Your rights end at the beginning of my tastebuds

In the post I linked yesterday, Julian made a side point about animal rights that I think bears examining: we tend to base our notion of which animals have rights based on whether they are a) cute or b) tasty:

I will note of existing animal cruelty laws that most contain specific exemptions for agriculture and various other industries, in ways that seem hard to justify. At any rate, I'm having trouble coming up with some coherent view on which "Tender meat is tasty" counts as a justification for the appalling way we treat veal calves but "I like watching violent bloodsports" is no excuse for how Michael Vick treated dogs. If abuse with no better rationale than mild enjoyment is "gratuitous," then factory farming is gratuitously cruel. (Lest it sound like I'm on a high horse here, I should note that, by my own lights, I really ought to either be a vegan or at least consume only dairy of known, humane provenance.) Our inconsistency here suggests that animal cruelty laws are less a function of high principle than of the fact that we like both burgers and cute doggies.

That's not really an argument for failing to ban dog-fighting--surely we can perfect some of the laws while we wait for our perfect state. But it is a call to come up with a better justification for our reasoning than "puppies are cute". Personally, I'd find it hard to construct an argument that bans dogfighting but allows veal--which is why I don't eat veal.

But I'm still battling with the question of whether animals should have rights. I'm a utility maximizer for animals: I think that eating certified humane meat is a positive moral good, because it causes the creation of additional happy animals (insofar as animals can be understood to be happy). Likewise having a pet. But while I certainly have a duty to my dog, does he thereby acquire rights? I'm pretty sure I have a very strong moral obligation to ensure that my dog is taken care of, but I'm not sure I'd legally enforce that claim against someone else.

Comments

"eating certified humane meat is a positive moral good"

No. "Positive moral good" is a weasely rationalization for someone who likes animals but also likes eating them.

Posted by ndm | August 23, 2007 6:47 PM

Do you think duties to infants, the severely retarded, the comatose, etc. are legitimately enforceable by law? If so, why shouldn't they be legally enforceable for animals with equal or greater cognitive capabilities?

Posted by Ashish George | August 23, 2007 6:52 PM

On a Vick-related note, more stuff you just cannot make up:

From Rev. Al Sharpton

If the police caught Brett Favre running a dolphin-fighting ring out of his pool, where dolphins with spears attached to their foreheads fought each other to the death, would they bust him? Of course not. They would get his autograph, commend him on his tightly-spiraled forward passes, then bet on one of his dolphins. (Probably the dolphin that can do the most flips — those dolphins would possess stronger necks, more skill manipulating their death spears and something like 3-1 odds.)

(via MSNBC, which really ought to have to explain why they still give space to Sharpton's views -- he can't actually represent many other people, can he?)

Posted by Lorenzo | August 23, 2007 6:59 PM

Things have whatever rights society chooses to endow them with. That goes for animals and plants as well as people. What we consider "inalienable rights" are merely those rights we agree people should have by virtue of their existence; they aren't anything more than that. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are just one possible arrangement.

The rights of animals are something that people are going to have to work out for themselves, just as we worked out the rights of people.

Posted by liberalrob | August 23, 2007 6:59 PM

That Sharpton "quote" came from Newsgroper.com, a "fake parody blog" as is shown prominently on the page title bar. MSNBC got taken in by a hoax again.

Newsgroper "Sharpton" blog entry

Posted by liberalrob | August 23, 2007 7:08 PM

I take it back. Apparently you can make it up. Though the point about MSNBC still stands.

Posted by Lorenzo | August 23, 2007 7:24 PM

On a more substantive note, liberalrob, your statement that rights are what society chooses to endow means there are no inalienable rights, as society can always (at least over time) change its agreement. Isn't there something to be said for the notion that there are some rights -- at least for humans -- that stem from the nature of humanity?

Posted by Lorenzo | August 23, 2007 7:29 PM

There are several possible ethical systems at work here;

1. Contractual. Animals take on rights in society as they contribute to it. Humans therefore have reciprocal duties, among them the minimazation of pain. By this standard, eating meat is justified provided that undue cruelty is not applied in its procurement. However dogfighting is enjoyable specifically because it's cruel. My parents were carniverous, but wouldn't eat veal.

2. Animals have 'natural' rights with the level of rights based on any number of criteria. Intelligence. Popular sentiment. Cuteness. And so on. Unless this is applied to a whole class of animals (say, mammals), or all animals, this often leads to inconsistency.

3. Animal cruelty should be illegal since it's bad for people. To enjoy inflicting pain on animals degrades those people involved in it and makes them a menace to society (or at least identifies them as such. Many psychopaths torture animals.)

