Forums → WEPR → Should Animals Have Rights? Why?
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i dont think animals shouldnt have rights because they arent intelligent like us. they also have never contributed to society. the day i hear an animal can talk give em rights
You need to do some research. There are many animals who are actually smarter than humans. Their bodies just don't give them enough capability like the human body. Humans are only superior because we were the first to pretty much fully evolve. We still have much to learn.
How can you say they have never contributed to society? Hello, have you ever ate anything? (No, not dogs or cats just animals in general) There are many dogs that help blind or disabled people. How many people have you helped?
Also, a parrot can talk, according to you, they deserve rights.
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The Green Movement
TotalReview, I think should do some research. Humans as a whole ARE the most intelligent beings on this planet. We have the largest forebrains, therefore we have the highest ability to reason, communicate, and decide. Our cerebrum's are far most advanced than any other species, even other primates. I would challenge you to find a single person with a Ph.D. is physiology who would argue that any animal's intelligence is even comparable with those of an average human. No other animals are able to use tools effectively, a trait which humans appeared to have mastered millions of years ago. You are making a simple mistake between instinct (controlled by the hindbrain, mostly the cerebellum) and actual thought (controlled by the forebrain, mostly the cerebrum). Yes many other animals APPEAR to have "higher" intelligences than us because they have heightened senses and have larger hindbrains which are able to instinctively react faster, but these are false appearances of intelligence, as these animals are not actually forming coherent thoughts, but rather reacting to generations of instinctive selection.
In regards to animal rights, I DO NOT believe that animals deserve any sort of rights what so ever. My argument is that rights are a construct of HUMANITY. Only humans are able to conceive rights, therefore they are the only ones which should be allowed to have them. Dogs have no hesitation about killing humans, why should we hesitate to kill them. They do not care if you are protected by anti-murder laws, so why should we protect them with similar laws which they will never be able to appreciate. There's my case.
No other animals are able to use tools effectively, a trait which humans appeared to have mastered millions of years ago.
Not true actually. Apes use tools. A bunch of animals have been known to use tools and have even adapted tools to suit their own environment.
Only humans are able to conceive rights, therefore they are the only ones which should be allowed to have them.
So rights should only be given to those who have the ability to conceive of the rights they are being given. Okay, so children and the mentally handicapped should not, but that definition, be given rights. They can not conceive of or even understand the rights they are being given.
We have the largest forebrains, therefore we have the highest ability to reason, communicate, and decide.
We do indeed. Well most of us. But we certainly are not the only species that communicate or decide. The mere act of adapting to something completely new and learning from mistakes, as some animals have been proven to do, denotes intelligence. Wow, we are smarter. Who hoo. I probably have a higher IQ then my neighbor, yay.
A child, in most cases, is less intelligent then a monkey. Normal course of life is you start out stupid and learn to become intelligent. We protect and help this child along because of the very fact that it can not protect itself. If you are being murdered a baby doesn't care. It won't call 911. They don't care if are kidnapped or if there is a yield sign near their playground. Rights are indeed a construct of humanity. We made them up. But they are in place for a reason. We protect those with laws and such because they can not protect themselves against humanity. Just because you're neighbor is stupid and can't understand his right to his own mailbox doesn't give you as a genius the right to steal his mail.
Humanity is really nothing special in the gran scheme of everything. We will most likely wipe ourselves out in less time then the dinosaurs roamed the earth. If the earth was run by the strongest creatures or the fastest we wouldn't even be ruling the earth. All we have is our intelligence. Since that is all we have, humans seem to desperately want to prove that nothing can touch us in intelligence. Which right now I admit, nothing can. So we downplay ANY intelligence shown by any creature because if we accept that that dog you kick around is feeling scared and is in pain and is wondering why then we are monsters for the things we do to animals.
It is once we start considering ourselves great and above everything else that we head down a very slippery slope. There was a time when certain groups of people were not considered people. They were animals and livestock. Not even counted on the census. And today we say blasphemy but the justifications used by the oppresses, justifications I have seen in this thread, made sense to the people at the time. And they were treated like animals, which is to mean like crap. If the treatment was not fit for a person, and of course it wasn't, then why is it fit for an innocent creature that can't understand why you are hurting it and feels pain. Just because we can articulate with words pain and suffering does not make it anymore important then the pain of horse or a dog.
donosld, I know from your previous posts that you and I are probably not going to get along. Oh well, let's get to it:
I would challenge you to find a single person with a Ph.D. is physiology who would argue that any animal's intelligence is even comparable with those of an average human.
Would you like me to provide you with a list? I'll just go around asking the various consultants at my teaching hospital and research team and get them to sign a petition...I should easily be able to get a dozen signatures from that alone.
Besides that's a crappy argument tactic; since you purport to make an educated argument, you should know better.
