Animal Rights - Not to be confused with Human Rights?

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If you're the latter, you're welcome to all my grass clippings or can come over and graze in my yard any time you want. If you eat meat, how can you condemn those who use animals for experiments? After all, they kill them so you can enjoy a hamburger, or a steak, pork chops, chicken and so on.

Asked by OldppieHatesNewAV 45 months ago Similar questions: Animal Rights confused Human Food & Drink > Cooking.

Similar questions: Animal Rights confused Human.

Gotta start with humans, but we'll work up to animals soo enough For all the high-flown talk of "inalienable rights", rights get alienated all the time. The rights must be secured by governments, as Jefferson went on to say. We must distinguish between the rights we want to have, the rights we have been able to code into law, and the rights as the government is practically able to enforce them.

The answer to the latter two problems is a matter for lawyers. You're most interested in the first category: what rights SHOULD animals have? That is, what rights do we want, as humans, to enforce on their behalf?

To answer that, we have to start with why we want humans to have rights at all, since that's where the concept started. Left to ourselves, we might start with, "I get to do whatever I want, and nobody else gets to do anything unless I say it's OK. " This is, in fact, where the animals start with each other.

But it turns out to not work so well for us. We prefer more symmetrical rights, since it lets us live in society with each other. We benefit substantially from living in societies; it lets us specialize our skills.

I get better bread because I let a baker do it, and the baker gets better pipes because she hires a plumber. And so on. We don't actually have to recognize all humans as precisely equal.

There are all sorts of ways to categorize some humans as "less useful" and therefore less deserving of rights: the retarded, the young, women, people of different races. Over time, we've found that society is more effective when it doesn't try to make fine discriminations of rights. That's because people overlaps.

Even if you could prove that one group is, on average, less deserving of rights than another, some members will be worthy of more. You limit society by limiting those capable people. It's much easier to simply say that all rights apply to all people equally.

We do that with a legal fiction that all people are REALLY equal, which isn't actually true at all, but it's far more productive to treat it as if it is true. Especially since it's very difficult to measure worthiness, as evidenced by the fact that whoever does the measuring tends to decide that he is at the top and it's always somebody else who is less worthy. Which, finally, brings us around to animals.

We can easily maintain the fiction that all humans are equal, but we just can't keep a straight face applying that to a cow, a fish, or a carrot. Why not the carrots? Why draw the line at "animals"?

But even here, we run into problems. We categorize some humans as "vegetables", possessed of no brain function, but we still treat them as "higher" than a cow, simply by dint of their genetic similarity to us. It's easy to see a chimpanzee that is more aware of its surroundings than some severely autistic humans.

All of which means that a nice, simple division that we keep for convenience does not apply so conveniently to animals. Ultimately, we must be the judges. We humans have the power to kill and cause to suffer, and its our own human sensibilities that limit that.

Those sensibilities come down to suffering. Few humans want to see an animal suffer. But this is a learned reaction, not an instinctive one.

Other human beings have watched animals be tortured for entertainment, from Roman circuses to Elizabethan bear-baiting to modern dogfights. Hunters kill animals, and though they prefer to limit its suffering, those who depend on it for sustenance find it entirely appropriate. There will never be a sharp division to draw, but over time societies tend to grant human rights wider and wider.In our society it applies to all sufficiently-gestated humans.

That will expand, and will almost certainly include genetic near-humans like chimps in my lifetime. Gestation is another dimension, and there will continue to be vivid debate over the rights of partially-gestated genetic humans. Other animals will be granted more and more rights, in proportion to their genetic similarity to us.

People believe in general that suffering is often worse than death. So you'll find that the right to not suffer will be granted long before the right to life. I don't expect humans will allow cows the right to live, but there is increasing agitation to grant them the right to not suffer.

They may be killed and eaten, but the raising and slaughter must be merciful. Similarly, people object more and more to cruel medical experiments. We'll never completely balance the rights, because the utilitarian "felicific calculus" does not really exist.