I think that eating certified humane meat is a positive moral good, because it causes the creation of additional happy animals

How happy does an animal have to be for it's existance to be justified? Is it a relative standard, compared to wild animals, or an absolute standard?

It's easier for me to think in terms of 'what lines can't we cross'

Posted by Ryan W. | August 23, 2007 7:56 PM

I don't know quite where this fits in, but I want to point something out: the fact that we do things that are fatal (or even cruel) to animals doesn't mean that we cab abandon our moral responsibilities to them. I'm thinking here of the recent discussions of bestiality on the Intertron (which I think were prompted by the release of that movie Zoo). An argument that you heard around then was, "We kill animals for sport and food and experimentation, surely if we do that, we can have sex with them."

But, look, the fact that we do things that are morally ambiguous (or just wrong, if you prefer) to animals doesn't mean that our moral obligation to them just evaporates. The fact that I eat cow meat doesn't justify my going to a field and torturing a cow. I think the thing to say about the question of allowing veal and not permitting dog fighting is to think of them as separate moral questions. I do think that there it is a little weird to arrive at the one position with veal and then at the other side with dog fighting. But if you've decided to eat veal, I don't think it means that you can just proceed to start a dogfighting ring. You've still got to make a moral decision about dogfighting, and you could very well decide that it's immoral.

(That makes sense. I think.)

Posted by Freddie | August 23, 2007 8:04 PM

Lorenzo, if I may be so bold as to respond to the question you posed to liberalbob:

well, yes, what we consider "rights" has a lot to do with human nature; specifically that we are evolved from some of the most socially minded mammals around, primates, who have been observed to show a great capacity for empathy and caring for their mates - as well as a high capacity for aggression, to be fair.
To use another example (biologically nonsencial, but bear with me), had we evolved from hive-structured species such as ants or bees, it is conceivable that the individual would not count for much at all - for such a species individual rights that are the basis of our liberal democracies in the West would be anathema, "immoral" even.

The "inalienable rights" are nothing but the result of a long process of deliberation, informed by all of human history and all the systems of governance that had come before.
Personally, I consider it nothing but a stroke of luck that this particular set of people, who wrote the Declaration of Independence (and later the Constitution) took the advice of Locke, Hume and other founding fathers of Liberalism, who had used reason and rational inquiry to formulate theories as to which system of government would be most stable and most conductive to individual freedoms and the general happiness, prosperity and well-being of a society.

Postulating them as "inalienable" only underlines the reality that these rights are very "alien" to many societies that had come before.
If they were indeed inalienable, then we needn't worry all the time that someone might do away with them, would we?

Unfortunately this terminology sometimes blinds us to how fragile the prinicples, which our civilization is built upon are, how thin the veneer of learned social behaviors is that quickly falls away in times of crisis...

Posted by Marc | August 23, 2007 8:16 PM

Re: "If they were indeed inalienable, then we needn't worry all the time that someone might do away with them, would we?"

Yes and no. Inalienable means someone can't do away with the right, but they can ignore it, or violate it, or fail to recognize it, or never have heard of it.

Posted by Tim Fowler | August 23, 2007 8:31 PM

Important note: veal is not inherently cruel. See The Art of Eating, issue no. 64, for example. Veal is not inhumanely-treated young cow, veal is young cow. Megan, the same amount of attention you pay to your meat sourcing could get you cruelty-free veal.

Posted by An older cow | August 23, 2007 8:57 PM

Another problem with the rights-based approach to animal cruelty--if we all became enlightened vegans and declared animals to be rights-bearing creatures, would that apply to predator animals in general, or just to humans?

Posted by Consumatopia | August 23, 2007 9:36 PM

before we start doing "good", ie helping the poor, etc. we should stop doing "bad things"? Only a few decades ago the Germans have attempted some marvelous
improvements for.. Germans.

Human and animal rights go hand in hand. It is for selfish reasons that we recognize their need for freedom, autonomy, their emotions, etc. If we want to respect the individual because it offers a richer, happier society and economy - we should do the same with all other sentient and freedom loving beings.. slavery or not does not depend on color or intelligence (or better "should" not if we want to do what is best for "us" not "them")? no wonder that animal rights was championed in the US by the champion of human children's rights! Same with Albert Schweitzer, etc. wars and hunger far away are NOT under our control here and now.. here and now we can prove that we would not act like some mad dictator ourselves if we had power over other beings... would we exploit it for our personal advantage or would we be like Solon... introducing individual rights and democracy over tyranny?

