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Ratix from Someplace, Maryland Since: Sep, 2010
#51: Apr 18th 2011 at 5:56:57 AM

[up]Exactly. Just like personal freedom is not fundamentally opposed to social order. You need a degree of personal freedom in order to maintain a social order that doesn't oppress people to the boiling point and then explode in revolution. That they are opposed is just an illusion brought upon by the fact that everyone disagrees about what degree of freedom versus order.

Likewise one can hold varying degrees of human rights vs. animal rights. Allowing more animal rights doesn't infer removing human rights.

TheyCallMeTomu Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#52: Apr 18th 2011 at 6:46:39 AM

I don't know that I'd agree with all that, but I think it's important to realize that when people are talking about Human Rights, they're generally talking about the fundamentals, rather than the specifics. That is to say, the Right to Eat Meat is one thing, the Right to Host Dog Fights is another.

Rottweiler Dog and Pony Show from Portland, Oregon Since: Dec, 2009
Dog and Pony Show
#53: Apr 18th 2011 at 10:24:46 AM

But do y'all feel that Blue and Green morality is superior to combining Red and Green, or Red and Blue? If so, why? And do any of you consider White or Black legitimate?

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard
TheyCallMeTomu Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#54: Apr 18th 2011 at 10:25:15 AM

I reject your model from the get go.

SavageHeathen Pro-Freedom Fanatic from Somewhere Since: Feb, 2011
Pro-Freedom Fanatic
#55: Apr 18th 2011 at 10:25:59 AM

I'm sort of for Blue And Red, but mostly blue. Some green is acceptable, as long as it doesn't conflict at all with the Blue or the Red.

In short? Do whatever you want to protect the environment, as long as it doesn't curtail personal liberty or the living standard of the working class and the lower middle class.

edited 18th Apr '11 10:26:53 AM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.
OnTheOtherHandle Since: Feb, 2010
#56: Apr 18th 2011 at 10:36:07 AM

@Rott: Because we feel that the particular combination that we chose gives us the most desirable results; in my case, minimizing suffering and maximizing happiness. Does it have to be any more complicated than that?

"War doesn't prove who's right, only who's left." "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."
Desertopa Not Actually Indie Since: Jan, 2001
Not Actually Indie
#57: Apr 18th 2011 at 2:26:20 PM

The core principle of liberalism is each person's liberty to do whatever they choose, so long as it doesn't violate another person's rights. Animals aren't people, so it is illiberal to pass laws restricting their owners' liberty to use them as they choose.

Nonhumans may also share qualities of humans that make them wrong to victimize to some extent. Personhood is not necessarily binary.

...eventually, we will reach a maximum entropy state where nobody has their own socks or underwear, or knows who to ask to get them back.
EricDVH Since: Jan, 2001
#58: Apr 22nd 2011 at 5:40:15 AM

I'm of the general opinion that cruelty to animals and plants isn't bad because of the suffering they endure (they're essentially interchangeable at the individual level, unlike people,) but because of the cruel attitude embodied in the mind of the person doing it. Dispassionately raising a chicken in a battery and slaughtering it? Not wrong, because it's practical and free of malice. Plucking the wings off a fly or gambling on a cockfight? Wrong, because it's twisted and sadistic.

Eric,

OnTheOtherHandle Since: Feb, 2010
#59: Apr 22nd 2011 at 10:04:28 AM

But it's only twisted and sadistic because that fly is feeling pain. You are depriving a fly of its rights without any cause. If your rights depended on that fly dying, then go ahead. (Although I can't think of any situation where your rights would depend on the fly's wings being slowly pulled off.) Would you call it twisted and sadistic if the same was being done to a toy fly?

"War doesn't prove who's right, only who's left." "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."
TheyCallMeTomu Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#60: Apr 22nd 2011 at 10:10:50 AM

It's not that the fly has "rights." Rights don't factor into things, in the same way that a tree doesn't have rights-it's not able to perceive its rights being violated. Now, presumably, you're causing pain and that's inherently bad, but I think viewing it in terms of rights is rather losing sight of what rights are to begin with. Hmmmm...

OnTheOtherHandle Since: Feb, 2010
#61: Apr 22nd 2011 at 11:35:21 AM

Humans have rights because we don't like it when certain things are done to us, like being hurt/raped/killed/stolen from. The fly doesn't want to be slowly tortured, as far as we can gather, so it should have the right not to be slowly tortured. Fly rights are trumped by human rights in my books, but that doesn't mean flies (or other animals) have no rights. They can feel pain and they have preferences, so if we cause them pain or violate their preferences were are infringing on their rights.

