Animal Writings

I think it's very important that people understand the difference between animal rights and animal welfare. Animal welfare is a belief that humans have a moral reponsibility to care for animals in the most humane way possible. However, animal welfarists, unlike animal rightists, also believe that animals do indeed have legitimate human uses that can include research, entertainment, companionship, and being a food source. Animal rights, is a whole different animal ( pun intended ) entirely. The core belief of animal rights is that animals and humans are equally valuable and are moral equivalants. They believe that if it's wrong to do something to a human, it is equally wrong to do it to an animal. Their stated goal is to end all "animal exploitation" by humans. Michael Fox, former vice president of Humane Society of The United States ( an AR NOT an AW organization ) put it this way: "The life of an ant and that of my child should be granted the same consideration". Very chilling thought. Very chilling indeed. The rational person rejects this notion for the warped, insane thinking that it is, but this quote sums up the AR position perfectly. It is this core belief that enables AR activists to look at propaganda like PETA's "holocaust on your plate" and not find the comparisons of Jews to chickens to be morally reprehensible, as most rational people do.
Unfortunately, not enough people understand the difference between AR and AW. You can paint me cynical if you like, but I believe AR activists like it this way. If they can keep the line between AR and AW sufficiently blurred, it cloaks their true goal of "total animal liberation" ( PETA's terminology, not mine ) from moderate, rational people who would otherwise reject their ideology in favor of the AW position if they would only take their time time to do their homework on the issue.
 

I've got a few more thoughts to add to this as I ran out of time to finish them in my other reply. Gary, you said that "the logical endpoint of animal welfare is animal rights". This may be true, but it is irrelevant. Is the logical endpoint of a credible, worthy idea taken too far always desirable? For example, if we take left-leaning yet centrist economic policy/philosophy to its logical endpoint, we eventually come to oppresive socialism/communism. We may have started with sensible, rational economic policy, but taken too far it becomes tyrannical and oppresive. Is that desirable to most rational people? Could not the same be true for AW taken to a logical endpoint of AR?
-"Animals and humans don't need to have the exact same set of rights...." One can argue that animals shouldn't have rights at all because only humans as a species have the ability to formulate and comprehend rights. The concept of rights is unknown to animals of any other species. Rights must come from one of two sources: man ( meaning society) or a supernatural source ( i.e. God ). If they come from man, man alone has the ability to decide who gets rights, why they get them, and what the limits of those rights are. If one believes they are given by a supernatural source, you're on a difficult slope. You're going to have to convince those of us who are very skeptical about the supernatural of the validity of your divine mandate, meaning you're going to have to prove it. Not an easy task, to prove the supernatural. EVERY right has a corresponding responsibility. We have the reponsibility to one, not abuse our own rights, and two, to not infringe on the rights of others. No animal, no matter how intelligent the species, has the intellectual capacity to take responsiblity for their actions save for one, Homo Sapiens. At this point, AR activists usually bring up the argument "what about infants, children, the mentally retarded, and the mentally ill? Doesn't this definition exclude them from rights?". The answer is no. This is simply splitting hairs. The above mentioned groups are EXCEPTIONS to the rule, rather than the rule itself. They are afforded rights because they are fellow members of the human species, the only species that as a WHOLE, with a few exceptions can form and comprehend those rights. Also, there are grey areas ( as opposed to the usually black and white AR worldview) to contend with here that mandate those rights be afforded. Infants grow into children , who can take responsibility for some things. Children grow into adults who are, at least supposedly, able to take complete responsibility for themselves. The mildly retarded can take responsibility for their actions to a certain extent. The mentally ill, with proper treatment, can as well. We cannot say the same for any non-human animal species.
I also see the "ability to suffer" is once again given for the reason to afford animals rights. I will state again that this criterion is arbitrary as any other, and there is no convincing logical argument that it is not arbitrary.
"Animal rights is what makes animal welfare stick". No, animal rights doesn't make anything stick. It's simply a philosophical ideology that may or may not have merits depending on one's point of view. What makes animal welfare "stick" are thought-out, well-crafted laws and solid enforcement of those laws.
 