In the case of animals - they have no possessions other than their feelings and their life itself. Nothing is more valuable to them. A wild hen for example lays 8-12 eggs per year and when the nest is full.. starts to nest.. then takes care of her offspring for the rest of the year. we take away her eggs so that the nest can NEVER be filled. As a result - even the best organic free-range birds are "empty" and "damaged" by the age of 2 (instead of the natural life span of 10-20 years). Are these "happy" lives? Organic free-range cows lose all their babies at birth - those calves get replacement milk hours after seperation (soy after the initial first days..) and we humans steal their mothers milk... those cows, pigs and chickens - even the organic free range ones - have as a result to be pumped up with antibiotics all their lives (check the regulations: when it comes to organic - it does not exclude antibiotics over the entire life-span of the animal).

Imagine a 13 year old human child is raped (fisted) as soon as she reaches puberty.. every 9 months she has to bear a child.. by the age of 25 she has had 17 babies.. never to see a single one grow up.. what would she look and feel like?

imagine all this while the UN states that livestock is the worst polluter we know of - worse than all the cars on earth and airplanes combined! it takes 5-10 times more land, water and hence vegetation to feed us on an omnivore diet of the bear or dog. we could guarantee our children a save future if we stopped our modern day slavery and adopted the diet of Socrates, Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Albert Schweitzer, Carl Sagan, etc.

when it comes to puppies - ever year about 3-4 million dogs and cats are killed in ponds in the US? why? not because they are not spayed/neutered - most of them are. but because there are not enough homes as long as "responsible" breeders "produce" these "products" for profit and fun.

Imagine China has an over-polulation crisis and prohibits families to have more than one child. Millions of unwanted children are killed every year to keep scare resources like water in check. only companies are allowed to produce human children by the millions because they sell them for high profits and because young families abroad LOVE sweet young children!

no - beings are not property. if you have a nervous central system and can learn from others by observation like fish can, if Prozac works on you to calm you down during depression as it does in dogs and fish, then Darwin is probably right with his theory of evolution and that there is no fundamental difference between animals and humans. only animals are not so stupid to value taste, habit, tradition and might-makes-right over survival and freedom for the individual.

Free economies, free ecologies, limited gov intervention, limited human intervention, respect for the individual, and against the right to slavery over anyBODY (no matter how dumb)?

Posted by Hugo Pottisch | August 23, 2007 9:38 PM

Isn't there something to be said for the notion that there are some rights -- at least for humans -- that stem from the nature of humanity?

Posted by Lorenzo | August 23, 2007 7:29 PM

Sure there is. But who determines what those are?

Humans.

(If you haven't guessed by now, I am a secular humanist. Someone who was religious would say that those rights proceed from God.)

Posted by liberalrob | August 23, 2007 10:32 PM

Plants feel pain, plants respond to stimuli...veggies are off the menu, now what, coach?

All of life is about eating and being eaten. (And reproducing.) Personally I have no objection to people fighting against animal cruelty just as I have no objection to banning torture; but there has to be room for a certain amount of predation, because I like my steak well-done and I'm not ready to give it up. Rights evolve over time by consensus; perhaps someday veganism will be mandatory as rights to life and liberty are extended to prey animals, but that time is not yet and the cows haven't gotten the vote.

Posted by liberalrob | August 23, 2007 10:54 PM

Megan,

To answer the question about whether animals have rights, is it useful to figure out why humans have rights? Specifically, which traits or abilities give humans which rights, then apply the same exact criteria to other beings. Fair, no?

Humane meat being a positive normal good can be more complicated that it appears when we take into account things that didn't happen, similar to your discussion with Drezner. The USDA has programs to kill wildlife in large amounts, some predators, but most are competitors for the grass. If the humane meat animals are supplemented with grain, land is cleared and wildlife are removed to grow the grain.

Also, with regards to pets being a positive normal good, that's also more complicated as cats are carnivores, and although there are vegetarian formulas available, most vets won't recommend them. And cats and dogs typically eat the leftovers from factory farms, which at least partially financially supports the industry.

One last point, most of the humane farms I have visited are very far from ideal. Whether the animals are happy or not is tough to say - the behaviour study of farm animals is very new. But most small farms I've visited I don't think satisfy the basic desires of the animals. Also, because of regulations, the small farmers have little say over what happens at the hatcheries and slaughterhouses which are typically controlled by industrial farms.

Posted by Jeff Boghosian | August 23, 2007 11:10 PM

bob... I agree with you on most points. but not your reference to the "circle of life". there many species who can live a long and happy life without killing a single animal for food. Lions as a cat specie are not on that list, of course. But gorilla are - the strongest among us apes. that is why Darwin and Huxley - as have E.O.Wilson and Richard Dawkins - that human must have evolved as.... (we are talking millions of years here - not the last few thousand where some regions started drinking cow mothers milk and...)

