Government Intervention in the Name of Animal Rights
I think this dog-owner went too far in punishing his puppy. But does that mean the State should intervene? A man’s dog is his private property, right?
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Hmm… Though one. I’d say that animals do feel pain, so you shouldn’t be allowed to simply beat the crap out of them. That’s cruel and unusual punishment. It might not be by the government, but its the same concept in my mind.
Rushan
I Am I
I’ve always taken “liberty” to mean: “I as an individual have the right to do whatever I wish so long as my actions do not infringe on another individual’s right to life, liberty, or property.” Animal cruelty laws seem to; muddy that. Or you could say that the need to protect or regulate our interaction with animals empowers government to control individual behavior beyond simply protecting our individual rights to life, liberty, and property.
Animal rights/welfare/humane treatment of/whatever it’s being called these days is a tricky issue. On one hand, some efforts to protect animals interfere with property rights and are counterproductive. Case in point, the ban on ivory. Great, so now the black market has driven up prices and made being a poacher a potentially lucrative job. At the same time, no honest business has the financial incentive to help raise lots and lots of elephants, thus removing the threat of extinction. Way to go, animal rights activists.
Animals are sentient beings and deserve the same treatment as humans, I believe.
Im really glad to see the posts on here. Animal rights and enviornment are virtually the only issues I diverge from libertarianism on. The standard libertarian policy is one of animal and enviornmental ownership.(A person can protest or take their dollar elsewhere.An animal or plant cannot. The market, in my belief, doesnt provide an sufficient mechanism for the welfare of the planet.) I do believe that animals are property to an extent, they can be owned by people that respect their welfare. However, I believe in VERY strict laws regarding animal cruelty.
I agree on animal cruelty. However, the environment CAN be owned by mixing it with labor. Government ownership of the environment serves no one, especially environmentalists.
Since animals cannot understand rights, they cannot abide by them, so they are amoral. Which means they hold no moral weight whatsoever, so they should be treated as any other amoral thing is treated (property).
This is correct; animals have no rights at all. It is inappropriate for the government to be involved in a man’s private property so long as he is not directly and measurably initiating force or fraud against another man.
A "right" is a principle of morality that gives sanction to an individual’s freedom of action. There is really only one, fundamental right, which is the right to life. To live your life as you see fit, you must be free of forceful or coercive acts perpetrated against you by other men. The concept of "rights" protects you in this way. As such, any action by other men that harms your ability to live your own life is a violation of your rights. This is why you do not have a right to health care, because the means of granting such a non-right would harm other men by the act of confiscating their wealth (the product of their lives) in order to render an un-earned value. All rights stem from this concept. In order to have rights, you need to be a rational entity. The concept of existence is “identity,” the process of using your mind to acknowledge reality is “identification.” In order to have a right to your own life, you must identify that you exist. If you are real, and you think you ought to have rights, you must acknowledge the fact that you exist and can think. You must be able to actively contemplate your own existence, so that you can take action. It is a man’s right to act freely because he must act rationally if he is to survive (live) and he must have freedom of action if he is to live well. Anything less, and he is born onto this earth to serve another. To have rights, and to at the same time be a tool of someone else is a contradiction. The more freedom a man has, the more prosperous he is, and as capitalists, we all know that this is not “zero-sum,” and that “voluntary trade by mutual consent” is always a win-win for both parties or they wouldn’t trade. A man’s ability to freely use his mind is the very source of the creation of new wealth, where none existed before. This is why von Mises’ book was entitled “Human Action.”
Since having rights affirms the fact that you are entitled to own your own life, and that by having rights you are endowed with a moral status over other entities, you must also be able to make value judgements. If you cannot understand the concept of rights, then, as derEikopf stated, you cannot act ethically because you cannot identify values or make judgements upon them. You would then be a contradiction, thereby nullifying the notion that you have rights.
Animals have no rights at all. Not even the slightest, smallest right. None. Nada. Zip. Until such day as some other animal, alien, or machine, approaches me and says: “Reality exists. I exist. And I know it,” then the only entities in possession of rights are individual human beings.
Human beings have the right to breed animals, own them, eat them, kill them any way they want. If that bothers you, go join some other website where you can wring your hands about how you can subjectively deny things to other people via Malevolent Democracy, Tyranny of the Majority, or whatever.
There are objective facts that prove that man has inalienable rights. It is not a matter of opinion. Anyone in this forum who thinks right and wrong is determined by public opinion: surprise, we already live in that particular nightmare.
I think that it is absolutely critical that this idea of who/what has rights be fleshed out in this forum. It is at the very heart of the reasons for supporting capitalism as the only peaceful way for men to coexist without violating individuality. If you don’t understand rights, or think that animals have them, then you cannot be an advocate for liberty because you don’t even know what it means.
Did anyone else notice rudeboy23’s statement regarding “The market… doesn’t provide a sufficient mechanism for the welfare of the planet.” ??? Are trolling socialists always allowed to post here un-moderated?
Mike, with respect, are you a Marxist? What’s this “mixing the environment with labor” thing? Is that anything like mixing your premises? Sounds like something I read in Kapital once.
-Jason
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I believe the comment was made that animals are sentient beings and therefore deserving the same rights as humans. However, sentience is the ability to feel or perceive, it is not sapience, which is the higher consciousness experienced by human beings. Sapience is the ability to think about feelings and perceptions, leading the the creation of ideas. Animals lack sapience, so they are unable to grasp the concept of rights. Rights belong to those who are capable of understanding them, and acknowledging the rights of others.
The basic premise of libertarianism is that people have the right to do as they please so long as they do not infringe upon the right of others to do the same. If animals had rights, then when an animal eats another animal, it would infringe upon the right of that animal to not be eaten, hence forfeiting its own rights.
Also, what about my right to eat animals to ensure my survival? As a sapient being I am assured rights, among them the right to live. I eat animals to stay alive, and it is my right to do so. I cannot kill and eat people to stay alive, because they are sapient and have rights, so long as they are not infringing upon my rights. Plus, that would just be gross.
Jason,
A rather typical tactic of the statists is to apply a derogatory label to someone who disagrees with them, in an attempt to discredit them and render any point they might make irrelevant. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling anybody here a statist, but let’s not sink to their level. Applying the concept of rights to animals is a rather tricky issue, but we libertarians don’t need to be dividing ourselves over one little thing like that. We already have the Democratic and Republican juggernauts to contend with, fighting ourselves will only complicate things. Benjamin Franklin said "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
Debate an idea on its merits, not on who said it.
I second that emotion. Bureaucrash should be a place where we can share ideas with like minded people. Will we disagree? Hell ya. But when we do let’s keep it civil. Our mission after all is to share the gospel of freedom with others. If we can’t make a convincing argument to one another without petty insults then we’re destined to fail.
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JA$ON
Crasher-In-Chief
I would argue that government "doesnt provide an sufficient mechanism for the welfare of the planet" either. Look at countries with ginormous governments and you’ll see ginormous pollution.
Where there is private property you’ll see people taking care of their piece of the envoronment.
When someone pollutes someone elses property there should be severe restitution so that it won’t pay to do it again. That is a market approach to the environment and I can’t imagine a better solution.
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JA$ON
Crasher-In-Chief
We don’t moderate here as a general rule. If someone is a troll we’ll take away their posting privledges. I’ve only had to do this a few times in the history of Bureaucrash. I don’t believe that rudeboy23 is a troll BTW.
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JA$ON
Crasher-In-Chief
As freedom-loving people we need a higher threshold for the belief in "strict laws" for our pet causes. Get it, pet causes… animal rights? I crack me up. Everybody has issues they care about. I’d like to see a spandex ban for fat women. Am I willing to use the power of government for this? Hell fucking no. There are other solutions. We just have to be creative. It’s lazy to always look to government to solve our problems.
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JA$ON
Crasher-In-Chief
In the "state of nature", humans have no protection from violations of their rights. Legitimate governments are instituted among humans to protect these inalienable rights. That is their only purpose.
Even if animals had rights, it wouldn’t be within the jurisdiction of present day governments to protect them.
This concept of rights is unique to human interaction. That a being can feel gives it no "right". Besides, it really muddles the debate. Who is to say a tree can’t feel, also? Should humans, therefore, restrain from using any natural resources whatsoever?
In any case, to be cruel to an animal may still be immoral. To needlessly torture an animal may be a wrong. However, this is not a value that can be determined by governments established to protect human rights.
One question, though, to all animals rights proponents reading this. What could possibly be more cruel than killing an animal? If governments are to prevent such cruel treatment of animals, shouldn’t they ban the consumption of animals, or the use of animal byproducts in consumer goods?
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mir
Minister of Campaigns
>> Since animals cannot understand rights, they cannot abide by them, so they are amoral. < <
Heck, lots of people cant understand rights! Speaking of which
okay, that was mean.
but it wouldnt be right to not point this out (although, I certainly do have that right):
The word right(s) youve used here refers to those things that a person (or possibly animal) has due to him or her that he or she has a just demand for. Theres another word right, which means correct. Finally, theres the concept of morality, which deals with judgments about right & wrong (or correct and incorrect).