It will end up being a matter of democracy: when 50% of the people decide that dogs may not be killed, that will be the applicable ethic. You simply can't separate the true ethic from what we can achieve legally.My own beliefs call for minimizing the suffering of animals, and I limit the industrially-raised meat I eat. This is not a sharp line practice; there is moral ambiguity in it.

The point of this essay is to say that the ambiguity is unerasable, and therefore I live with it. Other issues, such as medicine, will have to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, because the gray areas do not allow us to form sharp rules. We are most comfortable when we can stay away from them, and set our policies to prefer to stay well to one side of them.

That is, we should consider medical experiments involving death or cruelty only when unavoidable and of clear benefit. Cases that can't at least claim to the gray area, gratuitous cruelty, shouldn't even be considered. And the gray area... will remain gray.

I do want to encourage more people to be aware of the situations, though.It is a moral failing to rely on a lack of knowledge when the knowledge is in fact available. One need not encounter a slaughterhouse every day, but everybody should be exposed to one so that they may make a conscious choice.

I take a sort of off-the-beaten-path, middle-of-the-road approach... Seems to me that humans have a responsibility to treat other living creatures humanely--but that their status is not, and should not be, that of humans. And there's a balance between letting the animals take over and treating them responsibly. For many reasons, I have strong opinions about--for example--concentrated animal feeding operations and other forms of factory farming, and I DO think that humans have a responsibility built out of necessity to not wantonly destroy habitat and species--but these are based in the idea that people, very often, rush in and ruin something without fully understanding the ramifications of their actions.

I also think that preserving habitat and species is often FAR more important than feeding the US "gotta have it cow" comsumer culture--policies that turn resources that belong to us as a nation over to corporations so THEY make profit is simply wrong, wrong-headed, and dangerous for those who come after us. As far as I'm concerned, when we as a "superior species" make massive changes in our environment, we do it at our own risk. This has been proven time and time again.

Remember "Better living through chemistry? " Personally, I don't trust either industry or the government to think long-term enough, or to really know the outcome of what they want to attempt. Just look at the food industry--for example--when agro-business practices completely changed the diet of cattle, to make them put on weight faster (ie, corn fed to cattle that evolved to eat grass), sooner or later, people as a whole are going to pay a price for those actions, and sure enough, we're paying it now.

Corn fed beef is not nearly as healthy as purely grass-fed beef; the antibiotics used to cram all those animals in a feedlot get transferred to those who eat the meat, and the heaven concentration of animals makes heavy and foul concentratins of animal wastes that end up in our water supply. This agro-business procedure ALSO simply EATS petroleum products--it's inherently extremely wasteful of resources. In a practical sense, if ordinary consumers could SEE what they pay out, every step of the way, all the hidden charges and taxes associated with that piece of meat?

I think many folks would stop eating it. Wle some animal testing can now be done on computer models (and should be), plenty of testing cannnot be safely modeled. I do believe, again, that we have a responsibility to test as humanely as possible, and to not use animals when models will serve the purpose--that testing done on another living thing should COUNT for something.My spouse and I eat less meat than many Americans--and I know EXACTLY where most of the meat we eat came from--because my spouse hunted or fished to bring it home.

I VASTLY prefer cleanly killed fish or game (and he won't kill something he won't eat) to what's available in the grocery store. My spouse treats the game he kills with respect, handles it properly, kills it quickly and cleanly, and we prepare it with the knowledge and awareness that that fish, deer or bird lost its life to feed us--which is FAR more than most people ever think about what they put in their mouths--they seem to believe that beef, pork and chicken come wrapped in plastic on styro trays, grown in coolers at the supermarket. Sources: Lots of reading and research in environmental science and the food industry NancyE's Recommendations In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto Amazon List Price: $21.95 Used from: $9.99 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (based on 104 reviews) The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural story of Four Meals Amazon List Price: $16.00 Used from: $8.74 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (based on 398 reviews) The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World Amazon List Price: $15.00 Used from: $6.48 Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 155 reviews) If you've never read any Michael Pollan, I strongly recommend him to you.

