Forums → WEPR → Animal Rights
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"Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: theyâre only animals."
â Theodor W. Adorno
I haven't really waded into the discussion on animal rights, but from what I believe so far, yes blah blah, animals have to have their modicum of rights as well. But what really grinds my gears are animal activists who go on and on about pictures of safari hunting, etc. There's a certain extent that I would care about animals and cruelty (experimentation, pet abuse, etc), but until we stop eating battery farmed animals, I don't think much moral high ground can be taken.
So yes, your opinion?
- 83 Replies
So you think poor peoles dont need to pritest? I mean, they dont kbow other life styles. The villagers of Congo dont kniw what living after the age of 18 is. So lets keep them that way. And i mean, if you take some poor kids and rise them as slaves, they will obviously wont want a better life.
Did you knew that a research from Australia in 1976 said, that if you take a baby from an Aborejian mother, she will forget him after a year?
You actualy say "we cant hear them suffer so they most be not caring".
I wish i could answer you with more patient, but your post just make me mad. I hope you think in a diffurent way on peopels.
1. I count ten spelling errors, seven grammar errors and three capitalization errors. Twenty errors. I'll give you a proper answer when you fix your post.
That's adorable because his first language is Hebrew. English and Hebrew are oceans apart, and his fluency in English is outstanding considering.
2. Who are you even responding to?
What does it matter?
Anyhow, being a libertarian I'm a strong supporter for natural social contracts. That being said, I'd like to pose a question: Do you feel animal rights can be naturally occurring?
especially when pictures of rich corporate fat cats pose with dead lions
The reason "animal activists" are going "on and on" about this aside from whatever animal rights the lions may or may not possess is that killing a lion is ridiculously easy, you might have seen this (which does have some problems but the gist of it is accurate).
Hmmm...guys, what do you think separates us from animals? Does such a dichotomy invest in us a higher status?
What if that which separates us from other animals is just what separates any species from all other animals?
The problem is that such a dichotomy does not exist, or cannot be defended. According to wikipedia, a dichotomy is "any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts". A human/animal dichotomy can thus be ruled out.
As for the differences, they are mostly cultural. Several animal species also have a sort of culture, ours is simply much more extensive and we learn not only from parent to offspring, or group member to offspring, but also from recorded information.
But we have to keep in mind that animals are only one group among living being; vertebrates are all closely related, and mammals even more so. So while there are differences between a human and a cow, or a pig, there are also vast similarities. For example it has been shown that cows have friends among the herd, and experience stress when separated from their friends.
So when someone says, "this is an exclusively human thing to think", ask yourself one question: where does the concept come from? God, the devil, spirits, aliens? No, it is because we are social animals, like many other species.
I find it wrong to put humans on a pedestal; I find it equally wrong to reduce animals to mere eating and copulating machines that have absolutely no idea of anything and don't mind if mistreated. They certainly do.
Concerning rights, remember what I said about culture. We humans have rights for humans, and this is a cultural thing. Other animals have a different culture; I don't think we can apply our rights one-to-one on animals; as it has been rightly said that a right for living would make any predator a murderer, for example. So we have to abstract from intra-special rights and find a common denominator for all concerned animals.
Matt - i thought if to answer to you or not. The answer is clearly visible.
I dont give a crap about your quick grammer execution.I count over 9000 levrls of stuipidity in ypur post.
But back to topic, i was talking to DrElmar.
The problem is that such a dichotomy does not exist, or cannot be defended. According to wikipedia, a dichotomy is "any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts". A human/animal dichotomy can thus be ruled out.
:/ Characterisation was a better phrasing of the meaning I wanted to go for. But I agree with you.
As for the differences, they are mostly cultural. Several animal species also have a sort of culture, ours is simply much more extensive and we learn not only from parent to offspring, or group member to offspring, but also from recorded information.
But we have to keep in mind that animals are only one group among living being; vertebrates are all closely related, and mammals even more so. So while there are differences between a human and a cow, or a pig, there are also vast similarities. For example it has been shown that cows have friends among the herd, and experience stress when separated from their friends.
So when someone says, "this is an exclusively human thing to think", ask yourself one question: where does the concept come from? God, the devil, spirits, aliens? No, it is because we are social animals, like many other species.
Well, I would disagree here. I would say that only humans have culture, but I'm no anthropologist, and even they can't agree on any one solid definition. I would say that other animals and humans both have group interaction, and a society, but I wouldn't say animals have culture, the development of one's mind and creativity, which culminates in a unique and detailed identity of a community. I would say that common and vague expressions of culture are art, music, literature, but I digress.
I would say that it isn't the exclusive domain of humans to think, but it's almost the exclusive domain of humans to think and pursue goals, concepts, lives that are not completely or mostly dedicated to plain survival. Yes, animals might also engage in mock play, etc, but that doesn't encapsulate a culture for me.
In any case, I would think it's near useless to argue about most rights, other than those centering around life and it's more closely related domains. Do we believe animals should have the right to life? If so, does it apply to all animals? Clearly it does not so. Do we elect for rights that prevent and protect against cruelty? That at least I believe in. Unfortunately, this would not be possible completely, we will still need to utilise animals in experiments, and especially in the early stages of research, such experiments are maiming or fatal, such that we will never apply to humans.