The problem is, youve got these words all confused here. An animals inability to understand the concept of rights has nothing to do with its morality its ability to judge right from wrong. I think what you meant to say was something like, Since animals cannot understand right from wrong, they are amoral, or in other words, they cant be expected to act morally.
Okay, that makes sense. Now on to part II:
>>Which means they [are amoral], so they should be treated as any other amoral thing is treated ([as] property).< <
The problem here is that your conclusion doesnt follow from what (I think) youve said so far. How you treat a thing is determined by your morals, not its morals. I dont treat my dog nicer than my car because I believe my dog has morals. I treat my dog the way I do because I have morals, and thats what they say I should do.
Crasher sh(A)ne
Minister of Truth (& unofficial logician)
For the Bureaucrash Activist Network
I think this is what I was trying to elucidate. So, thanks.
Rudeboy23:
Damn, those Warm Fuzzies were awesome. You can’t toy with my emotions like that dude.
But we’re a "do tank" not really a "think tank." However because our members have passionate ideas HQ created a space for debate. But there are lots of websites where people can debate. What this site is about is action. Doing something instead of exclusively talking about it.
You know?
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JA$ON
Crasher-In-Chief
Ok, thanks fo the clarification. I gotta go abuse some kittens now < / inappropriate >
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JA$ON
Crasher-In-Chief
Why are we putting all “animals” in the same category (i.e., “not humans”)? I don’t think any of us sees a moral problem with squishing a fly. I’d hope we’d all agree that squishing a kitten would be more problematic, though.
Me personally: I don’t eat mammals. Fish: sure. Birds: Yum! …but no mamals. And fyi, Bureaucrash’s founder, crasher Ryan, was (and as far as I know still is) a vegetarian. Certainly nothing anti-capitalist or anti-freedom about that.
Maybe it’s not wrong to treat some animals as property; while recognizing higher rights in others. Maybe the bases for rights didn’t just suddenly appear in Humans; but like everything else, evolved. I’m not completely convinced by either side (though I know my answer to the “should government intervene…” question is always “no”). It’s an interesting debate, though.
Crasher sh(A)ne
Minister of Truth
Wow - I read all that twice before I finally figured out that it was written by Jason and not Ja$on. Crasher-in-chief, you just about got an early morning “intervention” from the Minister of truth.
…and so writes the other Jason:
Looks like somebody took a crash-course in libertarian theory, without his helmet on. Holy non sequiturs! Where to begin??
Wow! Im jealous of your confidence. Now I can only hope to inspire you to be jealous of my skepticism.
What are these objective facts? Where can I find them? Where do these inalienable rights come from?
It seems to me that there are only two options: They come from some higher, supernatural power (like God); or they come from us earthly folks. Im an atheist, so my only option is the second. For the non-atheists in the group, your argument is essentially that you have rights, because God said so, which is something I have no basis for arguing against. We just have to disagree. However, I dont know what good “God-given” rights will do you if you cant persuade us earthly folk to respect them.
Despite two centuries of flowery wording to the contrary, rights arent magical or untouchable things. You actually got it right somewhere near the top of the rant above when you said, There is really only one, fundamental right, which is the right to life. Ill return to the skepticism:
Why is the right to life the one and only fundamental right?
Id argue that this is the case mostly for practical reasons no great mystery or long-winded proof about it: People, by nature, have a will to survive. Its simply not so easy to get folks to agree not act on that. Being a member of a society that doesnt recognize that right would mean agreeing not to act to preserve your own life and that goes against our nature the source of all our natural rights. For example:
Our right to liberty is necessary because without it, we may be prevented from acting to insure our own survival…and that goes against our nature. It goes against EVERYONE’s nature — and it’s hard to get people to accept a system of rules that goes against everyone’s nature.
Our “right” to liberty is limited by the same theory we dont have the liberty to act in a way that restricts someone elses life or liberty.
Similarly, our right to property exists because, for example, if I had the right to take your food out of your hand every time you tried to put it in your mouth, that would eventually infringe upon your right to life. (Property is also based on liberty as Mike the “Marxist” hinted by suggesting that ownership is based on mixing your labor with a thing: If you had the right to take from me things that Id worked to create (or change or improve), then youd essentially have the right to take my labor to enslave me. Youd have the right to take my liberty.)
The important thing to see here is that all of these things that are said to be our rights are really just a societys recognition of the things that centuries of history have shown us that we need to be able to do in order to live according to our nature. Systems that fail to take human nature into account do exist, but they dont tend to work very well for very long.
