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[Leafsnail]

Because animals do not think, they are not sentient, they do not have 'feelings' the the normal sense of the word. They do not need rights, because they are not self aware!

Again, this is a personal view of morality.  There's no way to know whether animals are self aware or not (and there are plenty of studies suggesting that some animals are, to some extent, self awre).  Animals clearly do have feelings (never seen a sad dog?) and do think (brain scans?) so I'm not sure what you're on about there.

[Zrk2]

Strawman. Cockfighting is needlessly harmful to animals, and rape and money laundering are violations of others rights, and so they should be illegal.

Define "need". One common argument that vegetarians use is that it isn't necessary to eat animals, and at least in the case of some number of individuals, they're right (although that isn't the case on a global scale, quite obviously). Piss-poor factory farming conditions are also not "needed" in order for people to ever eat meat or dairy/egg products.

The government should not enforce an 'ethical consensus' it should protect the rights of the individual.

And those rights have nothing to do with ethics? They are ethical in nature, and aren't written in stone, either.

But they are. They are 'self evident.' Every person has the right to life, and all rights that are extrapolated from that, most basically the right to property, and leading to freedom of speech and religion, because they should be free to do as they will.

(Strawman inbound) Many governments have manipulated society's 'ethical consensus; uncountable times over the centuries to justify abuses and the violation of basic rights:
-The crusades
-Antisemitism throughout the ages, culminating in Nazism
-Invasion of Iraq

Yes, and those are cases where the government either doesn't adequately reflect the will of the nation as a whole or actively manipulates it toward their own ends.


There is nothing super-special about "rights". They weren't blasted into stone with lightning on a mountaintop, nor did Joseph Smith dig them up written on golden plates. The sooner you realize that human rights are something agreed upon by a collective rather than something absolute and concrete, the better.

I already responded that they are objective.

Because animals do not think, they are not sentient, they do not have 'feelings' the the normal sense of the word. They do not need rights, because they are not self aware!

You're drawing a false dichotomy. Whether an animal can "think" or "feel" is not some boolean attribute; different animals do so to different degrees. Yes, humans can do so in a more advanced and organized fashion, but the old idea that we're on some pedestal qualitatively different from all the others, and that that is the only significant difference between animals in general, is a straight-up lie.

I'm not even sure what you mean by "they do not have 'feelings'". Hell, for a lot of animals, that's almost all they do have. I'd say most animals have the ability to suffer, and to varying degrees, and that's the most relevant thing here.

What I mean is that they are not sentient, and so cannot feel fear due to surroundings in which they have lived all their lives. They would 'conceive' (and I use that word only because there is no word better for it) of their surroundings as normal and not be afraid of them.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

posting to follow the discussion

[G-Flex]

But they are. They are 'self evident.' Every person has the right to life, and all rights that are extrapolated from that, most basically the right to property, and leading to freedom of speech and religion, because they should be free to do as they will.

Wait, how do those others follow from "right to life"? You can easily be guaranteed life without freedom of speech, religion, property, or any number of other things. And how are these "self-evident", American political dogma aside? I'm not arguing against the concept of rights, but what rights people are or aren't considered to have has changed over time, will likely change again, and are not the same everywhere, because they are not absolute.

What I mean is that they are not sentient, and so cannot feel fear due to surroundings in which they have lived all their lives. They would 'conceive' (and I use that word only because there is no word better for it) of their surroundings as normal and not be afraid of them.

I'm not even sure what you mean by this. Are you saying that animals can't feel fear, or that they can? If you're saying animals can't adapt to surroundings, that's often very wrong; animals grow to consider things "normal" much as we do, albeit with more difficult, and can certainly become distraught in various ways upon being displaced from what they're used to.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

i think that he's arguing that an animal that has been mistreated from birth thinks of the mistreatments as normal and therefore it is not cruel to mistreat it.

[G-Flex]

A child mistreated from birth thinks the same. Neither will be healthy, physically or psychologically.

[Deadly Lamarr]

What treatment of livestock would you (whoever) consider ethical or in accordance with livestock's rights, whatever those may be?

e.g. Keep them in captivity and support them without making use of them; turn them loose in some fashion; kill them in large quantities and keep only the number we need for eggs and dairy; continue eating them but reform the industry in some way; continue doing as we presently do.

[Max White]

i think that he's arguing that an animal that has been mistreated from birth thinks of the mistreatments as normal and therefore it is not cruel to mistreat it.

And yes chickens kept in cages all their lives still show signs of depression. So this moral argument falls flat when evidence is involved.

Yes, thats right folks! Chickens feel depression.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

e.g. Keep them in captivity and support them without making use of them; turn them loose in some fashion; kill them in large quantities and keep only the number we need for eggs and dairy; continue eating them but reform the industry in some way; continue doing as we presently do.

i'd go for reform the industry in some way, as it's the most generic one and is open to any good solution anybody smart enough might come up with.

[GamerKnight]

Most domesticated animals cannot take care of themselves anymore, from silkworms and guinea pigs to cows and horses. If you turn cows, horses and the like loose then they will die, mostly from birthing problems. This is my take on it, moved from another thread:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

0: Failure: Pathetic, defenseless animals like pandas. - Put it out of its bloody misery already.
1: Production: All mushrooms, plants, algae and other photsynthesis users. - Consume without thought or regret.
2a: Minute: Rabbit, Shrew, small fish, other small herbivores/omnivores. - Small amount of respect for survival traits, but consume anyway.
2b: Domestic: Cow, sheep, goat. - Eat.
3: Small predators: Cat, dog, etc. - Respect, rarely eat.
4: Large Herbivores: Deer, Big fish, antelope. - Eat, but respect.
5: Large Carnivores: Wolf, wolverine, leopard. - Lots of respect, sort of a sport/trophy animal, but to my philosophy you have to kill it with your bare hands/trap that you built. Guns are a big no-no.
6: Massive Carnivores: Bear, lion, Great White Shark tiger. - Huge amount of respect. Same guidelines for large carnivores.
7: Massive Herbivores: Elephant, rhino, whale etc. - Same as massive carnivores.
8: Semi-sentience: Chimps, dolphins etc. - Not to be consumed.

[Tellemurius]

you want to fight a leopard or a wolf with your bare hands? good luck with that.

[Zrk2]

you want to fight a leopard or a wolf with your bare hands? good luck with that.

What? Why? How is this relevant?

[Tellemurius]

part of Gamerknight's post.

[Max White]

1: Production: All mushrooms, plants, algae and other photsynthesis users. - Consume without thought or regret.

GamerKnight, what the hell do you call this? I mean realy, clean this shit up! I see you over there and your giving us all a bad name.

Pandas have an evolutionary role. They are important. The reason they are dying out is because we destroyed most of there natural habitat, not because they lack any survival instinct. Without us putting them 'out of their misery' already, they would be doing fine.

5: Large Carnivores: Wolf, wolverine, leopard. - Lots of respect, sort of a sport/trophy animal, but to my philosophy you have to kill it with your bare hands/trap that you built. Guns are a big no-no.

Respecting a large carnivore is like respecting a king for he's shiney armour, but not the peasent who made the armour in the first place. Being on the top of a food chain is a very arbitary method of selecting what animals to 'respect' and what not to.

I think a much better idea that dosn't make you look like some punk kid who only 'repescts' animals that are in an evolutionary role that would translate in our socio-economic strata to one of privverlage, it to repect all animals. You see that cow? Yea, that feeds people, respect it!

[Tellemurius]

random kid: ok!
*blows it's head off with shotgun*
"im gonna make meat outta you!"

can't get any respectful than that