Thanks for your comments again. I appreciate your critiques.

The core concept of animal rights is actually quite simple: it's that animals, being sentient, having interests, and having the capacity to suffer, deserve rights. Let me get back to that in a minute. Let's first look at your definition of animal welfare: treating anaimals in the most humane way possible. We're not even remotely close to doing that. You help me work on that and I got half a mind to concede every other argument.

Now let's look at the animal welfare and animal rights position on animals being a food source - as one example. Both camps agree that it's legitimate if there's no other option. Animal welfarists, in practice, at least, believe that it's ok to not only kill an animal but to create an animal merely for the purpose of killing it for food even if not necessary. Some animal welfarists - and I use the term loosely - believe it's ok to compromise the animals' welfare if it means more profit.

You are mistaken in your belief that animal rightists think that if something is wrong to do to a human then it is wrong to do to an animal. The animal rights position holds that some things that are wrong to do to a human (e.g., torture) are also wrong to do to an animal, some things that are wrong to do to a human (deny voting rights) are ok to do an animal, and some things that are wrong to do an animal (e.g., prevent a hen form ever spreading her wings) are not applicable to humans.

I'm sure we differ on the meaning of animal exploitation but what's wrong the goal of ending it?

Again, the The Holocaust on Your Plate is not comparing Jews and chickens per se. It is comparing their suffering. We suffer like the animals in strikingly similar ways. The campaign also compares our denial of the suffering, our self-serving rationales for inflicting the suffering, the factory-style processing of the suffering, and the delegation to others to inflict that suffering. Sure there are differences betwween the two sets of atrocicties, just as there are differences between any types of atrocities. But I have no shame whatsoever in comparing the suffering of animals to my suffering. If you feel demeaned by the comparison, you may be underestimating the severity of the animals' suffering. Imagine being torn from your mother when one day old, being denied her milk, never feeling her nuzzle, being intentionally weakened to the point of not being able to stand, forced into a burning hot crowded truck with no water, repeatedly prodded and kicked as you fall down from weakness and injuries, then getting your throat slit while still alive and hanging upside down. That greatly exceeds all definitions of torture.

Recall that the comparison of the Holocaust to slaughterhouses was made during the Holocaust.

Animal cruelty laws realize that animals suffer like us; that's why they exist. They're a form of animal rights. You cannnot set fire to your dog even if you plan to eat him. We -s ociety - will come to realize that pigs should not be treated differently. Inertia, fear, and greed slow down that transition.

Animal welfare as currently defined is moral relativism. It lets the offender decide if the cruties inflicted against the animal are acceptable. That is wrong for the same reason it is wrong for humans. That used to be the case, to a large extent, in our treatment of blacks, women, and children. We've repealed that basis for exploitation for those victims. Animals are next.

I won't paint you cynical, just wrong :) Nearly every animal rights group, on their web site or literature, defines animal rights and distinguishes it from animal welfare. The HSUS is mostly an AW organization; their official philosophy as well as campaigns do not prohibit the use of animals for research or food. Of course, I would hope we agree that use of animals for painful research that is trivial or unnecesary is wrong. Animal rights groups generally have no problem with non-invasive research, e.g., studying bird migration patterns or respectfully reporting on animal behavior in the wild. They also generally have no problem with animal clinical research, e.g., trying out a new feline medicine on feline patients whose owner/guardian gives informed consent.

Sorry about typos. Late and no time to edit.

Gary
 

Quick responses to other points:

By logical endpoint I mean reasonable destination of evolving ideas. The logical endpoint of improving slaves' conditions is freeing them. Animal welfare - in practice - realizes that harming animals is wrong because the animals should not suffer. But we are reluctant to hold ourselves accountable. We still want exceptions because we enjoy the benefits of harming them. And we're morally timid about incriminating ourselves. Animal rights puts in a "floor;" it says "you can be a little mean but not this mean, that's unacceptable in our society." It recognizes that the dog or pig hurts like we do and that is the common basis for fundamental rights such as freedom from our physical or psychological torture.

To accept these rights I believe requires science secondarily and sympathy primarily. When the animals' pain becomes our pain, we will not stand for their unncessary or arbitrary human-caused suffering.