Im not sure what you mean when you bring up the question of right & wrong being determined by public opinion. If you mean to say that rights are not determined by public opinion, then what Ive just argued here means that youre wrong. Your survival doesnt depend upon your claim to a right to life; it depends upon your ability to keep everyone else convinced of your right to life. Your right to life doesnt do you any good when youre faced with an angry mob thats taken issue with it, in a society that doesnt see a problem with their infringing upon it.
We here may all understand the value of natural rights that theyre the best and only way to ensure our survival and prosperity — but all of the political and legal systems we can think up to protect these rights fail when enough people with enough power stop recognizing them. This is why political activism is bullshit. This is why its so important for us to work to make sure that people recognize & respect these values to focus our effort on making sure theyre engrained in the culture, not the law.
but back to the point:
Yeah, but derEikopf was wrong. (See my post below.) Youre making the same mistake he did confusing rights (those things that a being may justly demand) with right (as in, correct or good).
Besides, you havent given me a reason to believe that animals dont understand rights. I mean, lets face it, writing a coherent argument cant be your basis for determining understanding. Im pretty sure I can make the case that my dog understands he has no right to eat my tasty steamy turkey sandwich, no matter how long I leave him alone with it sitting on the coffee table. He understands perfectly well when hes acted immorally that is, when hes acted outside the accepted set of rights recognized by his society (i.e., me). When hes done something wrong, he shows me as soon as I walk in the house by rolling over & looking sad; and he only does that when hes done something wrong. Is this a sense of morality? How is it different than our own?
Take a look at studies of pack behavior in wolves: The non-alpha members of the pack seem to understand quite clearly what their rights are in relation to the alpha dogs, as well as to each other. Non-alpha dogs know very well that they have no right to mate; that right is exclusively reserved by the alphas. Every member of the pack knows that if a non-alpha female has a litter of puppies, they are perfectly within their right to enforce the alphas right to exclusivity, usually by killing the puppies. You may have a problem with me referring to these social rules as rights, but tell me what the difference is.
I dont believe that my dog thinks he has a right to life. But Im absolutely certain that he has an instinct to survive, and that he acts according to it. Again, what makes us so different? Is it that hard to believe that the difference is evolutionary just a matter of degree? There are people who cant understand the concept of rights, or make value judgments, or identify that they exist, or any of the other long list of requirements youve given above. Are they without rights too?
If, as Im saying, rights are cultural constructs, having nothing to do with an individual creatures ability to understand that he has rights, what his rights are, etc; and if our own fundamental right to life is based on nothing more than a long-standing and widely-held value judgment prompted by a will to survive that, as far as I can tell, we share with every living creature; then where is the basis for denying other animals rights?
Oh, man. Theyve got to speak English too?! ((click))
Ohmigosh, I hope not. This debate forums really here just for fun. Bureaucrash doesnt actually do debate; we do activism.
Crasher sh(A)ne
Minister of Truth
Rudeboy — I did exactly the same thing. Confused the crap out of me for a minute there.
We’ll have to have the free-market enviro. debate another time. There are lots of legitimate, really tough questions to be asked of the free-market side — things like how to handle ownership rights in waterways (you can’t dump something in just your part of the river, after all) — but I think there are good answers to them all.
…but since I just spent like 2 hrs of study-time on the Bizarro Ja$on reply, we’ll save it for another day
Crasher sh(A)ne
Minister of Truth
I think we can all see why SH(A)NE is our Minister of Truth. I sure am glad he’s on our side.
Crashers don’t have to agree on everything everytime. What is important is that I believe in your rights and you believe in mine. Especially the second part
We’re all here because we hold these strong beliefs so dear we want to take action to protect and expand them.
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JA$ON (not to be confused with another “Jason”)
Crasher-In-Chief
Jason, thats a good point. You have to think before you take action. But too much thinking and you’re just inneffective. The only smart thing Karl Marx ever said was that philosophers were useless
Rushan
I Am I
Well not all philosophers are useless. Just the ones I disagree with
Our movement is very lucky to have some of the best think tanks. We’re just not one of them.
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JA$ON
Crasher-In-Chief
Heres the thing, though: Arguing for animal rights isnt the same as arguing for government-enforced animal rights; just like arguing for environmental protection isnt the same as arguing for government-based environmental protection. Where I think youre wrong is at the very start:
Sure we do. Id protect your right to life without giving it a second-thought. (Im not so big, but I am a pretty good shot
I think most people would do the same. Were empathetic lil critters.
In fact, Id argue that the protections we have for our rights in the state of nature are really the only protections that we have for our rights. Government protections rely on the same broad-based societal support that protections in the state of nature do. When that societal support disappears, government protections fail just as surely as non-government protections.
True. And all the better for the animals.
Crasher sh(A)ne
Minister of Truth