Animal rights

[Qasper]

Do or should animals have rights?

As eg.:

• full rights (somewhat similar to human rights)

• species-appropriate rights

• a few rights and a fairly humane treatement

• only most basic rights, as they are bred for our profit

• no rights, as they are an asset

Use eg. Goggle to find information and videos on modern animal treatment.

[Veliky Kaiser Theos]

While I think that animal testing for anything other than medical science is unethical (the ends justify the means), I see nothing wrong with the free range farming of animals. They're well fed and protected from predators (other than us). They die a quick, relatively painless death, rather than growing weak and then being torn apart by other animals. Animal cruelty is unnecessary though and it's good that there's laws to protect them from it.

I'd like to know why humans shouldn't be allowed to kill other animals while other animals do it all the time. Seems like a double standard to me.

[Qasper]

While I think that animal testing for anything other than medical science is unethical (the ends justify the means), I see nothing wrong with the free range farming of animals. They're well fed and protected from predators (other than us). They die a quick, relatively painless death, rather than growing weak and then being torn apart by other animals. Animal cruelty is unnecessary though and it's good that there's laws to protect them from it.

Agreed. Though on the law issues: the laws are, to say the least, very flexible.

I'd like to know why humans shouldn't be allowed to kill other animals while other animals do it all the time. Seems livke a double standard to me.

Killing isn't the main proportion of the issue, but the life they live (or have to suffer) before dying.

Imho, a mercy killing would be a damn blessing for some animals "used" by man. The life so many held animals have to life is a ing disgrace. I'm glad I'm not a monkey/dog used for animal testing or the like.

[SLN445]

Animal Testing done other then for medical advancement is ed up, that is all.

[Qasper]

What a darn life some animals have (to endure)... it's repelling.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Oh... happy ing days!

[Tom Cruise HAWK]

We have to eat animals like pigs cows sheep fish chickens but testing make up on monkeys and dogs should be banned.
We should exterminate rodents.
I hate rats and mice they spread the black plague and invade our homes.

[Manco]

I don't really think animals should have rights as such (though my answer depends on said animal's intelligence), but I'd rather turn the question around: What sort of human consciously and willingly mistreats living creatures, that despite their possibly limited consciousness clearly suffer from said treatment?

I don't agree with vegetarian fundamentalists who harp on about the poor little lambs I eat, though they have some points about their living conditions. And likewise I don't agree with for example bull fights where an animal is basically tortured to death for amusement.

[Qasper]

We should exterminate rodents.

Thzzez evil bazztardz.

Damn rodentzz:

I hate rats and mice they spread the black plague and invade our homes.

Yup, and all thzzeez Jewzz are ploting to rüle thzzee Wörld!! Harr, harr!! ... Laugh fading away...

[Madej]

There is no adequate justification for our current treatment animals on consequentialist grounds, or any respectable theory of deontology, and certainly not virtue ethics. Trying to justify meat eating is a doomed task. The real question is whether animals have direct or indirect moral status. The utilitarian arguments usually given them indirect moral status, i.e. we ought to not cause them unnecessary suffering. A different account will ascribe them rights for more foreign reasons, i.e. that all sentients have that least a prima facie right to life. I am actually leaning toward the direct moral status view, but I will not get into that here. I hope that it will suffice if I say that I used to be for painless murder of animals because they are incapable of being able to have the will to keep their lives, i.e. no autonomy--which, at the same, seemed the most weighty and obvious epistemic reason to not murder persons. The best representation of this major contrast will be the philosopher Peter Singer (consequentialist) as compared to Gary L. Francione.

I am a deontologist, but I like to give the consequentialist argument instead. It is easier to shove it down their throats.

The following might imply that I am a lazy, misguided physicalist, so I am leaving the caveat here that I am not. Second, I am not a scientific individual and things that I will say to any knowledgeable person on the subject will seem off. We strongly believe that animals are sentient for they have the similar structure in brain and thus the electrochemical processes that have some correlation and causal power with respect to private mental states. Since this has been true for us humans, there is every reason to think it is true for animals to a lower degree. All evidence suggests that have sentience status, but not self-awareness or personhood. It is important to know that some animals can be psychologically complex, even the ones thought to be simple, especially given their psychological needs for the proper social conditions. When this is granted, then it is obvious that we ought to not subject to the unnecessary, perpetual suffering that our current farming practices do.

There are three options that people may consider that, regardless of how exactly you are going to approach normative concerns, can be praised for being more moral than an indiscriminate eating style:

(1) Conscientious Omnivore
(2) Vegetarian
(3) Vegan

There are obviously other variations, i.e. an octovegetarian, but I am simplifying this intentionally.

