(non human) animals deserve rights (such as the right to life)

Here are my 3 arguments. I forgot to mention but for the purposes of this debate, “animals” will only refer to non-human animals. ========== I. Natural rights do not exist, therefore it is insensible to grant all natural rights – to anything. One of the more radical views that I hold is that I believe that natural rights do not exist. This can be demonstrated using the following technique: P1. There exist multiple interacting sentient individuals. P2. Individual A has the right and only the right to do all things that do not affect individual B. P3. P1 and P2 cause a contradiction. C1. “Granting all natural rights” is impossible. The goal of society is not to grant rights; it is to maximize utility. For example, the right to life ensures that all humans can be productive without worrying about getting killed by another human; the right to speech makes communication easier; the right to liberty ensures that the world wouldn’t turn into an unbenevolent dictatorship. Similarly, certain rights are not granted; the right to air is not granted so we don’t have to live in individual bubbles. The right to property is not granted so taxes can be collected. The right to not go to school is not granted, so society can be educated. Therefore, the motion to grant animals rights do NOT rest on “natural rights”, it rests on utility, and utility only. What is utility? In a human society, it is essentially maximal happiness. If granting as certain rights is beneficial, then I am not opposed to granting it. II. The act of granting rights is given by a defined sovereignty, and animals do not have a defined sovereignty. The fact is, rights simply cannot exist without something to enforce it. Sure, you have the right to life. But that in no way stops me from coming over and killing you. You only have a right if a governing force says you do and protects it. The delicate balance of rule and right is maintained by mutual understanding. The ruling body maintains rights so there would be no resistance, while the ruled respect each other’s legal rights to avoid conflict. In other words, the government grants you rights because the government WISHES to grant you rights. Game Theory suggests that the development of social communities is formed from such a balance. Where do animals fit into this? They don’t. They have no ruling body, they have no way to enforce rights, and they most certainly will not respect any kind of mutual agreement that requires them to relinquish certain rights. What happens when you have one side that simply refuses to uphold their end of the agreement? What happens when only one side knows that they are getting punished for not upholding the agreement? A decrease in utility, that’s what. I think that my opponent would not dispute that animals possess a much lesser degree of sentience than humans. If this is true, then it cannot be disputed that a suffering animal is much less important than a suffering human. I am not opposed to having certain human groups who are capable of respecting rights take legal responsibility of non-intelligent animals. Just like human parents can take responsibility of their non-intelligent baby, humans can take responsibility to animals who they wish to have rights. If a parent has the right to life, then the baby has the right to life; if a human baby kills another human, then the socially capable parent is solely responsible for the damages. If human caretaker has the right to life, then his animal also has the right to life; if the animal mauls someone, then the caretaker must take full responsibility for the death. This is compassion. Forcing rights is not. III. Granting animals rights does not benefit society. There are things that depend on animals to remain efficient for the purposes that they serve. If animals were granted rights, then these things would no longer be readily avalible. Food. The average human consumes 41.9 kg of meat per year as of 2010 [1], which is about 8 chickens (I'm not sure how my opponent would classify chickens when it comes to sentience, since chicken brain is the size of a coin [actual chicken brain: http://thebrainbank.org.uk... ]), or half of a pig, or 6% of a cow. That’s not much, especially compared to lions, which eat over 2000 kg of meat per year [2]. Animals raised to be eaten in crap filled dens and get electro-shocked fare better than wild animals, who live in the mosquito filled wild, are exposed to weather, starve regularly, and get eaten alive. It is senseless to deprive humans of a large amount of their diet just so animals that already live above-average lives can get a bubble bath every day. If animal rights activists actually cared about animal welfare, they would go into the wild and feed starving animals instead of worrying about the ones living on farms. (I, a non-activist, feed squirrels.) Testing drugs on animals have greatly contributed to the advancement of medicine. Without lab rats and monkeys to test drugs on, humans would have to be used instead. ========== So in conclusion, humans should not unilaterally grant animals rights because it would diminish net utility. [1]. http://www.worldwatch.org... [2]. http://en.wikipedia.org...