Why should animals have rights? What rights should they have?

I think we should try to avoid harming things that can experience suffering. So we can apply rules differently based on the kinds of suffering the animal is capable of—a fish can feel pain, so we should try not to hurt it physically, but (as far as we know) it doesn’t have the capacity to understand things like injustice, so keeping it in a tank (with a lot of food and friends) is probably ok.

Why should they have rights. If it is agreeable that it is better to have rights than not and that the purpose of rights is to establish greater freedom and minimize suffering, then they should be afforded rights by virtue of being subject to the ills associated with not having them.

What rights should they have, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness seem like a good start. But more to the point, the right to exist and experience such existence with a minimum of needless suffering seems valid.

These are obviously broad ideas, perhaps too broad to provide any truly meaningful answer but in my opinion they’re the basis for the details.

Where does it come from, the idea that suffering should be minimized where possible and that the burden is carried more so by us because we understand that.

Ideally we would live in a balance where healthy growth populations of animals and their habitats are able to co-exist with our growth and advancement.

This is a really complex topic. I think we should strive towards a harm-reduction ideology, as usual. There are people who need to kill animals to survive and there are people who create animals they don’t need to eat. Those two things are different and must be considered. We have to trace people’s habits in terms of animals historically, as well and compare by culture. Generally, certain animals are sacred and others aren’t. It’s totally arbitrary. For those of us who don’t come to animals through the sacred/profane lens, all animals are equally valuable and their suffering should be minimized. I think, if we must, we have to kill the food we eat ourselves and to pay our respect to it.

Rights are an institutionalized form of compassion. We accord to others what compassion tells us we would want in their place, tempered by our understanding of how this fits in with the well-being of everyone else. Not everyone can have everything they want, because some wants will conflict with others’ wants. Compromises have to be made.

It’s not hard to understand that animals want to avoid pain and anxiety, and want to be free to express their instinctive behaviors. I personally feel that I have an obligation to make compromises in my diet and lifestyle—sacrificing a few of my more superficial wants—so as not to encroach too much on those more fundamental wants of other creatures.

Wild top-level predators don’t have a “right” to roam human settlements freely, because that places too much of the potential sacrificial burden on the humans. But neither do I feel that I have a right to take an animal’s life because I prefer the taste of bacon to the taste of beans. That shifts too much of the burden of sacrifice to the animals.

Humans are in the position of power here. That power carries a moral duty to not wield that power with arrogance.

The golden rule applies to EVERY creature, be it human or animal.

Even insects IMO.

Would you like to be stepped on or squashed just because something bigger than you decides it holds some sort of superior right to life when all it takes is an extra 60 seconds to put the poor thing outside? I think not.

Quite frankly, the way people treat animals is a very good barometer of how they treat everything in their life. With care and regard or callous indifference at best, cruelty at worst.

Yes, animals should have rights, the right to humane treatment and quality of life, even if it ends up on the dinner table.

I am adopting a new cat today at the local shelter, a magnificent 5 yr. old tuxedo ragdoll guy named “Myles.” I am so excited to give him a new, forever home. Nobody wants the older guys, but he is purrfect and it warms my heart that I can provide him a wonderful home. Merry Christmas to Myles and me! :-D

This is what happens when you have various beliefs, cultures etc. We can’t do much about it, but I still posit that we should treat anything with a consciousness and that can experience suffering with as much respect as possible.

I think it’s absolutely fucking ridiculous that we worry about rights for animals when we can’t even get rights for human beings straight.

Get back to me when people are all equal under the law and then we can discuss legislation for lake trout.

It isn’t so much that animals have rights as that we who have power over them have responsibilities.

@Blondesjon

Well…depends on your world view and “spiritual” beliefs.
I believe everything is one, because it IS.
We have all evolved from the basic building blocks of life, just arranged a little differently in each life form.
All life forms are the manifestation of the one life.

There is no superior life form.
Having dominion over “lesser” creatures is biblical fiction.
Animals are voiceless and powerless, humans have the ability to understand and make choices, they do not, sooo, like any voiceless group they deserve advocacy as much as anything.

Legislating “rights” for animals if just a benign form of dominion.

Like I said, I have no problem trying to figure out how we might be able to help our furry/scaly/feathered friends but only after we learn to take care of ourselves first.

In fact, I think the whole “animal rights” thing would kind of fall in to place on it’s own once that happened.

I agree with @Coloma with regard to the Golden Rule. It should be applied universally and not with distinction of “us first”.

Animals should have rights because they too, have life like us. They feel pain like us. They procreate like us. They nurture their young like us. We do eat some of them but it does not mean we should also express our superiority by treating them with physical cruelty and cold indifference.

