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You're not wrong, sometimes it feels like they're as aware and present as us, exactly as 'human', just with less ability to solve complex problems It's surpris
by ENGNR 9y ago
You're not wrong, sometimes it feels like they're as aware and present as us, exactly as 'human', just with less ability to solve complex problems
It's surprising we haven't given them more rights yet, maybe this paper can pave the way toward legitimizing at least the larger animals as our sentient neighbours
- BartBoch 9y agoSo, I am actually interested in how would you handle that?
- ENGNR 9y agoFor social animals at least (ie not a spider, but an elephant/dog/orangutan), in some sense they're similar to children in that they're 'people' but not with quite the mental capabilities of the rest of us. Except they have arguably better physical and self care capabilities, so they're actually easier to manage than children What if we just gave them the ability to roam? Provide recognizable food and medical stations. Anecdotally, some of the dogs in Sri Lanka already do this (the locals feed them as they wander past), and even know to seek out vets if they're injured For bad behavior they get jail/separation or correctional facilities just like the rest of us. This would have an evolutionary pressure Population control would still be an issue, but easily resolved with surgeries and monitoring I wonder how deeply a free animal could embed itself into our society (or at the edges without effecting us) if we had enough machine learning to clearly communicate it's simple but valid wants to the environment around it
- cryptonector 9y agoThe problem with giving animals rights is that ultimately they'd have to be able to communicate in court, and it's not clear that assigning them a proxy is sufficient to represent the animal. But if ever we find a way to communicate well enough for an animal to understand the concept of "court", or even just "tell us how you feel about this", then such an animal must be accorded rights commensurate with its ability to communicate and self-control. (An animal that cannot keep from committing what to us are "crimes" can't be given all the rights that a human has. But supposing we figure out how to communicate such concepts to, say, orangutans, and they can handle them, then they must have rights equal to ours.) Merely having personality and feelings cannot enough, otherwise we'd be obligated to eat no vertebrates -- I'd not be pleased to go that far!
- maxxxxx 9y agoWe have children who can't communicate in court but still have rights so that wouldn't necessarily stop an animal rights movement. But I agree that giving rights to all animals would make our life much less convenient. We probably could make the lives of a lot of animals much better without too much effort though. For example, abandoning factory framing and reducing meat consumption would be very doable.
- cryptonector 9y agoYeah, but children (and non-communicative disabled adults) do not have quite the same rights as you or I. In fact, their rights are not too unlike those of, say, pets. Except that when children grow up, or the non-communicative issue is resolved in an adult, they become emancipated. Animals don't reach that stage, and it's not a stretch to say that it's about communication capabilities.
- RikNieu 9y agoThis is an interesting comment and made me consider various scenarios and situations. For one instance, 'Right to Live' would mean we can eat/use animal products anymore - but what about plants then? If you listen to the RadioLab episode Smart Plants, who knows what will be discovered about them in the future. And for most of humanity, most cultures have survived on animal consumption and animal products. Also, would these laws be enforceable on animals too? How would you feed predators and omnivores? But what about instead of instead of specific rights like those afforded to people, we adopt more general 'kindness' rights to other living beings. For instance; the right of any animal to not being tortured, the right of kept animals to not be subjected to reasonable sized spaces(however that might be determined), the right of kept animals to medical treatment, the right of kept animals to the food it would be consuming in nature, ect. Not sure how this would all be controlled and enforced(or even how this applies to current animal rights laws), but interesting to think about.
- cryptonector 9y agoOne might say that obligate carnivores (e.g., felines) get to eat other animals. Humans aren't quite obligate carnivores (though some of us might feel that we are :)... We already do have animal cruelty laws -- we already forbid cruelty to animals. And we forbid hunting of endangered species' individuals. Some jurisdictions have laws about how much space domesticated animals must be accorded to live in. So it's not like we accord animals no rights.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago> It's surprising we haven't given them more rights yet What would be the benefit of giving them rights?
- wavefunction 9y agoWhat's the benefit of giving anyone rights? Perhaps the rights are inherent, actually.
- thaumasiotes 9y agoThe benefit of giving rights to other people is that you avoid fighting them. Inherent rights are not a concept with any application. Suppose you have an inherent right to take offense at my presence. So what? Suppose you have an inherent right to the contents of my bank account. So what?
- maxxxxx 9y agoI think we are talking about the right not being hurt, tortured or killed, not about taking things from others.
- thaumasiotes 9y agoThat right is just as meaningless as any other right unless the people you don't want to hurt, torture, or kill you recognize it.