Why do you have to kill if I may ask? Why all the torture - we are aware that most animals on the planet cannot move or turn around, do not see daylight unless on the way to slaughter and sleep in their shit and piss all their lives...

Come again - what does the "Circle of Life" have to do with anything? Why pick the stupid cat as a role model and not the infintily more intelligen Gorilla (Koko - a gorilla in captivity at Stanford University scored 90 on a human IQ test - more than some driver out there right now...) Why not listen to Socrates, Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, etc and rather look at some dumb beats? all animals, vegetarian, omnivore or carnivore fight with each other and for resources - but enslavement DOES NOT have to be part of an animal that can easily and even more healthy - live without it!

human do not hunt with their bodies as all animals who evolved for it do.. we are apes - not evolved for eating meat. we kill each other - that is why chimps hunt monkeys and not easy to catch pigs and rats, etc. they are apes - evolved for competing with each other and eating veggies! no ape has meat as a stable - no ape drinks milk after babyhood...

look at us.. we are hypos, we cannot see our own feet anymore. we are running risk to become the first specie to go extinct because obesity makes sex impossible - even with viagra...

I am not even going into the environmental and self-preservation discussion. everybody knows that "rights" and what is "right" is a virtual human cultural thing - but for those who apparently do not believe in evolution - it had and has some reasoning that we as social animals build a moral codex - as all social animals do among themselves and which differs from group to group.

nevertheless - we are embarking on an experiment here. no species who was more powerful than others has ever tired to exploit the might and to spend entire lives in enslaving others and then micromanaging them? lets see what happens?

if you are blind you cannot see, if you are deaf you cannot..., if you cannot feel what others feel you cannot...

Personally I have no objection to people fighting against cruelty to women just as I have no objection to banning torture; but there has to be room for a certain amount of predation, because I like my eastern european and asian girls young and well-done and I'm not ready to give it up. Rights evolve over time by consensus; perhaps someday respect for women will be mandatory as rights to life and liberty are extended to prey females, but that time is not yet and the bitches haven't gotten the vote.

remember how women got their rights to vote. they all voted for it...

Posted by Hugo Pottisch | August 23, 2007 11:15 PM

Wow Hugo, I'd heard of eating women but not quite in that way...

When the cows start wearing suffragette sashes and marching in the streets, I'll reconsider my position.

Apple, meet orange. Next.

Posted by liberalrob | August 23, 2007 11:52 PM

When the cows start wearing suffragette sashes and marching in the streets, I'll reconsider my position.

they already are.. look around. only non-human cows start to look skinny compared to what really "walks" the streets in the US today..?

It could be be all laughter & eat... but at some point we put capital S&M in front of it...

a day has 24 hours? how many of them do we eat? why risk the future of our children by torturing billions of animals while unnecessarily wasting our resources?

yes.. orange meat forbidden fruit... next.

Posted by Hugo Pottisch | August 24, 2007 12:06 AM

Robert Nozick had a response to people who think the enjoyment they derive from eating meat justifies the practice in Anarchy, State, and Utopia.

http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/nozick01.htm

Posted by Ashish George | August 24, 2007 12:10 AM

Hugo, never post while drunk.

I believe I addressed Nozick's argument without even intending to. My position stands (Nozick himself leaves it at "the thicket of questions daunts us"- fine, come back when you are no longer daunted). Feel free to disagree...

Posted by liberalrob | August 24, 2007 12:54 AM

Personally, I'd find it hard to construct an argument that bans dogfighting but allows veal--which is why I don't eat veal.

Dogs are often loyal to us, so we see them as having a right to our loyalty in return.

Why should you feel an obligation to act morally to an entity that can never feel an obligation to act morally to you?

Best argument I can manage.

Posted by ad | August 24, 2007 7:50 AM

ad,

I think that leaves us with a theory that allows us to kill some severely mentally retarded people, or other persons that aren't capable of such thought/action.

Megan,

Just one more note. I think your libertarian philosophy towards animals would allow, for example:

1) To breed bears and lions, display them in zoos/natural areas (in ways they are happy) for people to view, then kill them once they get older and not so cute, and replace them with babies again.

2) Or breed baby kittens or puppies, then similarly kill them when they are no longer serving our pleasure, and replace them with new kittens and puppies.

This is similar to eating animals since both are done for our pleasure - for entertainment or preference for texture/taste.