@Blondesjon

You’re right, everything would fall into place, if humans adopted the mindset of oneness and unity of all things. It’s not an either/or thing, and once one “wakes up” to the totality of all life, they would be incapable of segregating any life form into a more than/less than “worthy” niche.

It’s hierarchical thinking that leads to all injustices, human or animal. “This group is more deserving than that group”. Doing away with hierarchical thinking in one domain while continuing it in another is not intellectually honest. It’s a self-induced moral blindness. Do away with that mode of thinking first, then see what actions flow from that.

@Coloma . . . The only way for any of that to happen would be for every single human being on Earth to give up what we call civilization. No more McDonalds, no more Oprah, and no more Internet.

We can’t attain the mindset of oneness and unity of all things until we cease and desist our self imposed removal from all things natural. Give up your car, your clothes, and trips to the grocery store. Build your den out of only natural unprocessed materials and get used to eating your food, that you catch, raw because fire is also a no-no in the true natural world group hug.

Eat grass when your stomach hurts and hope that a few thousand years of easy human living hasn’t evolved the beneficial, infection fighting enzymes from your saliva. You’re going to need those in case you get a scratch. Break a bone and hope you don’t have to chew off the offending limb just to survive.

Be prepared to fight to keep your territory, not just from other humans but from any other “being of oneness” that decides it doesn’t want you where it hunts. All those insects that deserved an extra 60 seconds of your time? They’re busy biting, transmitting disease, and waiting for you to die so they have a place to lay their eggs.

This is the real natural oneness. The real circle of life is that you are either predator or you are prey. You don’t live day to day, you live hour to hour. There is no heaven, hell, or cosmic drum circle. To spiritualize/humanize it is to insult it’s true savage beauty and I feel, the height of human arrogance.

Again, we are sooo fucked up in the way we interact with each other, let alone with the rest of the natural world, that we need to work on ourselves first and then take it from there. To believe that we are capable of anything else before that happens is a waste of time.

For the record, I don’t condone cruelty of any kind.

@Blondesjon

I’m not going to the nth degree here, just what I said in my original sharing, the golden rule.
Sure, you make a valid point, but, it is taking it to the extreme.
I am not suggesting we all go back to living in caves, and let ticks feed on us while we sleep, just a recognition that doing as little harm as possible coupled with a reverence for all life is the path to a modicum of “enlightenment.”

Being human means striving for more nobility and altruism, one person, one animal, one hour at a time. :-)

@Coloma . . . Well put. Agreed.

why didn’t you say that to begin with? i hate typing . . .

@Blondesjon

Your typing and expression is just fine. I just have that female ability to say the exact same thing in about 50 different ways. lol

There is a difference between rights, which are intrinsic, and legal protections, which are man made and often administered by caprice.
Animals can not possess rights-they don’t have the pre requisites.
Having said it, in my opinion animals are worthy of legal protection against cruelty.

The golden rule “do no harm” is where I stand, especially for those who are voiceless and powerless. Saying we have to work well with humans first has nothing to do with my rescuing cats, her giving water and food to the birds, him providing shelter for a stray dog, etc. We have to work well with all living creatures. Practicing “Do no harm” then adding “do good whenever and wherever I can” is a step in the right direction.

If you accept that we shouldn’t harm human beings, then necessarily you should also conclude that one shouldn’t harm animals. If you don’t agree with that, then stop reading now.
Why shouldn’t one harm animals if one doesn’t harm human beings? Because they aren’t different. Humans are essentially animals. If you can name one distinction which truly separates humans from animals, without exceptions, then you can go and hurt animals. But such a distinction is impossible. If you were to say that animals aren’t as conscious as human beings, and that this is a reason which grants you the right to hurt animals, then you should also not mind if one were to harm a human being with a severe mental illness, since he/she isn’t as conscious either.
In fact, there are animals such as monkeys who are more conscious, smarter, more apt to feel pain, etc… than certain human beings. But if you decide that you can’t hurt such human beings, then you should also conclude that you can’t hurt animals.
It’s impossible to draw a line between human beings and animals without there being exceptions such as people with certain illnesses. If you do draw such a line, necessarily you fall into speciesism.
I actually eat meat myself, so I’m such a hypocrite for saying all this.

Oprah’s off the air. Just sayin’

@Hacksawhawk Animals can’t manipulate symbols (except for a few chimps and maybe dolphins) and they don’t have the potential to manipulate symbols. All the mentally ill and almost all the mentally retarded can manipulate symbols. Babies have the potential to manipulate symbols. The is an extraordinarily significant distinction. It means that animals can never advocate for themselves.

