktail Weenies forever!

--------------------------------------------

Today, Atlantic's new Associate Editor, Megan McArdle appeared on CSPAN. Here is what she had to say about Katrina:

"I'd like to ask you if you could briefly describe your thoughts in the governments role in the Katrina effort?"

McArdle:
Um, well, I think it's obviously not gone well, but I also, to some extent, there's two separate questions: how did FEMA do? F. The tendency was just to blame the Bush administration, which I don't think is right. The way FEMA was set up, the problems were certainly enhanced by bureaucratic incompetence, but also the constraints on the way that FEMA acts, um, and the rules that were set up for other emergencies, just tended to make things worse, they bought all these trailers, for example, because

CSPAN: (interrupting)
But where does FEMA exist in a libertarian state?

McArdle:
Um, it doesn't'! however, I think it should be noted there was an enormous outpouring of private charity, and the private charity was vastly more effective, while FEMA was struggling to get water into New Orleans, WALMART sent trucks and trucks of the stuff down, whereas FEMA, because of all these bureaucratic constraints, couldn't get going. Um, um, in a libertarian world, without FEMA, you would have seen, the problem is, everything would be so different, you wouldn't have had the Army Corps of Engineers building all the levys that then broke, New Orleans would have looked like a different city, so, at that point, you're going so far back to first principles, given that FEMA existed, which I think I have to take, I think there was bureaucratic incompetence, but there were also structural problems with the way that the government hems in the discretion of emergency management bureaucracies and makes all these incredibly tight rules about what they're supposed to do, if you have an emergency, I think you want as few rules as possible because god knows what the emergency is going to be.

Posted by Steve Kelso | August 23, 2007 9:57 AM

I'm rather amazed and somewhat baffled that in Megan's piece and the 52 comments that have thus far followed the name "Peter Singer" has not appeared once. Seems to me that any discussion of this issue must incorporate his well-developed theories, if only to refute them.

Posted by Bill | August 23, 2007 10:00 AM

OK, first time really visiting the blog here... is this huge troll infestation normal?
(Related topic: do trolls count as sentient animals?)
Posted by kevin r

Why don't you let us know, Kev?

Posted by Steve Kelso | August 23, 2007 10:02 AM

It's possible to make a strong libertarian argument for animal rights (but not one that would persuade me). Robert Nozick made a good case.

Posted by David | August 23, 2007 10:14 AM

This comment deleted for misuse of the word "Socialist

Posted by Bilwick | August 23, 2007 10:16 AM

I just noticed another bozo post I'd like to comment on:

Mike says that MM isn't a true libertarian but a "neocon" corporate apologist. It may be correct that by my definition Ms. McArdle isn't a true libertarian (I am, and I've disagreed with her before) I'd like to know what Mike's definition of a "true" libertarian is. I'm sure he's well versed in libertarianism, so this should be interesting. I'm also curious because he uses the word "neocon," a term, like "fascist," that lost its original meaning at least a decade ago, and now is generally used to mean: "Anyone we in the Hive don't like." Use of the term "neocon" generally functions as a sign worn atop the head, with an arrow pointing down at the cranium, and a warning "No real thought going on in here."

Posted by Bilwick | August 23, 2007 10:24 AM

I think that the fact that animals can suffer places them in a different class of property than, say, a chair or a tape dispenser. Too many libertarians simply say "well, we own them and that's that!"

I can not abide anyone who doesn't see an ethical distinction between sawing the legs off an end table and sawing the legs off of a howling dog and yet I see quite a few libertarians who insist that this is a precisely equivalent situation.

My own feeling is that the capacity to suffer implies a converse right not to suffer at our hands; which is to say that a just society will put laws into place to minimizing the willful infliction of suffering of other beings (a belief that does not require us all to become PeTA-style vegetarians, nor one that would require us to put restraints on cats to prevent them from playing with mice).

Frankly, if Libertarianism requires the rejection of this thesis then I have no choice but to reject Libertarianism as a morally indefensible philosophy.

Posted by Andrew Lias | August 23, 2007 10:36 AM

How about trees? We 'kill' them for shelter
We steal and devour the unborn children of grain, fruit and nuts
Virii need us to live
Bacteria...

I do not believe animals have rights ebcause they do not have ethics. Nature is nature, mankind is mankind. Two magisteria

This does not mean we should be jerks about it. WE have the awareness, we have the obligation to not be unnecessarily cruel.

Oh dear...first a slippery slope argument, and then a speceist argument.

I was unaware that humans are entitled to rights because we have ethics (or at least the concept of ethics which I assume is what you meant, as many people have no discernible ethics. ) It seems more obvious to me that we have rights because we grant them to ourselves, and ethics because we impose them upon ourselves. We do this because we have the power to impose them upon ourselves via law or custom, and were a significantly more powerful species to come along, they could also impose their ethics upon us arguing-under your theory-that our ethics are indescernible to them and so they have no obligation to us.

