The True Meaning of Animal Rights

[Brandon Becker]

Learn about the true meaning of animal rights, including what is and is not rights advocacy and examples of rights advocacy compared to other advocacy: http://www.rpaforall.org/rights.html

From the introduction:
-----
"Animal rights" is almost always used incorrectly by the news industry and most animal organizations and advocates. This hampers animal-rights advocacy by creating confusion about its goal, divergence from rights-promoting strategies, and delusion about what constitutes progress toward animal rights. People have helped animals in countless ways for thousands of years without promoting rights for them. Promoting rights means describing the rights other animals need to lead fulfilling lives, why meaningful protection is impossible without rights, and why human beings as well as other animals will benefit when all have the rights they need.
------

[Lisa V]

Brandon, unless you're wild foraging, 100% of your foods have been significantly and intentionally altered by man. We eat nearly nothing in its "natural" and unaltered/original state.

I agree with you that human endeavors in the world have, in many cases, been disastrous. But, to be fair, they've also been miraculous. Just us all having this conversation via computer/internet/online community is pretty amazing.

[Brandon Becker]

You seemed to have been arguing for genetic modification of plants to have them produce taurine, something that would take laboratory gene splicing, very unlike natural plant breeding that is done in agriculture historically. Genetic modification, also known as genetic engineering, has been and continues to be an ecological disaster.

Not everything about this civilization is bad or harmful, it's just that it is built on a foundation of violence and domination and will inevitably collapse due to social discord and environmental degradation like all others civilizations before it.

[Bonn1997]

Deontological or rights-based writers frequently argue for non-interference or to "let them be" but I don't think they take their ideas to their logical conclusions. For example, are we "letting them be" when we

A) mow lawns, and often in the process shred insects to death?

B) drive cars (often for trivial reasons) and hit and kill insects and other animals?

C) "develop" land and in the process destroy animals' natural habitats? I'd acknowledge that a few rights theorists have argued against C although I've seen none argue against A and B.

I'm sure we could come up with a list of many actions like A and B that animal rights theorists don't argue against and (I suspect) would be unwilling to give up but nonetheless violate the "let them be" principle.

[Lisa V]

Brandon,

I'm on the fence about a lot of this and am just tossing around ideas. I live next door to a GMO soybean field and see the decimation that causes (and do understand the difference between breeding and GM). But the damage is largely due to the application of the technology, not entirely to the technology itself. And, if we were to advance enough to actually be able to reduce suffering and predation ... wouldn't we be morally obligated to?

[Carolyn Bailey]

Hi Bonn, 

I agree that all three of your examples are problematic, and violate the rights of other individuals.

Tim and I have actually had quite a few heated discussions about mowing the lawn and the harm it does to others. You might be interested in this essay about driving cars and harming insects too: http://timgier.com/2011/02/20/love-bugs/

[Carolyn Bailey]

I think you touch on a very significant point, Brandon. 

How would we prevent fishes from eating smaller fishes? Dolphins from eating fishes? Whales from eating seals? Insects from eating other insects? The list really does go on and on ... and on. 
 

You said: 

It's really delusional to think that humans have the capacity or ever will have the capacity to police all life on Earth.

I think it's even more disturbing to think that humans would want to police all life on Earth. 
 

[Bonn1997]

Thanks; that definitely is an interesting discussion (including the replies). I'm curious what your thoughts are on the discussion in the VHE thread I started. (http://arzone.ning.com/forum/topics/is-voluntary-human-extinction-t...)

[Alex Melonas]

Moreover, the argument against the interventionist position seems to assume that the current, "natural" order, i.e., predation, is a (normative) good. But that argument can't be sustained with coherent reasoning. The biological "is" is simply that: an "is." There aren't herbivores and carnivores who prey on herbivores and other carnivores because of some sort of eternal moral order that said/determined/mandated it ought to be that way; it just is that way. Once we reject the premise that the way things are is in any way normatively good, the case for intervention becomes much stronger.     

[Alex Melonas]

I simply don't understand how one can accept the premise that we have an obligation to avoid doing harm but, with equal reasoning, we don't have an obligation to prevent, preventable harm from occurring when we can. As was mentioned above, I have an obligation to avoiding pushing the child in the pond and to pull the pushed child out of the pond if I am able to. It seems to me that those who reject that latter claim are what philosophers call "moral monsters." 

[Alex Melonas]

This confuses the issue. Your first argument is reasonable, but arguable nonetheless, to wit, the empirical question: Can we do what Pearce advocates? Your second argument, however, is unrelated to the first in an important way, to wit, the second question is in the "ought" realm. I'd respond: I don't want to "police" life, I want to end preventable suffering and death. To me it is quite disturbing that some human beings don't want to end preventable suffering and death. 

[Brandon Becker]

What you call "end[ing] preventable suffering and death", I call policing life. It's an accurate term since Pearce advocates overseeing all life on earth and micro-managing every square inch, including in the oceans. Not only is this entirely implausible but it's also entirely arrogant to think that one species (conveniently, our own) should rule with an iron fist over all others.

[Brandon Becker]

Since when should we ever think philosophers have all the answers anyway? Considering the countless theories out there with countless variations, I've stopped looking in philosophy books for answers on anything.