We have the largest forebrains, therefore we have the highest ability to reason, communicate, and decide.
I take exception to the therefore: you're at least a decade too old-school. We've long recognised that it would make more sense to take into account different types of 'intelligence' (I'm going to define this as "task-related aptitude" for one thing, and for another, from my own experience and literature review of neurophysiology and neuropsychiatry, I can tell you that the emergent consensus is that size is a horribly crude determinant of cortical functioning. There are a number of ways I can demonstrate this but I'm going to wait to see if you attempt to address my rebuttals first, as it would blow my post out to a ridiculous size.
Also we don't have the largest forebrains. Bottlenose dolphins do. Furthermore, that we claim to have the greatest ability to communicate is contingent on our only understanding best how to understand how we communicate, and a dogmatic adherence to this claim only reflects a bloody-minded unwillingness to apply critical thought to the communication patterns of other species.
No other animals are able to use tools effectively, a trait which humans appeared to have mastered millions of years ago.
Also incorrect. I only need to provide one other counterexample: Crows and ravens have demonstrated superior deductive and perceptive ability for tool use in controlled trials.
as these animals are not actually forming coherent thoughts, but rather reacting to generations of instinctive selection
Implicitly revealed in the premises from which your argument is predicated will be your inability to make any headway whatsoever on the hard problems of consciousness. Consciousness is frequently used as a vague point of distinction as described by the "instinct" versus "deliberate" actions ever since Descartes. At this point you are compelled to provide further justification of this statement, which will involve some kind of statement on what you believe consciousness constitutes.
In regards to animal rights, I DO NOT believe that animals deserve any sort of rights what so ever. My argument is that rights are a construct of HUMANITY.
I would agree with you, given that humans are also animals.
Dogs have no hesitation about killing humans, why should we hesitate to kill them.
Earlier I indirectly asserted you do not understand animal behavior; I now rest my case.
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To be more general, it is possible to argue contrary to the position I have just dismantled without caving to dichotomous divides and what I'm going to call the "anti-anthropocentrism" criticism, as kris has provided (and I would on occasion). One could argue that it is because we have the capability of discussing rights that we ought to oblige ourselves to consider the rights of animals and that which we interact with and affect, and in turn are affected by.
Makes more sense, no?
I think my straight-shooting seniors blasted all the obsequious-ness out of my system xD
No other animals are able to use tools effectively, a trait which humans appeared to have mastered millions of years ago.Crows. And lots of others. I o not agree with your definition of intelligence.
... Oh wait, just realized Strop mentioned that too...
But even octopi have shown the ability to figure out how to unscrew the lid of a jar...
We have the largest forebrains, therefore we have the highest ability to reason, communicate, and decide.Oh, I'd dare say ants and termites have a higher developed society than humans.
And... What Strop said.
But even octopi have shown the ability to figure out how to unscrew the lid of a jar...
Another great example, and their powers of reasoning and planning ability extends far beyond this. Actually...octopi are really cool...they actually have a strongly discernible personality.
Another great example, and their powers of reasoning and planning ability extends far beyond this. Actually...octopi are really cool...they actually have a strongly discernible personality.They do? Awesome. Octopi used to be my favorite animals, but the only info I could get were from age old books... -_-
One thing I find fascinating, is how people are less concerned of the rights of fishes and shell fish creatures. Nobody seems to care about the way they are treated... Same for the spineless critters such as octopi, squids, worms and snails... Why is it more legit to harm that kind of critters?
(Not talking about the mass-killing of flies, fleas, lice, tics, mosquitoes... We have reasons for that. But the unnecessary torture some perform...)
i believe that humans and fish can coexist peacefully someday.... well Bush got something right. Animals should be extended the courtesy of rights because they can't protect themselves against us ravaging humans.
Stroop:
I'll just go around asking the various consultants at my teaching hospital and research team and get them to sign a petition...I should easily be able to get a dozen signatures from that alone.
What animal has written language? What animal has the ability to BUILD anything more but the simplest of shelters? What animal has the ability to understand mathmatics? These are usually considered the highest orders of functionality of the human brain (as confirmed by FMRI scanning) and no known animal can do any of these things even remotely close to how well an AVERAGE human can. Yes children, on average can not do these things, and yes there are those with mental handicaps but I'm not talking about the extreme's of the spectrum, I'm talking about a fairly typical 100 IQ point adult human being. (And YES I know the Intelligence Quotient is a highly inaccurate form of intelligence testing, so you can stop nit-picking apart stupid little points of my argument.)
Stroop, yes you are right, within a species, brain size IS a largely inaccurate form of determining intelligence (I'm willing to bet you that Shaq's brain weighs more than Dr. Hawking's and I don't really need to make an argument about which is more intelligent) However, among the veterinary community, it is largely considered to be a fairly accurate measure of how advanced the mental abilities of a species will be.
