5 ms·
It's nowhere discussed in the article, so the other elephant in the room: Our whole society is based on animals not having rights. Some people see a gradation
by makeitdouble 2y ago
It's nowhere discussed in the article, so the other elephant in the room:
Our whole society is based on animals not having rights.
Some people see a gradation where we could have criteria to determine how many rights could each kind of animal have, and argue about small details. But of course the other point of view will be that any fissuring of the concept of animals as "things" will break the dam and there will be no going back.
For anyone seeing simple and clear lines that could be drawn, try to classify the elephants in the article, the differnt kind monkeys, pigs, cows, dogs , racoons and ant colonies. You see the wall that rises the minute elephants get special rights while cows keep feeding us, for instance.
- Dalewyn 2y agoI believe it is backwards: Human society is predicated on humans being special. Any truly objective observer will say humans are no different from other animals on Earth. And of course, an elephant will likely say they're special while everything else isn't.
- oefnak 2y agoWe are on top, which makes us special.
- ben_w 2y agoThe endemic diseases say we're not on top of the food chain. We're special to each other because we wouldn't function very well if we didn't find each other special.
- 9dev 2y agoYet, we take great care in our own society to ensure people higher up in the food chain don’t take advantage of those below them—so much so, in fact, that the declaration of human rights declares we’re all born equal. If we sort ourselves in a hierarchy with other sentient beings, why doesn’t the same concept apply to them too?
- dartos 2y ago> Any truly objective observer will say humans are no different from other animals on Earth. Except in all the ways that we are? What other species have left the planet and came back to tell the tale?
- guax 2y agoDogs, monkeys, rats. Surely we took them there and back, but how sure are we that that wasn't their plan all along?!
- defrost 2y agoHam the chimpanzee for one. It seems askew to attribute 8 billion+ humans with an attribute marking so few humans .
- dartos 2y agoThe point is that any human did that at all, whereas no other species has.
- defrost 2y agoNo human has run faster than a cheetah nor flown like an eagle. What is your point that elevates the value of human life above that of other animals?
- dartos 2y ago> No human has run faster than a cheetah nor flown like an eagle. No, but we have and regularly do move faster than any cheetah and fly higher and further than any eagle. My point is that, to an objective observer, there are things that humans have done and can do that make us obviously separate, as a species, than any other animal on earth. The scale of our combined efforts dwarf the efforts of other animals. Especially when considering that, physically, we have very few advantages over other animals. Arguing against that point is just playing mental gymnastics to say “oh actually humans aren’t really exceptional” Idk what that might say about the “value” (whatever that means) of human life compared to other life. A concrete example would be climate change. Humans have been pumping the atmosphere full of shit for a long time and it’s causing global climate changes. No other animal has affected the climate at that scale. Bad or not, that kind of thing makes us humans exceptional.
- rsyring 2y ago> Human society is predicated on humans being special. So far, so good. > Any truly objective observer will say humans are no different from other animals on Earth And...we hard exit stage left. It's sad when presumably good intentions, like the ethical treatment of animals and cultivating some well needed humility as a species, leads to such an unfounded point of view. From a purely biological perspective, I could see that argument. But until animals start hunting, experimenting on, cultivating, and eating humans, en masse, creating symphonies or buildings that will last centuries, and start sending themselves to space, I'll continue to believe the difference between humans and animals is a qualitative and not just a quantitative difference. I don't think a truly objective observe could see it any other way.
- makeitdouble 2y agoI'd disagree for two reasons: - Humans can easily treat other humans as things as well. Humans being special is to me more or a convenient fiction than something really at the core of our societies. - For such a long time, we didn't have to care whether humans need to be separated from animals, the value scale was pretty flat in that respect. In many circumstances a horse from a higher up would be more important than a peasant's life.
- bell-cot 2y agoWhether or not you describe it as "rights", the concept of animal cruelty has been around for centuries. Probably millennia. And the great majority of people seem comfortable with shades-of-gray classifications of animals for that purpose. If some kid is capturing squirrels and torturing them, he's "obviously" a psychopathic sicko. Vs. if Ed's Exterminators is fleabombing some cat lady's house - nobody's getting worked up about Evil Ed "gassing" the poor, innocent fleas.
- ImPleadThe5th 2y agoI would be all for more severe laws on abuse and living conditions for animals without it getting into the specifics of "intelligence" or "rights". Something akin to the golden rule. Let's be honest, these laws won't apply to the average person. It'll apply to where it really matters: Poach an elephant in Africa and come home? Now you're going to court for murder. Keep a Monkey inside your house? Looks like you're going to court for kidnapping. Keep a dog outside chained to a fence and barely feed it? Looks like you're going to court for abuse (more severe than what we do now). We can make provisions for things. Animals eat animals that's the reality of our world. But make cows sit in their own shit for years and eat food that's non nutritional for them? Now you're going to jail for mass incarceration of living things. It's wildly accepted bees are quite intelligent. Let's treat the company who made insecticides that killed all the bees with genocide. Once that legal president is set, let's do the same for people who continue to use insecticides.
- cm2187 2y agoAnimals have rights, but they are not treated as humans (in some jurisdictions you can even be jailed for mistreating certain animals). The anthropomorphisation of animals is kind of a childish behaviour that affects too many city kids.
- jl6 2y agoGrading rights in this way could also have consequences for humans. If rights are to be assigned based on intelligence/sociability/capability then it opens the door to considering whether some humans might not qualify.
- makeitdouble 2y agoYes. For some people it might look far fetched at first, but considering that women only got full voting rights around a few decades ago in most western countries, and are still far from there in so many countries, humans getting different rights is still totally a thing.
- bell-cot 2y agoTrue...but in what jurisdiction do voting rights, or freedom of contract, start at birth? And is anyone campaigning for "justice" on that issue?