(1) means that they only buy animal meats and the like from sources that they know, or have good reason to believe, treat animals properly; animals that are fed properly, have that good ol free range status, and are (probably) not abused. I imagine people stuff like this buy from farmers market style places. The only problem with this is environmental: grass-fed cattle will exhibit more methadone as opposed to CO2. Methadone is the stuff waiting at the ocean floor for when the ice glaciers melt even more, it's effects on the climate are much more radical and extreme. However, as far as I know, the effects of methadone are more short-term (still relevant to a civilization at any given time in the coming centuries!) as, and this may be scientifically uncorrect, their contribution to the warming of the atmosphere dwindles off/becomes non-relevant--given that they still are there in the atmosphere(?)--with time much shorter than CO2 emissions. There is an obvious problem with financially supporting this.

(2) is better ethically, environmentally, and for the goals of global sustainably than the first option. However, it is puzzling to be vegetarian as opposed to vegan considering that non-meat farming practices are still immoral in today's world. The same arguments will apply, it is just that battery farming is a more pressing, horrific issue.

I mention global sustainability since animals take up more farming space, are fed grains which is even worse considering the massive population due to our intentional breeding of them.

There are a few arguments rationalizations that omnivores like to make that I will like to quickly knock down.

Stupid argument #1: Animals kill each other, they cause each other suffering. Why is it any worse when we do it?

~This argument follows the same fundamental thinking that fallacious apologists like the dishonest sack of **** that is named William Lane Craig make against secular ethics. Their incoherent, immoral, and scary divine meta-ethics (it has serious normative consequences too) should be viewed with universal scorn and ridicule. The reason it is similar to his argument is because he cannot imagine actions having right-making or wrong-making moral properties without there a celestial entity contingently granting moral relevancy to other beings and creatures. The reason that animals are not morally responsible is because they are they are not moral agents. They cannot think or evaluate on their behaviour, they cannot do empathy the way we can, they have no free will, etc. For a person who tries to appeal to the hard determinist position, please do not make me laugh. Please, go on arguing for your position that necessitates that the propositional contents of your beliefs are determined by electrochemical states, i.e. a coincidental manifestation of atoms. Even though I am a metaphysical libertarian, I do find it annoying that people like this also outright ignore or are ignorant of compatibilism, which does allow moral responsibility under determinism.

Stupid argument #2: I already support many immoral practices (i.e. government-aided chinese workshop slave labour), and I won't change anything.

~There is something odd about the reasoning that, "X is wrong and I do it, therefore I should continue to due Y, which is also wrong, in effect maximizing my immorality intentionally." I have seen people make this argument and it makes no sense. As for the fact that you are unlikely to spark a revolution, that is true, but there is no need for you to be financially supporting an industry that does these practices. In fact, if given that you accept the arguments for the moral status of animals, then you have an obvious duty to avoid doing this.

Stupid argument #3: We once needed meat to survive.

~I am too historically illiterate to attack this on it's own terms, but we have the resources for everyone--with the exception of those rare individuals that get severely sick without some of the nutrients found only in meats--to be eating non-animal foods. If you grant the fact that in the past that immorality as a survival necessity, this says about nothing about what we should do in the present, especially given the fact that in the present there is no survival necessity for it.

Stupid argument #4: Due to my cherry picking of medical data, meat-eating is healthier and/or vegetarians cannot be healthy.

~Let me for a moment grand this as absolute truth, just for the sake of it. What changes? Nothing. It is an argument based on selfishness, on instrumentally rational concerns, not epistemic ones; the ones that normative facts are concerned with.

Stupid argument #5: If we liberate the animals, they will suffer in the wild.

~Their suffering on the wild is more chance-influenced, usually short-term when 'the end comes'. I argue that the suffering that we cause them would be worse, especially since we breed their population to be so immense; meaning we are making new sentients to cause them suffering. Since if we were to liberate animals, then one of the first obvious steps is to reduce their population mainly by ceasing to breed them the way we do. That way the suffering in the wild that they experience would be less given the greater number of individual animals affected and the consistency of it in our practices. The other thing is that we are moral agents, i.e. are capable of moral responsibility. We are violating an objective norm in the conditions that we are subject to it, whereas when animals do a similar thing, their actions are incapable of having any responsibility to them. In a nutshell: it is immoral for beings like us to cause them suffering, but it is not immoral for them to cause each other suffering. I do wonder how theists deal with the fact that God ensured the animal kingdom to have no freedom of choice, no moral agency, and to be subjected to conditions that cause them endless suffering that they know nothing about and cannot reduce it the way we try to do with our intelligence. Now, there is a question about whether we have a moral responsibility to make sure that the consequences in the wild do not happen given that we have the ability to do so. I am agnostic on this issue, and I honestly don't care about what conclusion is reached here.

There is a lot more to be said and to be clarified, but I will end my post here.

[hellheaven1987]

Right is gained through earning, not given out freely.

[Qasper]

It's noteworthy to point out that this view: "We strongly believe that animals are sentient for they have the similar structure in brain and thus the electrochemical processes that have some correlation and causal power with respect to private mental states. Since this has been true for us humans, there is every reason to think it is true for animals to a lower degree. All evidence suggests that have sentience status, but not self-awareness or personhood."... is 'correct-worthy', as at least chimpanzees/bonobos can have personalities/feelings similar to humans.

Hell, my dog has a personality.

This isn't my dog, but a dog nonetheless:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[athanaric]

[...] but testing make up on monkeys and dogs should be banned.

No, why?

We should exterminate rodents.

Which would destroy our ecosystem and lead to the extinction of owls, buzzards, wild cats, foxes, and a crapton of other species. Brilliant idea there Chairman Mao.

I don't really think animals should have rights as such (though my answer depends on said animal's intelligence), but I'd rather turn the question around: What sort of human consciously and willingly mistreats living creatures, that despite their possibly limited consciousness clearly suffer from said treatment?

I don't agree with vegetarian fundamentalists who harp on about the poor little lambs I eat, though they have some points about their living conditions. And likewise I don't agree with for example bull fights where an animal is basically tortured to death for amusement.

Word.

[Qasper]

Right is gained through earning, not given out freely.

So eg. babys/infants/children haven't any rights then?

That argument is so ridiculous and easy to disprove.

[Qasper]

No, why?

Of course it doesn't have to be banned. But it could be.

Why?

Because of this (and similar, present deeds/conditions) perhaps. It's not a need, but it could be done. That's all.

[athanaric]

[blah]Stupid argument #5: If we liberate the animals, they will suffer in the wild.

There is no such thing as "liberating animals". People who crash pelt farms and release the exotic minks or foxes into the wild are causing the extinction of native species. These people are among the worst criminals in the world, right up there with pedophiles, drug dealers, human traffickers, and the like.

[Qasper]

I don't really think animals should have rights as such (though my answer depends on said animal's intelligence), but I'd rather turn the question around: What sort of human consciously and willingly mistreats living creatures, that despite their possibly limited consciousness clearly suffer from said treatment?

I don't agree with vegetarian fundamentalists who harp on about the poor little lambs I eat, though they have some points about their living conditions. And likewise I don't agree with for example bull fights where an animal is basically tortured to death for amusement.

Forget about vegetarian fundamentalists going on at your way of life.

What I'm mostly/generally concerend about, is the way our eg. lambs (and other animals) live before they die. Those "poor little lambs"...



Yeah... I'm putting it in your face just to annoy you, Manco! Of course you won't be annoyed. I know that... Kill it...!


EDIT:

the animals! These damn fundamentalists-animal-rights-bastards! Like living painless and long... queer poofs! WTF?... animals!

C ya! and good night!

[Madej]

There is no such thing as "liberating animals". People who crash pelt farms and release the exotic minks or foxes into the wild are causing the extinction of native species. These people are among the worst criminals in the world, right up there with pedophiles, drug dealers, human traffickers, and the like.

Well, animal liberation is a psuedo-rhetorical term used to emphasize the importance and urgency of freeing the animals that we harvest (not the exotic ones we preserve). I see where are you are coming from though. When I was a consequentialist, I supported euthanized extinction as a possible solution to what we have done to the animals we have manipulated for mass-production purposes.

Drug dealers are playing the role in the supply for a demand that the relevant consumers are playing their role by their own choice, mostly with full knowledge of the potential consequences. Addicts become addicts because of their choices. This responsibility applies for both pre-addiction and addiction stages. The following is anecdotal, but I was abusing k-pins at up to 20gms for a year--and still have a problem of shaking off the psychological want for either the k-pins, the tar, or the bud. Anything really. When going cold turkey from the k-pins, I would have killed myself if I had a gun a near me in that stage. The first 15 days I cannot remember a simple thing but the constant muscle pain, inability to really move, nausea, headaches, more-than-clinical depression, endless thirst, etc. Even when I was in in full addiction mode, I was still making choices that I was and still am responsible for. Sure, there is something arguably morally wrong things involved in drug dealing, but I think it is much less immoral than people make it out to be. I mean, questions of what cartel you are financially supporting in order to deal are serious ones. It is too bad that policy makers and the general population are still too stupid to realize that the best thing for people from the single scumbag dealer to cartels is drug prohibition. Make drugs illegal and the demand will be met through criminal markets. Good job authoritarians. Okay, I am going to end this non-relevant rant that is completely out of context now!

Right is gained through earning, not given out freely.

I do not think you understand the concept of rights.

Hell, my dog has a personality.

The intelligence of dogs is definitely underestimated and is in some cases mind-blowing.

[The Vitiated Mind]

Fact is we can't give raise the quality of domestic animals until we solve all poverty problems .
Even know there are animals that live and fed better then a lots of humans .

[Himster]

Human rights come first.

[SLN445]

Of course, but its rarely a case of "Its them or us", we have the means in the majority of cases to reduce animal suffering without taking away from reducing human suffering.

Most Farms tend to be fairly Ethical and if testing will benifit mankind such as finding cures then Animal testing within reason is a necesary evil, but to do Animal testing for like Cosmetics or just seeing what happens when you shock the crap out of one? nah....