Good stuff! .

If they don't they should have! This is one of those volatile questions that hits nerves on both sides of rights activists where one or both explode into an all out war! I am not extreme in either direction.

But like Humans who don't or can't stand to be mistreated the animals can only show they don't like the treatment they can't voice it like humans will! Why would it be so hard to understand that animals should have rights, they feel pain, suffer pain, and are by humans mistreated in one form or another! The ones from the medical sector, those mistreated for fun by humans, those mistreated by humans just because they can, those mistreated by humans just because they are mean tempered!

My opinion and stance on this is that all creatures should have rights even at the bottom of the food chain, If the worlds most vicious animal expects to have rights how can they expect to give none to creatures below them! When human rights are violated on a world scale, country, state, city even on a family scale other humans are looking for blood, they want the violators locked up or executed! The animals for most part are defenseless against man, for those in the wild mostly due to technology for the ones close to home or in the home mostly because they trust the human!

Animals don't torture, test, mistreat or kill humans for fun, it's the other way around! Yes animals should also have rights that protect them from man! Unless there are humans willing to step forward for these tests and experiments then animals are the one to be subjugated to the task!

This does not mean the can be mistreated in fact they should be pampered and spoiled for there service to the human race. They should have decent food, medical and clean living areas and treated with respect and not abused! The over population again is the humans fault, killing off the predators has the whole food chain out of whack so here the humans must become the predator to prevent over population!

We are what we chose to be no one was born a vegetarian or a meat eater, this is a personal choice and should remain personal. No one has the right to tell another how to feed themselves, a vegetarian should not open the trap and proclaim meat eating is wrong and against the animals rights they chose to eat spinach so they should be quiet! I already answered above concerning experiments!

I just hope your not serious with your statement,"Condemn those who use animals for experiments? " After all. They kill them so you can enjoy a hamburger, or a steak, pork chops, chicken and so on!"

As far as I have read or learned the animals used in experiments and tests are not later put on the dinner table but disposed of properly! Most animal experiments are conducted for health industry and beauty industry. There are some in the genetics research for more meat or better taste but even these animals are not slaughtered and sold at the local market!

Sources: PC 123 .

Yes and no Animals do have, or should have rights, as should all living things. Human beings ascribe rights, so its a value judgment based on culture and human concepts of their place in the world and the universe. As "stewards of the Earth" I believe its our job to act as benevolent caretakers for the rest of the lifeforms on the planet, and that would include not letting them overpopulate to the point of starvation, and not experimenting on them wherever and whenever possible.

I do eat all sorts of critters. My contention with the issue of vegetarianism is that even if today, all human beings suddenly became vegetarian, the bulk of the carnage on the planet would continue. Animals would still continue to eat each other.

They like to do that. They find each other pretty tasty. And I have to make a distinction between two types of farming, there is 'humane' farming where animals are cared for properly, and treated almost like pets, and there's 'factory farming' where they are treated like crap.So I tend to walk the line on this whole issue as ol Johnny Cash used to say.

Sources: just me .

Animals have no rights, except to not be treated cruely. And that's the way it should be. When they can start thinking building a civilization then maybe they can have rights - as long as they don't interfere with ours.

Schelli's Recommendations The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural story of Four Meals Amazon List Price: $26.95 Used from: $9.25 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (based on 398 reviews) .

" "confused about my ex" "I'm confused (so what else is new . .. )." "What do you think about the "Guest Worker Program" in relation to Human Rights. " "what are the us constitution contrast from human rights" "What type of animal do you think has been the most important to human history and why?

" "How could I classify human rights NGOs active globally?" "Are you an animal or a human? " "What agencies out there best represent Human Rights issues? " "So confused.

I'm confused (so what else is new . . .).

What do you think about the "Guest Worker Program" in relation to Human Rights.

What are the us constitution contrast from human rights.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.

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