It seems to me that much of the discussion here has centered around a kind of spiritual connection that people have towards mammals. I don’t see people talking about rights for cold blooded creatures. People speak of oneness as if somehow that makes us all the same. Seems to me that we are one, but we are different. Oneness is about connection, not sameness.

I don’t like seeing animals in pain. I hate it when people cause animals pain in a gratuitous way. I think we should take care of animals as best we can, the same as I think we should care for our houses, cars, yards and guitars. Cruelty and neglect are wrong not for animals, but for ourselves. When we neglect things or beings, it is our resulting suffering that I think should motivate us to be careful stewards of that which helps us live better.

I’m all in favor of caring for that we depend on. But I don’t think that gives those animals any rights. They can not expect any particular treatment because they have no control over it and no say in it. Nor do they have a say in anything, except by physical resistance. I don’t know if that qualifies as a “say,” since they are not speaking, nor manipulating symbols of any kind.

@cprevite . . . i’m going to have to insist that we get married before you nit-pick me on that level.

I support @saint‘s view point. Granting animals rights is a slippery slope into making animals fully equal to people. And I hate to say it, but most full on animal lovers are speciesist, they would grant the rights to attractive or majetsic animals, but not the ugly, less cuddly ones.

I’m not as intellectual as you young ‘uns, but if animals don’t have rights, how does one enforce a law on someone for cruelty to animals, inhumane treatment, etc ?? I know of a man who tied a dog to a bench outside his store on a short leash in 13 degree temperature for over 10 hours. It was inhumane, cruel, and there are laws to protect the animal, giving the animal certain rights, or do I have that wrong? If I am wrong, what’s to stop him or others from cruelty, inhumane treatment to animals?

Just because there is a law against cruelty to animals that doesn’t mean the animal has “rights”. It just means that it’s against the law to be cruel to an animal.

For example, shoplifting is against the law but that doesn’t mean that a store’s property has “rights”.

Well…this is a bit off topic, but I read a report today that Congress has re-legalized horse slaughter houses (for food) in the U.S. It was interesting how that seems so ghastly, yet slaughtering cows isn’t?

One point that was made that the horses are being raised here then shipped off to Canada or Mexico for slaughter. The USDA pointed out that they don’t have any jurisdiction over the animals because they aren’t slaughtered in the US so they can’t control how they are treated. Re-legalizing the slaughter houses here would help assure that they’re treated humanely before they KILL ‘EM! (There ARE some things worse than death, IMO.)….things that make you go hmmmm.

if i’m not mistaken obama opened his announcement with “y’all ready for this?”.

You might be mistaken. After all, Oprah IS off the air.

OPRAH IS STILL A MAJOR DRIVING FORCE IN TODAY’S CONTEMPORARY MEDIA!

why won’t you people just admit that you are all puppet master oprah’s little winfrionettes and move on? why must i be subjected to this?

Because we are right! And she has some pretty good books out, too!

And you forgot to capitalize your proper nouns. Just sayin.

Hey, I used to like Oprah, shes a rags to riches, overcame lots of trauma kinda gal. I haven’t watched her in 10 years, but, I like the woman. Maybe she should be president!

@Dutchess_III . . . i never capitalize anything in my whispers and rarely use punctuation. that’s what makes it a whisper.

dear god in heaven with sweet babay jeezus pleeze strike down the daughter’s of oprah who seek to sully you’re wonderous names thru me. in god jr.‘s name i pray. amen.

One can tell I’m 75 years of age. I’d love to respond but I don’t know what anyone’s talking about. Aaah! Youth has its own language : )

@comity . . . If you are 75 years of age you can say whatever the heck you want to. At 40 I’m hoping that is just one of the perks I get to enjoy by living to celebrate my body’s diamond anniversary .

Thank you @Blondesjon I think I’m the oldest, the matriach. Hey, I like that title!

@comity: I think @gailcalled might arm wrestle ya for that title. But hey…welcome to Fluther.

@Blondesjon: I’m down, but what would we do with the current wives?

@cprevite . . . make ‘em watch?

@Blondesjon She wrote to me. She’s not 75 years old yet. I beat her by a few months. Can you believe this? I’m proud of being older then someone!

Animals should have rights—-

To be protected from human cruelty.

To have their own natural habitat free from human encroachment and destruction.

Those animals that serve man, or that give man companionship and comfort, should be given special consideration, because they enrich our lives unconditionally. A dog that’s kept as a family pet, for example, should be accorded special rights, whereas a goldfish, while still an animal, should be given basic rights, as in the right to be protected from human cruelty.

@MRSHINYSHOES isn’t it sad however that we already screwed that up and there is no going back in most cases.