Also incorrect. I only need to provide one other counterexample: Crows and ravens have demonstrated superior deductive and perceptive ability for tool use in controlled trials.
Yes animals can USE tools, I know that, I've read the studies too, but I put the word effectively in there. Perhaps what I was really driving at would have been better expressed by purposefully.
Earlier I indirectly asserted you do not understand animal behavior; I now rest my case.
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As to what I define conscious thought to be, I would define it as thought which is not a direct result of an environmental stimulus.
They should they are a walking living creatures that mean no harm to us and should not be hunted.
@donosld:
I'll just give you an example per question, okay?
What animal has written language?Dogs. They "write" a lot of information via their scent marks. Other dogs can smell them, and understand the message they left.
What animal has the ability to BUILD anything more but the simplest of shelters?Termites. Their hives can be more complex than any human building. And compared to their size, larger too. Amazing constructions, really.
What animal has the ability to understand mathmatics?Several kinds of birds. Some kinds know the difference between one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and many. Because they have no need to know the exact value if there is more than seven.
And there is a type of lizard or fish (can't remember which) that is able to know the difference between groups of, say, five and seven smaller fish, and chase after the bigger group.
and no known animal can do any of these things even remotely close to how well an AVERAGE human can.Termites, I say!! And I would definitely like to see the humans being able to coordinate their actions as well as ants and termites and bees do.
Yes animals can USE tools, I know that, I've read the studies too, but I put the word effectively in there. Perhaps what I was really driving at would have been better expressed by purposefully.Crows can actually shape a string of metal into a hook and use that tool to pick a treat out of a narrow opening. That's both effective and purposefully right there. And no, it wasn't a trained bird.
As to what I define conscious thought to be, I would define it as thought which is not a direct result of an environmental stimulus.I would argue that humans display no such thing, then.
@blacklightingjr:
So you're a vegetarian? Referring to your 'should not be hunted'.
Hmm, just to add to Zophia's post: Not so long ago it was provn that birds are really intelligent, just in another way than us. They are able to think somewhat logically, and think of the consequences that might be with doing different things.
donosld:
First off my name is Strop, not Stroop, I dislike that test greatly :P
"Red...yellow...blue- argh, I mean red!"
Anyway, I'm somewhat surprised to get a reply, but hooray. Having come to this stage, I will now say that this is the time to introduce anthropocentric criticisms because I agree we're getting past the point of getting facts straight. Let's look at your arguments here:
These are usually considered the highest orders of functionality of the human brain
and
However, among the veterinary community, it is largely considered to be a fairly accurate measure of how advanced the mental abilities of a species will be.
(Emphases mine.)
I agree with most of your statements in a limited sense, except, of course, where Zophia has pointed out counterexamples. However I'm going to propose a slightly different perspective which will be compatible with most of the content of what you're saying.
You may have noticed that there is much discussion of "different" kinds of intelligence. I suppose the first thing I would have to do here is to ask you to define intelligence, since the way you would do so will reflect on the manner in which you argue.
My definition would be something along the lines of: "Task-oriented aptitude." This kind of definition allows for humans to claim that we have the broadest range of tasks generated as well as abstract, conceptual and metaphysical systems that we presume to be unique to humankind. I don't see a problem with that. All I will say here is that we should acknowledge that humans aren't the only species with intelligence (we've already granted this), nor do they necessarily have the 'best' or 'greatest' intelligence for reasons I will allude to below.
Where we probably differ is that I don't see this as being intrinsically distinctive from any other set of tasks or "lower order" sets of intelligence (not to mention I myself am not sure how "lower" and "higher" orders of intelligence are properly defined...these appear to be arcane and loaded terms most of the time). Even if these terms were to be somehow meaningful, I would furthermore dismiss them as valueless in a moral argument re: animal rights. The reason I say this is because humans have their own way of relating to each other and the world, but so too do other species. Reduced to these fundamental functions, there is a spectrum of commonality between living beings- to varying extents we relate to the Earth in some way or another.
In this light, whether one is intelligent/sentient or not doesn't actually matter: we still cohabit and form ecosystems. To me, this implies that there is a greater importance of exercising our capabilities responsibly, granting animals rights where we somehow see fit in order to practice sustainable living.
The bottom line is that yes, it appears likely that humans are the only species to whom the concept of rights is meaningful. Furthermore it goes almost without saying that we don't have to give rights to any animal, human or otherwise. However the effects of discussing and granting of rights is meaningful in broader and more important senses, therefore we should at the very least entertain the argument that we ought to grant rights to other animals, since we're prone to talking about rights in the first place.
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Finally:
I would define it as thought which is not a direct result of an environmental stimulus.
There's your hard problem right there. Can you find a way to parse this statement in a way that is somehow meaningful? As I've mentioned before, I'm a fan of Dennett's models in this field.
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