> Doug Henwood wrote:
> > > All you animal rights folks out there, every time I've seen a cat
> > > devour a mouse - with evident glee - I've wondered why we should give
> > > them any more consideration than they give each other.
Gordon Fitch responded:
> One answer is -- because we can...
> The argument that no one should be a beneficiary of ethical
> or political consideration without also granting it to
> others is basically an argument to power, which is not
> applied to all humans.
I am hardly a big animal rights activist - meat-eater etc. - but I find disdain for the animal rights position rather disturbing for the reason Gordon noted. Just because animals don't have power doesn't mean they don't have claim on our sympathy. Unless one has some essentialist view of "humanhood", I've known many cats that are more loving and frankly more intelligent that a lot of people I have met. And that is without getting into the more serious cases like dolphins and certain primates where finding a philosophical line that can truly separate "humans with rights" from "animals that have none."
Most such lines end up with a bare "because it's us and we have to take care of us", but the problem is that such lines can be pulled back to one's nation, one's racial group, or other repugnant lines of xenophobia.
That a cat would lose any rights against cruelty because of his own predatory nature sounds like the rightwing's attitude on denying rights to criminals. They violated our rights, so we have the right to torture or abuse them. They took a life, so kill them.
You don't have to agree with PETA or grant 14th Amendment status to animals to argue that there is a middle ground of care and concern due all sentient animals. Demands against animal torture and for humane treatment during the life of animals (even when we eat them at a later point) are all part of that more middle ground concern for animal rights. Others go farther and broad environmental concerns against species extinction assert rights of whole species for survival, even if you won't grant a right to each individual member of the group.
I wonder if Doug really thinks that people should be able to torture animals whenever they wish, whether in a lab or in their homes. Is he against cruelty to animal laws?
-- Nathan Newman