"War doesn't prove who's right, only who's left." "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."
Rottweiler Dog and Pony Show from Portland, Oregon Since: Dec, 2009
Dog and Pony Show
#62: Apr 22nd 2011 at 11:58:32 AM

[up] Talking about "fly rights" still sounds thoroughly bizarre when they lack any ability to fight us. The whole history of rights is a history of groups fighting against another, dominant group.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard
TheyCallMeTomu Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#63: Apr 22nd 2011 at 1:24:30 PM

OTOH, I think the distinction I make is that, "rights" are abstractions of "That which is right for people to be able to expect" so to speak. A fly cannot expect to not be tortured-it merely feels pain, and knows pain = the badness. We want to avoid unnecessary suffering, but I think that "Rights" need to be defined in a more political philosophy oriented sense.

And in a political philosophy sense, rights are all about the expectations of the people that make up the society.

OnTheOtherHandle Since: Feb, 2010
#64: Apr 22nd 2011 at 4:22:14 PM

Okay, I can accept that. Whether we define it as violating fly rights (which does sound kind of bizarre) or causing unnecessary suffering, we still agree that we shouldn't be going around plucking wings off of flies.

@Rott: True, we only ever got to the point of recognizing all these human rights after a lot of bloody struggles, but now at least we aim to protect the rights of the defensless as well. Infanticide is illegal and considered immoral, and a baby can't fight for its rights.

"War doesn't prove who's right, only who's left." "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."
Rottweiler Dog and Pony Show from Portland, Oregon Since: Dec, 2009
Dog and Pony Show
#65: Apr 22nd 2011 at 4:32:23 PM

@OTOH:

True, we only ever got to the point of recognizing all these human rights after a lot of bloody struggles, but now at least we aim to protect the rights of the defensless as well. Infanticide is illegal and considered immoral, and a baby can't fight for its rights.

Riiight.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard
OnTheOtherHandle Since: Feb, 2010
#66: Apr 22nd 2011 at 4:44:08 PM

Okay, how is that meant to refute my statement? Does the fact that Peter Singer believes that infanticide is not as heinous a crime as killing an adult human being (a statement that could actually be pretty defensible were it not for the devastation you are likely to cause the parents of said infant) change the fact that it's illegal?

"War doesn't prove who's right, only who's left." "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."
TheyCallMeTomu Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#67: Apr 22nd 2011 at 5:30:43 PM

Infants don't have rights anymore than animals in this model-which, again, is what makes a LOT of people squeamish. We want to avoid throwing babies off of cliffs because it's generally "icky" to do so, in the same way that we generally look down upon dog-fighting, but trying to apply human rights to the situation rather defeats the purpose.

I think it can be said with certainty that we want to reduce suffering and cruelty in all situations, but again, using the hatchet of Human Rights for situations where the model doesn't fit is only a good way to run into a contradiction.

OnTheOtherHandle Since: Feb, 2010
#68: Apr 22nd 2011 at 5:47:29 PM

If we make the ability to actually conceive of rights and percieve your rights being violated a qualifier to having human rights, then not only would infants be excluded, mentally disabled people would be, too. In fact, so would little kids: can you really point to one specific age when kids would develop the conception of rights and the emotion of feeling violated? If we lower the threshold to just the ability to feel pain and satisfaction, then infants, small kids, and mentally disabled people would be given rights, but also most animals. Then we get to the problem of who gets preference when both organisms have similar ability to feel pain and satisfaction - similarly strong preferences? A baby or an animal? If an objective outsider were to judge the situation, it would be a coin toss. But as humans, it would just be simpler to accept our bias and go with the baby even though its preferences are no stronger than the animal's.

"War doesn't prove who's right, only who's left." "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."
TheyCallMeTomu Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#69: Apr 22nd 2011 at 6:27:43 PM

OTOH: Don't forget though that rights are not the only measurement of how we govern human behavior. I don't have a "right" to a plasma TV. But if I buy a plasma TV, the government doesn't normally take it away. We can recognize that the disabled shouldn't be tread upon, without necessarily declaring that to be a nature of their current rights. Also, because rights are inherently an abstraction, it's important to realize that it's less about the disabled person's right so much as it is the rights of the non-disabled to think that "If I were disabled, I would not be tread upon."

And again, the kind of "Self-awareness" that I'm talking about it within the first three years of life, so only the most severely handicapped individuals would be unable to benefit from "rights" in this sense.

OnTheOtherHandle Since: Feb, 2010
#70: Apr 23rd 2011 at 12:36:12 PM

I'm not so sure that a three year old would really be aware enough to recognize his/her rights being violated. Perhaps the right to life or safety from bodily harm, in that they would be scared/not wanting to die, but certainly not things like the right to freedom of expression or even the right to property - it's hard for kids to definitively know what is theirs and what is not. But in any case, if a three-year-old is self-aware enough to qualify for human rights, plenty of animals would qualify as well. I just don't think we can make a definition for rights that would include most humans but exclude most animals, unless we just want to come outright and say that only a member of homo sapiens will qualify.

"War doesn't prove who's right, only who's left." "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."
TheyCallMeTomu Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#71: Apr 23rd 2011 at 12:57:58 PM

It's my understanding that the general rule of sapience would actually also protect dolphins, but I need to do more research.

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