In truth, we act the way we do towards animals because we have the power to do so, they cannot stop us, and it is convenient to place our interests (even in the taste of our gourmet food) above theirs. This is so obvious that it brooks no argument. If we act a different way towards animals, it is because our own system of ethics demands it, because we decide that animals do not deserve an unnecessarily cruel death (or death for our purposes at all.)

There is no legitimate argument for treating animals the way we do, except one of convenience and self-interest. Ultimately it is a losing argument, at least from an ethical standpoint, though countless indescribable acts of cruelty will be daily occurrences until we accept otherwise.

Posted by Xanthippas | August 23, 2007 10:45 AM

"Owners." How quaint. Here in Boulder, we're guardians. (Of course! :)

Posted by Derek Scruggs | August 23, 2007 10:48 AM

Sorry if these points have been brought up before, but I didn't see them mentioned specifically, so I thought I'd throw them out there:

Assuming a perfectly libertarian society, wherein the government does not restrain anyone's rights, here is the situation I would see for animal rights. First, animals do not have rights. One must be able to make an ethical judgement, i.e. to have or be able to develop the capability of respecting another's rights, to have rights. (On a side note, since someone will likely bring up abortion, see Rothbard's "For A New Liberty" for an excellent libertarian answer to the issue of abortion).

That having been said, no person or group of persons can be ethically forced to associate with someone against their will. This includes transactions of a material nature, i.e. groceries, rental property, any of the necessities of life. Therefore, for those who find animal cruelty offensive on a personal, moral, or aesthetic level, they may freely withhold their association from individuals who engage in such acts. In so doing, they make it undesirable, if not impossible, for such a person to continue to live in that community within the law (that is to say, without resorting to violence to obtain their needs).

Further, those who are opposed to animal cruelty may freely try to use sweet persuasion to bring others around to their point of view, further marginalizing the minority who engage in such offensive acts.

I do not agree that the government should restrict animal cruelty on the grounds that it is a prelude to other forms of sociopathic behavior. First, the phrase "animal cruelty" means many things to many people, ranging from the slow torturing of an animal for pleasure all the way to simply consuming unfertilized eggs for sustenance. Second, there are all kinds of qualities every sociopath in the world has shared, including eating, breathing, and being a carbon-based lifeform. Either an action is inherently counter to another's rights, or it is not. If the latter, it should be legal, even if it is morally repugnant.

Posted by The Gaunt Man | August 23, 2007 10:57 AM

"Have the animals submitted a petition? Organized a boycott? Formed a caucus? I've asked my dogs about their rights, but they don't seem to have an answer."

How stupid can you be?

Doesn't a dog have fear of being hurt? Of being killed? Doesn't he want to live and enjoy his life just like you do? Doesn't he want to be safe and secure, just like you do?

You asked your dogs about their rights and they didn't have an answer? I have an answer. They need to get a protector with more than a mono-neuronal brain.

Posted by bill | August 23, 2007 11:02 AM

There is no legitimate argument for treating animals the way we do, except one of convenience and self-interest.

Why is this bad? Why shouldn't we be looking out for our own species above all others, even if it comes at the expense of animals?

Posted by Cain | August 23, 2007 11:25 AM

Megan: Rights is a broad concept covering different and sometimes contradictory things. When libertarians use the phrase it is best to say natural rights. You use “rights” generically confusing these different categories. So you say babies don’t have a right to vote. They don’t. But voting is not a natural right only a political right. Or more accurately a political privilege bestowed by the state. Strictly speaking no one has a natural right to vote.

In libertarian rights are not “created” but either exist or they don’t. Legal privileges or regulations may exist but they are not the same thing.

There may be a case for animal rights from a libertarian perspective and that is that the nature of entity is what bestows the rights it has. They may justify certain measures about arbitrary cruelty for instance. Animals certainly can feel pain and would choose to avoid that pain if possible. On the other hand they are quite willing to inflict pain on other animals. So they certainly don’t respect the “rights” of similar beings. But what case that could be made is for rights that are similar to human rights in some ways but vastly more limited.

Good on you for having comments. Some other bloggers, I won’t mention Andrew’s name, are too precious to allow comments to be posted.

Posted by cls | August 23, 2007 11:27 AM

"There is no legitimate argument for treating animals the way we do, except one of convenience and self-interest. Ultimately it is a losing argument, at least from an ethical standpoint, though countless indescribable acts of cruelty will be daily occurrences until we accept otherwise." - xanthippas

I would very much like to see you actually lay out the ethical presuppositions you are stating as a pronouncement here.

Stating that something is unethical, doesn't make it so, explain your position, all the way back to equivalents, please? By that I mean "animals are the same as humans, because..."

Posted by D | August 23, 2007 11:50 AM

Finn, crocodiles don't eat caribou, the crocs are in Africa and Asia, the caribou in the North American tundra, and never the twain do meet.

Posted by Mark | August 23, 2007 12:03 PM

Thinking in terms of higher and lower forms of life is highly anthropomorphic. Humans do what they do because they can. Teasing cruelty seems to be enjoyed only by humans. So any curbing of that behavior is welcomed. I treat the four legged mammals in my family as I do the two legged ones.