There's no reason why comprehenson of rights should be a requisite for having them. We grant rights to babies, the retarded, and people in comas. I don't consider these groups to be exceptions, because I believe for fundamental rights like freedom from torture a better basis than comprehension of the right is the harm done by not having that right. And even more basic than that, I believe that our sympathy and our caring for others is the motivation that compels us to formulate and grant that right. It's an upgrade in animals' worth from property to sentient. But if you want to call babies an exception than animals can be an exception.

We grant rights to the individual not on the basis of being part of a group but on the basis of what the individual feels. It just so happens that right now - for the most part - all the individuals afforded rights happen to be human. But not long ago, the group boundaries were race and gender. We invented all sorts of clever reasons why women shouldn't have the same rights as men. Pretty much all the men went along with that, because they liked the privileged position and didn't see things from the women's point of view. We expanded the group because individuals deserving of rights were harmed by being denied rights. We could set group boundaries at genus or family instead of species. But it is the individual to whom rights are granted. Again, the reason we have a right not to be tortured is not because of what groups we are a member of but because it hurts. If we want to create a group for the purpose of granting rights, then the group should injclude those who want what the right affords them, whether or not they understand the concept. "Sorry, fox, you don't understand the concept of rights, therefore I can torture you" is mean, arbitrary, and selfish. Worse than any poll tax.

Similarly, it matters not at all if a child will grow into an adult who can comprehend rights, or even if most children will grow into adults who will comprehend rights. If we came across a huge population of Neanderthals that never comprehended rights we would grant them some. If we came across a huge population of children destined to die before reaching their first birthday, it would matter not one whit, they would suffer just as much if denied their right not to be tortured.

Actually, half the people I know can't very well articulate the principles of rights...

I don't consider capacity to suffer to be an arbitrary basis for rights. I, like most of society, consider the unnecessary infliction of suffering to be about the cruelest thing imaginable and the thing we fear the most. It's hard to get more fundamental as a starting point for rights.

If rights are granted by man, then we can grant rights to animals. If they come from God, then we can use animals' intrinsic worth and declaration of being Very Good as a basis for their rights. It's easy to formulate a basis for granting animals rights, or if you prefer, declaring that we have certain obligations to them. If we consider those obligations important enough, we codify them in laws, e.g., animal cruelty laws. At one time the concept was foreign, now almost no one thinks they should be repealed.

>>>"Animal rights is what makes animal welfare stick". No, animal rights doesn't make anything stick. It's simply a philosophical ideology that may or may not have merits depending on one's point of view. What makes animal welfare "stick" are thought-out, well-crafted laws and solid enforcement of those laws<<<

We're saying close to the same thing. Animal cruelty laws are essentially animal rights. If the animals have no rights, the laws are meaningless and can be arbitrarily disobeyed. Laws say "you can't do this" or "you can't go past this point." Why? Because the victim has a certain worth, certain claims on us. Rights, in other words. I'm right with you on well-crafted and enforcement.

Gary
 

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More thoughts on animal welfare and animal rights that popped into my head...

Anon said that effective laws and enforcement is what makes animal welfare "stick." What is the basis of those laws?

Anon, or anyone: if animal welfare means treating animals as humanely as possible, how can we justify rodeos and bullfights?

Anon contends - I believe - that animal rights means no pets. I disgaree. In the purest sense, we share our home with companion animals because we deeply care about them, love them, and want to give them a nice life. One does not need a right to be protected against love and mutually desirable companionship. As stated before, my (and other animal advocates') concerns with pet ownership/guardianship is how to do it without animals getting abused and/or getting a raw deal in the process, as happens so often presently.

Anon or anyone - what is the source and context of the Michael Fox quote? Because I have read some of his books and can cite dozens of passages that would mitigate if not contradict the statement. You may want to read, for example, "Bring Life to Ethics," in which Dr. Fox tries to reconciles environmental and animal rights goals, which are sometimes at odds. He also chides animal rights organizations quite a bit in the book.