That's what I can come up with now, please help me spot the gaping holes in them, I can't now, too tired! ^^
I would say that it isn't the exclusive domain of humans to think, but it's almost the exclusive domain of humans to think and pursue goals, concepts, lives that are not completely or mostly dedicated to plain survival.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Is survival not a goal? On what possible grounds can you assert that thought and concept are almost or in any way exclusive to humans?
Unfortunately, this would not be possible completely, we will still need to utilise animals in experiments, and especially in the early stages of research, such experiments are maiming or fatal, such that we will never apply to humans.
This is only perceived as a need. Such experiments are not vital to society or the species as a whole.
This is only perceived as a need. Such experiments are not vital to society or the species as a whole.
They are vital to research, which is what we have to rely on to find new treatments and medicaments. While those are not necessarily needed for the survival of the species, they can save lives and are the continuation of a quest our society has been on for ages.
Speaking of animals for research purpose, I cannot speak for all establishments but universities are and should be bound by an ethical code for keeping animals. I know that in some universities at least, the animals are treated really nice.
Animals are instilled with a survival instinct. That is their goal; eat, drink, reproduce and avoid being killed. Animals, wild ones in particular, have no other goals, which is why they still live in the same kind of habitat and eat the same kind of thing.
Humans have this same thing wired into our brains as well. We did not leave this behind in our genetic code.
They have a cycle, and every year they do things exactly the same way. People, on the other hand...excuse the brief sarcasm, but centuries of research has shown that we still don't know what women want.
Neither do the animals, as you've referenced that they do not have the intelligence that we do, as they "act on instinct". It's simpler to acknowledge that "the fittest reproduce".
the thought process of a human exceeds an animal in that a human wants things that have nothing to do with survival. A whitetail deer has never seen a brush pile and decided to use the sticks to build a shelter for winter. It instead beds down and endures the cold like every other animal in the Cervidae family (all other species of deer).
Does intelligence automatically warrant being placed on a higher shelf of priority over a wider scope of the food chain?
Our culture is just an advancement of the 'culture' in some animals; for example our closer relatives, the primates. Some groups of chimps are known to have developed techniques for gathering that are unique to their group. Speaking of intellect, I think between dolphins, elephants, chimps, octopi and crows, we are in good company.
Matt, I will ask you to show me how those "human-only" things are NOT the result of more basic motivations. Because as I asked before: where would it come from? Unless you believe in some higher force that gave us something other animals don't, there is no reason to think we are better. We are but one species among so many different ones, and we simply have developed and specialised one aspect of our biology. And I assert that most of what we do is ultimately still as instinct-driven as what a deer does.
No herd of deer has shown appreciation or amazement for the first buck to jump an eight-foot fence, especially not in the way humans celebrate.
I can't say I blame them, although it would be a display of physical aptitude, which translates easily to dominance.
Other noteworthy intellectual differences include holidays (animals don't take holidays), currency (animals do not trade survival items for rocks, coins or paper that they cannot use), documentation (animals do not record history or in all likelihood care) and weapons (animals fight with the same claws, fangs, anglers and wings that they have been using since they grew them).
Holidays: From what? How would you tell them apart from workdays?
Currency: We wouldn't either if we could not exchange it for the goods we need. Humans only have currency because we aren't adapted to provide for all of our needs alone. Nobody makes a burger by harvesting wheat, grinding it in a mill, milking and butchering a cow, pickling the relish, baking the dough, cooking the meat, and putting it all together without any assistance.
Documentation: This could only be of any use to creatures who have a complex written language that is passed on to each new generation. It would also be impractical if the information was easier to learn through observation or experience.
Weapons: Non-anatomical weapons are only effective for species that can hold them. Those few that can are seen to use them.
tl;dr he's saying that the thought process of a human exceeds an animal in that a human wants things that have nothing to do with survival.
Somehow, I don't see this as being an indication of greater intellect. Particularly when the goal is illogical and runs a high risk of fatality (as in your Everest example).
A whitetail deer has never seen a brush pile and decided to use the sticks to build a shelter for winter. It instead beds down and endures the cold like every other animal in the Cervidae family (all other species of deer).
This seems kind of silly to me. Let's consider the thought process involved in building such a shelter:
Okay, there's a pile of materials and maybe some trees you can use for supports, all you need to do is wedge the sticks in place above you and over one side. No problem! Just gather up some large ones in your arms and... oh wait. You need to be a biped for that.
Maybe you could pick them up one by one in your mouth and try to put them in the right spots. Gee, binocular vision could really come in handy here.
If you get that done, you will need to lay something over the sticks to make the roof weatherproof. How about climbing on one of the trees and throwing some moss down... oh wait. Ungulates can't climb trees.
There is no scientific explanation as to why a species that exists for survival would do the incredibly stupidly dangerous things humans do [...]
Because, apparently, this is what superior intelligence is for.
No animal species on the planet even comes close to the diversity, creativity and intellectual level of a human being.
You're right about diversity, but you're still relying upon absence of evidence for the rest. Untill/unless our understanding of neuroscience progresses to a point where we can decipher the actual processes of thought through brain imaging, you cannot know the cognitive power of something without having an abstract ontological conversation with it.
There is no scientific explanation as to why a species that exists for survival would do the incredibly stupidly dangerous things humans do, only to be rewarded by other humans with something as simple as "breaking a world-record."
For feelings of satisfaction through adrenaline and other chemicals.
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