This brings up the suffering caused to animals when their offspring are taken away from them. This widely varies between species and individuals, but certainly cows bond with calfs, etc. One way around this is to kill the entire social group!

Posted by Jeff Boghosian | August 24, 2007 8:43 AM

As a human, there is always the possibility that I will become a human with signifcantly impaired cognitive function. There is no possibility that I will at some point become a dog or a cow. Laws that protect those with mental impairments that render them with less cognitive ability than some animals protect someone who I may potentially become.

All morality is ultimately selfish.

It is immoral to be needlessly cruel to animals because it inures humans to cruelty which they may more easily turn to other humans. Cruelty to animals is evidence of a lack of empathy, and may even destroy the capacity for empathy. Laws prohibiting cruelty to animals are to protect humans, not animals.

Posted by Njorl | August 24, 2007 10:13 AM

"...Laws that protect those with mental impairments that render them with less cognitive ability than some animals protect someone who I may potentially become..."

Ok, I just wrote that sentence and I barely understand it, sorry.

Moral code which protects the mentally retarded but not animals are consistent with the concept of selfish morality. This is because the creators of that morality recognize that they may become mentally retarded, but they will not change species.

Posted by Njorl | August 24, 2007 10:19 AM

The "Circle of Life" argument is valid, or at least worthy of consideration, because it raises the question of how a being without moral duties can have moral rights. Is a lion or a wolf or a bear - or more relevantly for our purposes, a pig or a fish - a murderer? If not, why is a human who kills an animal a murderer? If humans have greater responsibilities because they have a greater intellect, then why is it an invalid argument to argue that this greater intellect gives them greater rights? One can still argue in favor of vegetarianism on the grounds that we have a duty of noblesse oblige toward our inferiors, but the argument based on absolute rights - "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy," in Ingrid Newkirk's phrase - becomes difficult to sustain.

"Human and animal rights go hand in hand....[N]o wonder that animal rights was championed in the US by the champion of human children's rights!" It's admirable if Mr. Grottisch himself believes this, but part of the reason I am skeptical toward vegetarianism is that those who profess love for animals often end up embracing monstrous attitudes toward human beings. Any movement that regards Peter Singer as a hero is embracing evil far greater than that embraced by factory farmers.

Posted by James Kabala | August 24, 2007 10:23 AM

The "Circle of Life" argument is valid, or at least worthy of consideration, because it raises the question of how a being without moral duties can have moral rights. Is a lion or a wolf or a bear - or more relevantly for our purposes, a pig or a fish - a murderer? If not, why is a human who kills an animal a murderer? If humans have greater responsibilities because they have a greater intellect, then why is it an invalid argument to argue that this greater intellect gives them greater rights? One can still argue in favor of vegetarianism on the grounds that we have a duty of noblesse oblige toward our inferiors, but the argument based on absolute rights - "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy," in Ingrid Newkirk's phrase - becomes difficult to sustain.

"Human and animal rights go hand in hand....[N]o wonder that animal rights was championed in the US by the champion of human children's rights!" It's admirable if Mr. Grottisch himself believes this, but part of the reason I am skeptical toward vegetarianism is that those who profess love for animals often end up embracing monstrous attitudes toward human beings. Any movement that regards Peter Singer as a hero is embracing evil far greater than that embraced by factory farmers.

Posted by James Kabala | August 24, 2007 10:24 AM

Hi bob
I love your projections and how you have avoided all arguments other than "i like the taste"... I assume that you are VERY handsome and VERY rich to balance all the other shortcomings out? some form of male paris hilton I imagine?

Hey Megan
I think your great title is throwing pearls in front of humans? NOT A SINGLE argument yet other than: "Your rights end at the beginning of my tastebuds" because I say so... my own bad that i am starting to distract myself - that is what "bob" wants - avoid the real discussion at ALL costs.. that is what all of us want?

there is manure-lots of discussion about if rights are human or not, if we like the taste, if other have to respect us BEFORE we respect them (this argument in particular is SOOO painful for anyone older than a toddler???)

From what I can get - the purely selfish arguments pro and con are:

Pro-Slavery
*Meat tastes good
*Puppies are sweet

Contra-Slavery
*Destroys the environment and our children's future
*Not healthy for apes to consume a majority of calories from animal products
*we devolve our ability for empathy and hence lose a sense like sight?
*many humans go hungry because resources are wasted on livestock
*risk of diseases like bird-flue, mad cow, etc.
*statistically higher risk to enslave and torture fellow humans (human slavery did not appear over night, neither did factory farms - we called it progress in the good ol days?)