@blueiiznh Humans are the worst animals. They are the only animals that are cruel to other animals, merely for the sake of entertainment, as in bullfighting or dogfighting.

@MRSHINYSHOES yes, but lest we forget:
“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly,
‘Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I’ve a many curious things to shew when you are there.”
Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.”
Sounds kinda cruel to me.

@blueiiznh Cruel, but in terms of necessity. Animals hunt and kill for a reason, to survive. They don’t kill for fun. Humans are evil in that they are gratuitously violent and wasteful. Bullfighting is one of the worst examples of this.

Animals are food and pets> They are friends and they are foes>
For one man a rat is a pet and for anthor man it is a pest and the only rights animals should have is to be treated as humane as posible

I think that animals should be protected from cruelty.
@antimatter Animals are food and pets> They are friends and they are foes>-
For one man a rat is a pet and for anthor man it is a pest and the only rights animals should have is to be treated as humane as possible.
I agree.

@MRSHINYSHOES
Not all animals kill just for food. I know that cats will hunt for sport. I have seen my cat do it many times. She would go down to the dump at the end of our street, where yard trimming, leaves and brush are taken. Apparently there were rats living there and she knew it. She would go hunting and bring back a live rat, get my attention and then proceed to toss it in the air then re-capture it and pretend to kill it again. She would do this a few times and then get bored with the game and really kill the rat and leave it for me as a trophy.
She was well fed at home and didn’t ever need to hunt for food. It was her nature to hunt weather she needed to or not. Was she cruel to the rats? of course she was. Did it bother me to see her doing this? Yes it did, but I also didn’t want to try to stop her from hunting because what if the rats decided to move to my home?

@wundayatta I realize very well that we are the only ones able to use symbols such as language and put a distance between ourselves and the object we are talking about, but there are human beings who can’t. And having the potential to do it is not a clear enough distinction to actually maintain. Also, when I was talking about the mentally ill, I was actually referring to persons who are practically in a coma, in a vegetative state. If they can’t maintain the distinction which we’ve put up between animals and humans, should we treat them as animals?

How we treat and protect animals is in a way a mark of how we treat ourselves.

@wilma Yes, I’ve had cats, and they will hunt down a bird or a mouse and even toss it around a few times, leaving it for dead, but they do that out of their hunting instinct, which is borne out of a need to eat and survive. They don’t kill their prey out of “unnatural” cruelty, which humans partake in on a regular basis, just to watch other animals suffer for the fun of it. They may play with their kill, but cats don’t know any better. Humans do. They are smarter than cats and ought to have a conscience. But they purposely neglect to exercise their intelligence and moral conscience. Hence the shame and disgust.

Who was it that said that one could judge the character of a nation by the way it treated it’s animals? :-?

@Coloma That was Gandhi.

I actually just responded, mistakenly, in another thread on canned hunts, thinking it was this Q, but, it merits repeating. My new kitty “Myles” in my avatar came home with me yesterday from the local shelter.

I am sure glad he had the “right” to be kept for several weeks, otherwise Myles the magnificent would be Myles in the dead cat pile and not my new beloved pal.

@Hacksawhawk I think you dismiss the issue of potential to communicate way too quickly. Let’s look at the example of a person in a coma. Why we think they have a chance to return to consciousness, we keep them alive. We we lose hope, we “pull the plug.”

@all

One question this discussion raised for me is the issue of how we define cruelty. I think in some cultures, it is not considered cruel to kick around dogs or do many other things to various animals that the English would throw someone in jail for. I would argue that having the idea of cruelty towards animals is something you have to be wealthy enough to afford. Poor countries just don’t try to protect their animals in the way that rich countries do. Does that mean the rich are right and the poor are wrong? Should we assume that as they become wealthier, they will treat their pets and food animals better?

I also was thinking about how we treat other humans. There is plenty of torture and gratuitous pain caused by people all over the world. We try to protect people from that in this country, but we do sanction it if it is done by the military or law enforcement.

I wonder where we draw the line between cruelty and acceptable treatment of animals?

As an aside, a friend of ours hunts deer (I just thank God that my husband has no interest in killing animals for no reason.) Our friend was describing the shot that brought down a doe yesterday. He was aiming for the lungs, but hit the heart instead and it just exploded (his emphasis.) He said he always prefers a “lung shot.” I guess the logic is, a lung shot won’t contaminate the meat like other types of shots. I didn’t say anything but I was thinking, “You mean your choice of death for the deer is slow suffocation?” I wonder…if he took a minute to really think about it, would he change his MO?

I don’t know that the question is so much about “rights” for animals, as humane compassion. I don’t care if he wants to hunt, but have the compassion to at least try to kill the deer instantly.