Posted by judson | August 23, 2007 12:04 PM

There is unrest in the forest,
There is trouble with the trees,
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas.

The trouble with the maples,
(And they're quite convinced they're right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light.
But the oaks can't help their feelings
If they like the way they're made.
And they wonder why the maples
Can't be happy in their shade.

There is trouble in the forest,
And the creatures all have fled,
As the maples scream "Oppression!"
And the oaks just shake their heads

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights.
"The oaks are just too greedy;
We will make them give us light."
Now there's no more oak oppression,
For they passed a noble law,
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe, and saw.

Posted by Neil Peart | August 23, 2007 12:08 PM

Wait a minute !
Have we resolved the dabate about human rights ? Human rights, as defined by libartarians, are far from being protected. Widespread violations are the norm, and I'm not talking about the third world.

We'll worry later about animal rights.

Posted by Jacob | August 23, 2007 12:21 PM

Even Libertarianism acknowledges that, as moral beings, we owe it to ourselves to treat other life with the same care we give our own in so far as we have contact with other life, again (as others have brought up) relating the extent to which we go on their behalf according to our interaction with those other life forms and our needs to sustain our own lives and health. It is all relative. However, deliberate cruelty like hanging a dog (by the neck in a noose, from a tree or whatever) for 8 hours, then shocking it to see if it twitches and if it does, body slamming it from overhead height, and then drowning it if it survives the slam, goes way beyond shooting an animal in the head to kill it for food.

On another topic (related to your appearance on Washington Journal this morning): Anytime someone on a mainstream media outlet repeats the phrase "Ron Paul can't win." they are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy (or attempting to create such an end result). Please cease this kind of indoctrination disguised as subjective opinion. Please see this article:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/eddlem/eddlem18.html

Posted by Windy | August 23, 2007 12:27 PM

Teasing cruelty seems to be enjoyed only by humans.

You must not have ever watched a cat toy with a mouse.

Posted by Allan | August 23, 2007 12:58 PM

Ms. McArdle:

I was pleased but surprised to find your piece today. We were just having what amounts to the same debate. Like yourself, I was articulating a position that at least some animals deserve social protections. While the reasoning used to arrive there is different from your own, it might be worth reading through in order to develop your own argument for the position you're trying to establish -- that of having not-quite-rights, but not-quite-no-rights either.

Posted by Grim | August 23, 2007 1:42 PM

Rights? Why is everything "Rights" when there's another, perhaps better if not equally applicable, "R" word: Responsibility. An animal doesn't have 'rights' per se, only the expectation that we act responsible in our stewardship. Beating a dog for enjoyment is not responsible. Humanely providing fillet mignon for our "good eats" is responsible. Completely wiping out parasites that can cause us harm is responsible - if in doing so we aren't cutting out an ecological niche that cannot be filled otherwise (what "ecological niche" does the ebola virus or bubonic plague fill, anyways?). Maybe, someday, when a species gets to the developmental point of being on par with homo sapien, then yes, that is the time to discuss rights for them. Until then, It's our job to be responsible (and reasonable, a stretch as it may be) for our actions regarding them.

(And before I am accused of being a speciesist, read what I wrote about responsibility again. Yes, I place h. sapien on the top of the heap, but no, I do not espouse cruelty for cruelty's sake.)

Posted by Lysander | August 23, 2007 1:46 PM

Kelso wrote: Why don't you let us know, Kev?

He doesn't have to. You correctly identified, by indirect cues, a question randomly directed at a class that happened to include yourself. You proved your successful identification of it by responding coherently. If memory serves, you've met several classic AI tests for sentience.

Here, have a bridge.

Posted by anony-mouse | August 23, 2007 2:05 PM

Stating that something is unethical, doesn't make it so, explain your position, all the way back to equivalents, please? By that I mean "animals are the same as humans, because..."

Why of course stating that something is unethical makes it so. Even the philosophies of ethics assume something after all. If the you or I or the state decides that something is unethical, well, then it's unethical.

But if there must be an equivalent, then I suppose it could be said that I'm reaching back to "might makes right", just as those who don't believe in animal rights do. We have the power to impose ethical principles upon ourselves, and so we do. After all, humans could be highly ethically developed but unable to constrain their self-pleasing actions, in which case a system of ethics would mean nothing.

Posted by Xanthippas | August 23, 2007 2:29 PM

Lysander: You are begging the question -- assuming the very thing that needs to be demonstrated, namely, that other creatures are not "on a par" with humans. But what makes for being morally on par? Is it the degree of sentience or intelligence or rationality or autonomy or moral agency? Pick your criterion and many individual non-humans score as high or higher than many individual humans. So it seems you have a choice: either include some animals in the moral community, or toss some humans out.

That's the upshot of the "argument from marginal cases", and no one on this thread has directly addressed it. Have a good look:
http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Philosophy/A%20Libertarian%20Replies%20to%20Tibor%20Mach