Maybe you can add some points - so that we move away from those hypothetical philosophies and get real examples of "action and reaction"... ?

you have the choice: do you safe your children together with animals and your own health - or do you screw all three of them for a quick sensation? we know what the problem with alcoholism and drug abuse is when it comes to families.. father/mother drinks away the college money and neglect their spouses etc.. I smell too many similarities to continue with a joke... new born a**?? sufficient to say - all the drugs and terrorists in the world are harmless compared to our institutionalist addictions and junkydom?

as the discussions above show - we are mentally obese and not physically? ie "how should a slave-owner survive the loss of "property"? how on earth can we even dare to utter things like that? either we lack basic economics or there is some other disconnect that I cannot relate to?

God -> Human
Devil -> livestock animal (horns, huves, goaty..)

we created god in our image and created the devil in the image of our slaves (god white - the devil...). i get where our world-view comes from.... we claim to be secular but even hard-core atheists seem to get their thinking from "the book"?

quote by a famous veggie Bob, Bob Marley
"preacher don't tell me heaven is under the earth - me knows you don't know what life is really worth. building church and university - deceiving the people constantly..."

Leo Tolstoy
In fact, if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people.

Abraham Lincoln
I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being (as humans ARE animals).

Albert Einstein
It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us the 'Universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.

Brigid Brophy
Whenever people say 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add 'We must be realistic,' they mean they are going to make money out of it.

Leonardo da Vinci
Nothing will be left. Nothing in the air, nothing on the land, nothing in the sea...The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men. Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We are burial places.

Posted by Hugo Pottisch | August 24, 2007 10:28 AM

The "Circle of Life" argument is valid, or at least worthy of consideration, because it raises the question of how a being without moral duties can have moral rights. Is a lion or a wolf or a bear - or more relevantly for our purposes, a pig or a fish - a murderer? If not, why is a human who kills an animal a murderer? If humans have greater responsibilities because they have a greater intellect, then why is it an invalid argument to argue that this greater intellect gives them greater rights?

Never read Ayn Rand? Rights are never allowed to be based on duties. Imagine someone saying: I will not respect children as long as they respect me.. I will not respect blacks because they are too stupid and uneducated to read the whole law book? Do I even have to go further? I will never forgive him before he forgives me????? What is wrong with you? We are not spoiled brads and prom-queens are we?

And there is a HUGE difference between a lion killing an animal and a human doing so. The difference between somebody killing somebody in self-defense or for fun... a lion tries to kill the slowest, weakest, oldest animal first - thereby helping to improve the genetic strength of his pray... similarly - if pray animals are not kept in check - they would reproduce faster than their own food can grow back and would die out (as humans are on the way now that they have eliminated their hunters)?

when humans enter the woods with spears - they kill the largest and strongest animal first. the deer has not evolved to react to small, sharp tree stems - flying at her very fast... deers as wild pigs depend on the experienced leader for guidance, education and survival.. we take this away in hunting areas - where the ecology clearly disintegrates into human micromanagement which is not benificial for anybody (including humans). only 1/3 of hunted animals are killed. 1/3 are wounded and suffer from far worse (psychological) and longer pain than any mouse who has the misfortune to become the toy of a young cat for an hour!

the "circle of life" DOES HAVE MERIT!!!! but it's an argument AGAINST animal exploitation and not for it!! But i liked the Singer joke!

Posted by Hugo Pottisch | August 24, 2007 10:41 AM

Hi bob
I love your projections and how you have avoided all arguments other than "i like the taste"... I assume that you are VERY handsome and VERY rich to balance all the other shortcomings out? some form of male paris hilton I imagine?

Hugo, are you talking to me? Because my name is not "bob".

As far as what I look like, I look a lot like that picture of John Podhoretz climbing out of the pool (you can find it on Sadly, No). I do have more hair on my head though. Hope that image makes your day. I don't know what difference it makes.

And in re: avoiding your argument, I have nothing to add to what I've already said, I've already answered your argument (what I could understand of it) to my satisfaction, so I have moved on. What "projections" are you talking about?

Did you read your own quote from Leonardo da Vinci? "The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men." Did I not say that was a possibility, but that that time was not yet? How is that "avoiding your argument"? I ANTICIPATED it!

Posted by liberalrob | August 24, 2007 10:56 AM

Njorl,

That logic allows us to give less rights to different races and different sexes - arbitrarily and not based on morally relevant criteria.

My understanding of philosophy is to create (objective,rational) moral rules such that if we actually were those other beings, we would find the morals fair. For instance, if I were a tree I think it would be okay for a human to kill me. This is consistent with me preferring my family kill me if I lost all nervous & brain function. If I were a dog that enjoyed the company of other dogs & people, I would prefer to continue to enjoy their company pain free.

