On Wed, 1 Mar 2000 15:36:08 -0500 Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
writes:
> Gordon:
>
> >The expression is maybe unfortunate because of the ambiguities
> >in the word _rights_. However, the notion that non-human yet
> >sentient beings deserve ethical and political consideration
> >has become rather widespread and has developed a modest body
> >of theory, whereas the position that they do not, wherever I
> >have encountered it, has always appealed either to utility or
> >convention -- in other words, it lacks philosophy. I'd be
> >glad to speak as tediously as necessary for the former, if
> >someone really wants me to -- I see animal rights or animal
> >liberation as a natural extension of anarchism.
>
> I'm not opposed to humane treatment of animals. To have ethical and
> political consideration about a non-human being, however, doesn't
> require
> endowing the being in question with "rights."
Curiously enough one of the leading proponents of "animal liberation", the Australian philosopher Peter Singer (who is now at Princeton) has no great use for rights language either. In a classical utilitarian manner he is rather dismissive of rights language which after all Jeremy Bentham
had referred to as "metaphysics on stilts."
>Far from it. I have
> not met
> anyone who argues for the need to give air, rivers, plants, insects,
> etc.
> "rights," but it doesn't mean that they are or should be outside of
> our
> ethical and political considerations.
>
> The rhetoric of "rights" merely obscures political questions of
> ecology.
It seems to me to be an attempt to give representation of ecological and other interests within the existing legal system which is incapable of administering to the interests of anybody or anything unless they have been declared as "having rights" and thus entitled to consideration within the legal and political systems.
> Animals cannot exercise "rights," even if you endowed them with
> "rights" in
> your imagination. "Rights" come with responsibilities, and animals
> cannot
> be held responsible for their behaviors whereas humans are.
Of course our legal system endows all sorts of people and things that are incapable of exercizing responsibilities with rights of various sorts. Corporations have all sorts of rights and the Supreme Court has long held that corporations have rights under the Constitution. Children are generally recognized as not being fully competent but have rights. People who are severely brain damaged or severely retarded or are insane will not be regarded as being responsible for their actions but will nevertheless have rights.
>If a
> mountain
> lion assaulted a human, should the lion be charged with assault in a
> court
> of law? I don't believe so.
In the Middle Ages prosecutions of animals in the courts were not unknown.
>Given the state of criminal justice in
> America, perhaps if you could ask animals if they wanted "rights,"
> they
> might say, "thanks, but no thanks," if they could speak our
> language. :)
Jim F.
>
> Yoshie
>
>
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