Animal Rights

I'll write my closing round by delineating the separate issues that generally weave between various 'points' and contentions thus far to make it clearer and easier for everyone to understand. 1. Most, if not all, of the Pro's argument relies on the notion that 'claim' is a separate idea that results in qualification for a right, rather than the claim being the qualification for a right. He states "X has a claim to Y, therefor X has a right to Y" many times throughout. Under a positive rights paradigm, I've pointed out how it is impossible, as an unconsenting agent is powerless in a positive law system. The agents that can consent can only consent to modify their own behavior, via contract, including how they behave toward other things (living or not) that are not consenting agents. These non-consenting things, be it animals, trees or non-living objects, have no power or ability to alter the behavior of the consenting agents toward them. They therefor have no rights, but could potentially by the whim of the consenting agents be protected, for whatever reason they decide (just as easily as they could be exploited). The mind-set or reasoning that the consenting agents come to agree to these protections, even if these agents do so because they *believe* the things they are protecting have rights, will never alter the fundamental truth that they do not, and cannot. 1B. Proxies/Inheritance. I'll give this a small mention though it is directly related to the point above. A proxy's job is to represent the will of its subject. A non-human animal has not been established by the Pro to have such a thing, therefor a Proxy is simply a farce or self-defeating concept. The inheritance argument should follow from here. Also, no one is obliged to spend the money an animal has inherited, nor can anyone be obliged to care for the animal. This is another shortcoming of the inheritance argument. 2. Interests. On this issue, Pro thus far claims that biological "interests" potentially result in rights. Even outside of everything I've stated in point 1 above, this is still an unfounded reason. An 'interest' is a subject idea projected upon non-conscious beings. A bear has no more an 'interest' in being alive than a car has an 'interest' in combusting fuel to drive its wheels. A bear is inherently a machine that operates by carbon/organic based parts. In this way, its clear that a bear, from its instincts down, does not have an 'interest' in being alive, finding food or avoiding injury, it is simply constructed to behave that way by darwinist influences in nature. Interest is a property of (philosophically) conscious agents, that construe and evaluate goals, perceive ideas and ideals, can contend possibilities and desire from among them one that fits their existentially crafted purpose. 3. Emotions. Pro's argument here is that in any way positive law is oriented to protect agents from emotional distress. What we have already indeed established is that the consenting agents of a positive law are free to make the agreements and contract based on whatever reasons they so choose, so it's obvious they *could* choose to make laws prohibiting causing emotional damage to one another, or even toward a nonconsenting agent. I won't pursuit whether it is the case or not in actuality, because it simply wouldn't have any effect of the debate. Point 1 demonstrates why protecting a nonconsenting agent for any reason does not classify rights. 4. Pain. Physical pain is simply a chemical reaction unto itself. An animal isn't suffering because its subjected to pain, until it has evaluated this pain on a conscious level. The problem is that because we, as humans, most typically suffer as a result from pain, since most of our conscious goals are oriented around prolonging life and maintaining our bodies without injury, and pain is the body's method for communicating injury or illness to brain. We take this correlation and project it unto animals without justification. 5. Wronged. To be wronged as Pro defines it, is "action or conduct inflicting harm without due provocation or just cause." The issue with this is that it is one, a generic dictionary source, not an ethics definition, and two, it is subjective and falls under the points I made in 1. Wronged, in the ethical sense, means to have been violated in your rights. To say an animal can be violated by its rights and it therefor has rights is an incomplete argument. As per 1, they cannot have rights, and consequentially cannot be wronged. Harm is also subjective, as per 2-4. This pretty much summarized everything, for as I've said, Pro's entire case is based on a flimsy definition for should constitute a right. He has never once argued anything along the lines of animals having natural or inherent claims to rights, only that they have inherent biological functions that warrant a claim to be protected or considered by a positivist paradigm, or by otherwise falsely comparing animals to humans. By everything you've just read, it should be clear that animals have not been established as having anything but protections that differ in no way from protections (which are actually us forcing ourselves to behave a specific way) on completely non-sentient life, and non-living objects that equally possess no interest or anything any of us would consider 'rights'.