Posted by Jeff Boghosian | August 24, 2007 10:57 AM

You're referencing Ayn Rand now? Give me strength.

Posted by liberalrob | August 24, 2007 11:03 AM

"The "Circle of Life" argument is valid, or at least worthy of consideration, because it raises the question of how a being without moral duties can have moral rights"

In light of your questions, consider a mentally retarded person killing a person intentially, but not really understanding what they have done. Should we kill the person like an animal? Do they have a right to life? We need to move the discussion to moral agents/moral subjects. It seems the discussion here isn't about animal rights at all. Everyone has already assumed that ALL ('innocent') humans have a right to life, and ALL animals do not.

Re: Grottisch, Singer, Shouldn't we judge a concept on the concept itself, and not on who advocates for it?

Posted by Jeff Boghosian | August 24, 2007 11:14 AM

"Njorl,

That logic allows us to give less rights to different races and different sexes - arbitrarily and not based on morally relevant criteria."

The different races and sexes take part in the formulation of our morality. Animals will never do so. Morality is essentially what is best for "us". While there have been (and still are) people who exclude other races and women from whom they consider to be "us", their exclusions are subject to being eliminated. We can not eliminate the exclusion of animals. Animals can not contribute to the formulation of a moral code. They can not fulfill the obligations required for moral behavior. They can not be subject to moral judgements.

Posted by Njrol | August 24, 2007 11:23 AM

The animal rights people reject as 'speciesist' the idea of human superiority, because they think that's the cause of animal suffering at the hands of humans. They would have us place on, say, a sheep the same moral value that we place on a person. But to bring this change about, they are trying to convince HUMANS to change the HUMAN perception of animals, to change HUMAN laws concerning animals, to change HUMAN society and how it treats animals. Does this not implicitly recognize the 'speciesist' notion of the superiority of humans? How can they demand that we, on the grounds that we're not superior, demand that we change our laws, our societies, and our very existence to reflect that "reality", in order to halt the suffering that our superiority causes?

Posted by Claudius | August 24, 2007 11:31 AM

Njorl,

I understand your point, but it's only consistent if several classes of humans, in addition to animals, are not subject to moral judgements since they also cannot 'fulfill the obligations required for moral behavior'.

Maybe our difference is our definition of 'us'. For 'us' I would include all sentient beings. You define 'us' as those that help formulate our morality. And if we define morality as what is best for 'us', then obviously my formulation would include moral duties to sentient beings.

Another difference might be deciding a being moral status by the group they are in. I strongly believe we should determine moral status by individual, as we do, for instance, when deciding who has a right to operate a automobile. I know throughout history we group people & animals based on nationality, race, sex, sexual preference, species, etc. For instance, once we decided women were 'rational', we allowed them to vote. I think once we decide the reason marginal human cases have a right to life, we should apply the same standard to ALL individuals (human and nonhuman).

Posted by Jeff Boghosian | August 24, 2007 11:46 AM

The question of whether or not we should treat animals humanely and whether or not we should kill them at all are distinct.

One can consistently take an anti-cruelty stance while, never the less, finding no moral qualms with the notion that some animals are processed into food.

My view is that the capacity for a being to feel pain implies a converse moral responsibility to not inflict pain unless there are mitigating moral circumstances. Because we are moral agents, and because animals can feel pain (even though they aren't moral agents), I believe that we have a moral responsibility to minimizing the amount of pain that we inflict upon them.

I do not see who the humane slaughter of animals invalidates that position. To be sure, one can construct a moral hypothesis that would prohibit us from killing animals as well but it would be a *different* hypothesis and one that would need to be embraced or rejected independently of the one that I am proposing.

Posted by Andrew Lias | August 24, 2007 11:53 AM

Hugo: I agree that I worded part of my post poorly. Rather than saying (or rather implying accidentally) that a being without duties had no rights, I should have said that there needs to be a justification for the idea that humans and animals have the same set of rights but different sets of studies. As Claudius says, holding humans to a higher standard implies that they have some form of superiority, although it is not necessarily true that that superiority implies the right to kill and eat animals.
Jeff: I would say that for Singer, although certainly not for all his acolytes, his arguments for animal rights and human infant non-rights are inseparable.

Posted by James Kabala | August 24, 2007 12:05 PM

"I understand your point, but it's only consistent if several classes of humans, in addition to animals, are not subject to moral judgements since they also cannot 'fulfill the obligations required for moral behavior'. "

That is not so. Because any human may be afflicted with maladies that significantly degrade cognitive function, it is in the interest of all humans to protect those who are. That gives me common cause with all who are severely mentally disabled.