Now, sometimes animal rights advocates discuss the concept of equal consideration: my interpretation is that if a human and non-human suffer in equal amounts, their respective suffering requires equal consideration, hence equal protection. In some cases, the suffering of the animal should come first, because as compassionate stewards, we the strong make sacrifices to help the weak and powerless.

I don't claim to be an expert on Dr. Fox. but I don't find him the least bit threatening or "chilling." From everything I've read, he's devoted his adult life to calling upon us to treat animals and the earth better, and to helping people improve the pet-human bond. Here's what I find chilling: the vicious attacks on defenseless, clearly suffering pigs in the "Where Ham Comes From" video on the blog's sidebar. Have you watched it yet? That's not philosophical musings, that's real violence and real victims. Laughing while forcefully slamming a brick into an animal's head--that's chilling. The perpetrators, corporate executives who willfuly design such violence into their business plans, and judges who review the violence all declaring that no cruelty is involved -- that's chilling. (And it's well established that cruelty to animals is a reliable indicator of subsequent or concurrent cruelty to humans.)

In any case, Dr. Fox's statement does not remotely sum up the AR position. Most AR advocates believe that we should respect all life, including that of the ant, but that the ant's claim to rights is less than that of the pig's or human's because an ant probably has a lower degree of sentience. Animal rights is about appropriate rights, not identicallness.

Here's what I see anti-animal rights advocates doing all the time: looking for and fighting straw men, while turning their heads away from horrific preventable cruelties. We're torturing ten billion animals a year in factory farms and other man-made Hells, and anti-AR activists defend it, financially support it, and perpetuate it because one out of a thousand animal rights quotes sounds too extreme. My request: let's acknowledge the worst abuses, work together to end them, then work out the fine points near the boundaries.

Of course, when push comes to shove, parents - of any species - will protect their own children first. We humans will save our two children before we save the neighbor's three children, and we will often spend sums of money on our children (or on ourselves) that could save the lives of a dozen children in Africa. IOW, yes it's easy to get all worked up about how someone could consider an ant in the same breath as a child. Trust me, I understand that. But we humans willfully choose to let children die every day because we'd rather spend the money on a wide screen TV and nice car. That's even worse. At least Mr. Fox, if I give him the benefit of the doubt, was not rationalizing greed but contemplating who deserves our help the most - even if his conclusion is wrong.

This may or may not be a source of confusion or misinterpretations...animal rights groups have to be concerned with and take stands on animal welfare issues. There are at least a couple reasons for this. One, they realize that society is not about to grant rights to animals en masse, and is still going to use animals for utility value, usually to the great detriment of the animals. If it's a given that we're going to grow and slaughter chickens for food for a while (in 50 years veggie chicken may completely replace real chicken), we can at least make their lives a little better in the meantime, e.g., by using more humane killing methods and giving them more space. Every animal rights supporter agrees that if you're a prisoner in a factory farm, better to have a soft surface on which to rest than to not have one. We owe it to animals to lessen their human-caused misery, even if our only option is to do it incrementally. We keep doing that, we eventually realize that we owe it to them to let them live their lives as they see fit, not as suits our purposes. As stated before, just as with human rights, an animal's rights may have to be temporarily suspended or overruled in dire circumstances.

The second reason, and I want to stress this, is that not every issue concerning animals is an animal rights issue. To bring about peace and harmony between humans, installing and obeying human rights laws is only piece of the puzzle. A minimum requirement. A recognition that some things done to others are just plain wrong. That humans have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Animals should have a similar basic set of rights, because - like us - they have fundamental interests in all those things, and suffer when denied them. But merely upholding rights is not enough, whether we're talking humans or animals. I advocate being nice to animals and humans, rights or no rights. If you see a small animal trapped in your drainpipe, help him. Make a trip to the animal shelter and pet the animal residents there; make their day. Become vegetarian because of compassion.

My end goal is NOT animal rights even though I firmly agree with the concept. Animal rights leads to laws that say "you cannot to this to them because it substantially destroys their quality of life or their life itself and it's wrong." But it's not what makes us hug our dog, rehabilitate an injured hawk, move the turtle out of harm's way, strive to preserve a wilderness area, or adopt a principle of least harm.