The issues are quite fundamental, such as whether there can be ethics or not, and whether ethics can properly be applied to politics. Many people demonstrate disbelief in both of these propositions. If, however, people agree that ethics can be applied to politics, that is, that some political actions are better than others, then the question arises as to whether it is wrong to do harm to at least some other beings and, if so, which those others are. While the set of beings considered as candidates for this political and ethical status have at times been severely restricted, as to one's family, tribe, nation, class, or party, in recent generations it has become widely accepted that human beings in general make the grade. The argument for humans in general often seems to turn on their common mental capacities, regardless of wealth, position, accomplishments, or appearance: a man's a man for a' that.
Now, it is easy to show that many non-human animals, like many humans, are conscious, experience emotions, pains, and pleasures, are intelligent in the sense of modeling portions of the universe in their nervous systems, communicate with one another, anticipate future events, and so forth. It has been shown that some primates almost certainly are aware that others have a separate consciousness from their own -- a mental act of which some humans are incapable. Non-human animals seem to differ from humans in two just categories: they do not seem to be really capable of human syntax, and (possibly as a result) they are not capable of the level of abstract thinking which some humans employ.
Some people say that syntax and abstraction confer ethical standing -- for instance, they may say "When an animal asks me for its rights, I'll grant them." But this is simply are argument to power, which many human beings can be made to fail. It is not the kind of ethics which I feel would do me any good, since there are many who have more power than I do and who could construct a circle of ethical standing which excluded me.
I'll pass over the proposition that ethical standing is conferred genetically since it has such a bad history.
There remains -- as far as I can see -- the proposition that ethical standing is conferred by the capacity to experience and suffer -- consciousness and sentience. But if ethical standing is conferred by consciousness and sentience, then something like "animal rights", "animal liberation", or extremely hard animal welfare is completely validated -- it is wrong to do harm to an sentient animal for any reason less than that greater harm would thereby occur to another. This would certainly exclude the use of animals for fur, leather, and meat, and as involuntary objects of sport, and make questionable their use in research, laboratory testing, and as work animals, pets, and objects of exhibition.
There doesn't seem to be any way around this conclusion, inconvenient as it is. And it is very inconvenient, for not only many billions of dollars and millions of careers are tied up in the use and consumption of animals, but so is the free destruction of ecosystem, so important to economic progress, because countless billions of those sentient beings depend on it and harming it harms them. One can get out of the inconvenience by denying that animals are significantly sentient, but then, one can do that to other human beings as well. One is back to square one, where the possibility of ethics is being debated against nihilism.
Of course, there are probably worse things going on. Man's inhumanity to non-man can only be expected as long as man's inhumanity to man is doing so well. However, this is not an argument against "animal rights" (or whatever you want to call it) but an apology for the pressure of one's current business.
Gordon
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Yoshie:
> > Peter Singer, to me, exemplifies what is wrong with "animal rights"
> > discourse.
> > I wonder what "animal rightists" think of their fellow
> > vegetarian animal lovers who want to convert their canine friends to the
> > religion of their choice:
Michael Hoover:
> Singer's book _Animal Liberation_ was recommended to me about 25
> years ago. In it, he argues that concern for animal welfare
> is based upon fact that, as sentient beings, they are capable of
> suffering. No problem, humans should try, whenever possible to
> minimize animal suffering. But S goes on to posit 'speciesism' as
> arbitrary and irrational prejudice similar to racism and sexism. As
> such, he condemns attempts to place interests of humans above those of
> animals.
>
> Irony of animal rights position is that it is derived directly from
> *human* rights theories. Concern for animal welfare, however, does
> not logically lead to animals right position. Former is altruistic
> concern that does not imply equal treatment. One can oppose
> corporate-factory farming because it is cruel to animals but not
> go so far as to insist upon vegetarianism.
>
> About 15 years ago, an acquaintance suggested I read Tom Regan's
> _The Case for Animal Rights_. TR argues 'right to life' position
> in which killing an animal, however painless, is as indefensible
> as killing a human (or a fetus?). While acknowledging that free
> speech & worship, educational & employment opportunity seem absurd
> if invested in animals, he proceeds to posit so-called 'marginal
> cases' as humans beings who have limited capacity to experience
> autonomy or exercise reason. Then Regan point outs that some
> animals possess mental capacities similar to 'normal' humans
> (citing dolphin communication research). Why couldn't, he asks,
> 'marginal' humans be treated as animals traditionally have been:
> used for clothing, food, scientific experimentation, etc (fwiw, he
> doesn't actually advocate these things, it's a 'thought exercise').
> Logically pursued, this argument conceivably granting 'rights'
> to some animals while denying them to certain humans. And why
> confine such 'rights' to animals since as biologist Lyall Watson
> suggested about 30 years ago, plant life may possess capacity to
> experience physical pain.
>
> This stuff is light years from Marx's notion (appearing in both
> young writings such as _Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts_ &
> mature writings such as _Capital_) of humans rationally regulating
> their exchange with nature. And attempts to suggests that such
> ideas are restating belief in interconnectedness of all forms of
> life expressed by non-western philosophies/religions or pre-
> Christian pagans don't help matters.
>
> Re. veggie dogs, dog food companies will have to more vigorously
> market to elderly poor who I read some years ago purchase a
> substantial percentage of dog food for their own consumption.
> Michael Hoover (who was veggie for years and still eats lots of
> soy dishes)