Your decision to include all sentients has no rational basis. You arbitrarily don't include non-sentient life or inanimate objects. Why? Is there a reason why your arbitrary judgement should be used, and someone else's should not? What if some people believe insects have rights and others do not?

Once you take the step of accepting non-rational bases for morality, you run the risk of going in the other direction. Once you arbitrarily decide that some life has rights, and other life doesn't, you can arbitrarily decide that some humans have rights and other humans do not.

I would prefer to avoid cruelty to animals based upon human self-interest than metaphysical mandate. Metaphysical mandates are dangerous.

Posted by Njorl | August 24, 2007 12:37 PM

"Your decision to include all sentients has no rational basis."

I'm actually not sure how to show from first principles why sentience should be the deciding factor except to say that it's a good thing to feel good and a bad thing to feel bad. Maybe some true philosopher can join in?

But I think sentience is currently a major deciding factor when determining when to keep a person alive in the hospital. After all, if we cannot see, hear, feel, think, etc, I think there is little reason for us to be alive. Most importantly, I just want our criteria to be similarly applied to other species.

Posted by Jeff Boghosian | August 24, 2007 1:15 PM

Bob
I know that you agreed that one day ... and I agreed with you that this day, where critical mass has been reached, has not come yet! There are however obvious implications from our discussion and your line of reasoning that you would change only then and not even then... but it is not worth going into it?

James
this superiority discussion puzzles me... you well know that we are not talking about the right to vote for animals but we are questioning the current right of human to do with animals and nature as they please... we are never saying a chicken is equal to a zebra? darwin said there are no fundamental differences anyway - not in degree and if in kind. we are therefore not enforcing communism where everyone is supposed to be equal but quite the contrary - respect for the individual - no matter how supreme, fast, cute, etc.?

I have never denied that the human brain surpasses others in math and written languages and putting our moral codes into artifacts compared to mice?

what i argue is that our meme market place at current does not reflect the true price of our actions and that if transparency was given - through the removal of current distortions - nobody would be willing to demand the right to have slaves under current circumstances! Again - selfish interest of white males to liberate black women or animals from slavery... this is not about superiority - other than the fact that the superior always has to give the inferior the right and NOT the other way around.. this goes PER DEFINITION? This was true when king Solon stepped down voluntarily, when we freed slaves, when we recognized women and later blacks...

Since chicken does not want to vote but only wants to be free from enslavement and since this freedom and NOT the right to vote would preserve the resources our children need to survive.. do I have to continue? the supreme right to vote will still apply only to the supreme mind (not all humans but only some). the supreme right not to sleep in your own shit and piss and to be able to move and follow your inherent drive for autonomy and free will is the only thing that other social animals need for their evolutionary needs (as does all of nature - our only basis for survival as supreme human animals)! only those who tend to enslave eventually end up to grant others rights!

And of course there are moral agents among all social animals. Herds and packs keep each other morally in check and have rules that they pass on from generation to generation. the moral codex differs from individual to individual (agents) and group to group depending on the collective and individual expiriences of that social entity. Chickens are well known to pass on knowledge to their offspring regarding what berries to eat and which to avoid... they have had to learn this themselves and form hence different cultures, etc.

we humans depend on other animals as other animals depend on other animals and nature to be healthy! yes we created god in our image, es we think that ratio exists without emotions in humans and only emotions and instinct exist in animals.. but that is obviously self-delusional if we see the difference in kind and not only in degree (as we have done with human babies for a long time?) once we took the right to enslave as a given based on our superiority and based on the transformation of animals into goods - we find it strange to think any other way anymore. it is even less clear to king why stepping down is in his own interest when he struggled all his life to come to this superior position...

Posted by Hugo Pottisch | August 24, 2007 2:22 PM

Megan,

You say: I think that eating certified humane meat is a positive moral good, because it causes the creation of additional happy animals (insofar as animals can be understood to be happy).

The problem with that is there is no such thing as humane slaughter. No matter how you rationalize up to that point, your result is always the same: killing sentient beings without necessity. And that goes for your dog or a cow. Dogs and cows are identical in the one area that matters: they have the capacity (just like ours) to experience pleasure, pain and terror. And with that as the fact (this is science, here, it's not like the jury's still out), we must evolve our personal ethics with our developments in science. Eating a dog is the same as eating a cow.

If killing and eating a dog is morally unjustifiable, the same is true of killing and eating a cow.

Posted by Mary Martin, Ph.D. | August 29, 2007 12:41 PM