From: black@che.serum.kodak.com (Robert Black (x37236))
Subject: re: moral Judgements
Organization: Clinical Products Division, Eastman Kodak Company
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 20:46:38 GMT

> >In article <64032@cup.portal.com> gun-smoke@cup.portal.com
> >(Thomas Alan Swenson) writes:

[...]

ts> You will note that I emphisized the word  unnecessary.  
> I see a great deal of differance between shooting a pheasant for dinner 
> and setting a dog on fire just to watch it burn.  We both agree that 
> humans have certian rights that can't be violated for any reason.  For 
> me the defining charachteristic that seperates humans from animals is the
> ability to tell right from wrong.  You have to admit that the ability
> evaluate our actions from a moral perspective is uniquely human. That
> ability more than anything else separates humans from animals and 
> justifies humans having rights.  

That ability confers responsibilities, not rights, on humans.  You're
falling into a common trap, which historically dates back at least to
the sophists of ancient Rome.  That trap is, of course, the equating of
moral agents with moral objects. 

A moral agent is one whose actions and intentions can be judged as right
or wrong, good or bad, and who can and should be held accountable.  A
moral object is one to whom moral obligations are directly due owing to
its nature.  A moral agent has certain moral obligations; a moral object
has certain moral rights. 

Adult humans are generally both moral agents and moral objects.  They
have rights and obligations that are pretty much reciprocal.  But the
two don't always totally overlap so cleanly.  We know this because, for
example, a child has more rights in his capacity as a moral object than
he has corresponding obligations in his capacity as a moral agent.  The
same is true of animals.  For them as for children, there is not an
exact symmetry between rights and obligations. 

Another way of saying it is that a being may lack the characteristics
necessary for having a certain obligation and yet possess the
characteristics necessary to qualify as a beneficiary of that obligation.

> >Having said that, I will add that "rights" seems like the natural word
> >to me, but I'm not inexorably tied into a particular word.  It's the
> >idea that's important.  If you find yourself choking on the word
> >"rights" in this context, feel free to suggest another word as long as
> >it retains the same connotations.
> 
> Changing the word wont change my mind.

But don't you agree that animals have some inherent qualities that make
it wrong for humans to do certain things to animals? Same for humans. 
It's generally wrong for one human to torture another human, because of
the effects on the victim.  In political theory and terminology, we could
say that the victim has the right to not be tortured.  If it's also
wrong for humans to torture animals, then why doesn't the same political
terminology (used to express the same principle) apply here as well?

ts> 
> >>I view the concept of animal rights in an 
> >>entirely different light.  When  you say animals have rights you are 
> >>also saying animal are our equals.
> 
rb> >No, I would only be saying that animals are our equals if I were to
> >claim that all animals had exactly the same identical rights as humans.
> >I haven't said that.
> 
ts> I would like to know exactly what rights you feel that animal have

  - right not to be subjected to cruel or inhumane treatment.
  - right not to be exploited for human enjoyment.
  - right to be treated as having value in and of themselves and not as simple
    resources.

ts> and what charachteristics of the animals justify those rights. Also,

In <1992Aug7.173119.4394@clpd.kodak.com>, I already attempted one answer to 
this, when I cited Reverand Andrew Linzey's discussion of Tom Regan's
subjects-of-a-life criterion.  Animals have these characteristics:

      - beliefs and desires.
      - perception, memory, and a sense of the future including their own.
      - emotional life with feelings of pleasure and pain.
      - preferences and welfare interests.
      - ability to initiate action in pursuit of their desires and goals.
      - a psychological identity over time.
      - an individual welfare in the sense that their experiential life
         fares well or ill for them logically independently of their
         utility for others and logically independently of their being
         the object of anyone else's interest.

An abbreviated version would be consciousness, awareness, sentience ... 
that is, precisely those qualities of humans which make what happens to
them relevant to them. 


ts> what charachteristics of animals prevent them from having the exact 
> same rights as humans.  

A key one would be the inability to use human language proficiently.
Note that this inability also applies to some humans and yet we don't
deny all rights to these humans.

ts> 
> >>  It goes against everything I believe.
> 
rb> >This appears to be a statement of your own mental (and unreasoning)
> >resistance to a new idea.  It's not a viable or credible argument for
> >denying that animals have rights.  Isn't this an example of the "blind
> >emotion" that you criticize down below?
> 
ts> No it is not blind emotion.  It is the culmination of everything I have
> learned up to this point in my lifetime.  

Perhaps, but when one says that humans have certain responsibilities and
duties toward animals, and that these responsibilities and duties derive
from inherent characteristics of the animals, then it seems to me that
you're tacitly recognizing animal rights.

rb> >>*Secondly, your analogy falls apart because, the right that you're
> >>*claiming involves a third party.  Consider the case of a cannibal who
> >>*recognizes your right to abstain from eating human flesh.  All he asks
> >>*of you is to recognize his right to decide this issue for himself and
> >>*live according to his own beliefs.  What about a man who likes to beat
> >>*women? He recognizes your right not to do it and only asks that you
> >>*recognize his right to decide for himself?  Isn't it clear that when you
> >>*introduce a third party (i.e. a victim), the rules change?
> >>
ts> >>By inventing rights where they have do  not exist. You are attempting to 
> >>change the rules.
> 
rb> >No.  I'm attempting to apply rules in a consistent (and therefore fair)
> >fashion.  And these are not just any arbitrary rules, but rules that
> >most people claim to believe in.
> 
ts> These rules have been universaly recognized as applying to humans only.  
> When you attempt to apply these rules to animals you are changing them.

In the past these rules were not recognized as applying to certain
classes of humans.  Gradually over time we realized the inconsistency in
this.  The animal rights movement is an extension of this ongoing
process of resolving the inconsistencies in our treatment of conscious
feeling beings. 
 
[.. rest addressed in separate post ...]

---
Robert Black 
black@serum.kodak.com  - The ONLY email address that MIGHT work.
These views are not necessarily the views of my employers.

Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals