Mylan Engel Jr.: Do Animals Have Rights 1/7

Professor Mylan Engel Jr., PhD, Philosopher, Northern Illinois University, USA

Do Animals Have Rights, and Does It Matter if They Don't? (Part 1 of 7)

7 June 2006, University of Heidelberg

The question "Do animals have rights?" is an important one because, if they do have rights (including a right to life), then killing them for food, fur coats, or medical experiments violates their rights, just as killing humans for any of these reasons would violate those humans' rights. Unfortunately, framing the animal ethics debate exclusively in terms of animal rights can be misleading, because it can lead people to assume that the entire issue of the ethical treatment of animals turns on the question of whether or not they have rights. A corollary of this assumption runs as follows: If animals have rights (as Tom Regan and Joel Feinberg argue), then much of our current treatment of animals is profoundly wrong; but if they don't have rights (as Carl Cohen and Alan White argue), then most of our current treatment of animals raises no significant moral issues at all. To explain why this assumption and its corollary are mistaken, I lay out the case for animal rights and then consider what follows vis-á-vis the ethical treatment of animals if the case for animal rights collapses. In the course of doing so, I defend the following two theses: (1) That the case for animal rights is as compelling as the case for human rights, and (2) that even if the case for animal rights collapses, there are still compelling moral reasons - reasons which you yourself accept - for thinking that most of our current treatment of farmed animals and laboratory animals is profoundly morally wrong.

http://www.vorlesungen-tierrechte.de
http://www.rainerebert.de

Category:

Education

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• Mylan
• Engel
• Philosophy
• Animal
• Rights
• Ethics
• University
• Heidelberg
• Tierrechte
• Humanities
• Cohen
• White
• Feinberg
• Tom
• Regan

[seandomale]

Sure the bible says animals are here for us to eat. I bet if it said the opposite, 90% of the population would say, "fuck the bible" on that issue. It would not stop people from eating meat. Because of a man made bible, we've bullshited ourselves in justifying the brutal treatment and exploitation of animals.

[Empress1Unique]

Being a Christian or the Bible means nothing. The Bible is a theory just like the rest. Not ultimate Truth. So why bring the bible into it?

[jimmyhoffa9]

i disagree on animals having rights as neither animals or humans can communicate on that level. i believe in fair treatment of animals though. animals and humans coincide just fine as it is, and the bible is a load of unproven crap. the main thing the bible teaches us is the extent to which people can control others with psychology and the immense imagination of some people

[DannyCozzi]

@LifeIsABigPuzzle I'm sorry, but that is just bullshit. The simple idea that you're comparing oxygen, an inanimate, non-conscious gas, and leaves, again, inanimate, non-conscious objects without nervous systems, to animals, animate, conscious, self aware, creatures, is downright absurd and disgusting. Animals have brains, which means they have capacity to feel pain and strive to escape it. I'm surprised I'm spelling this out to an "intelligent" being.

[wolfsoul988]

ANIMALS MAY NOT KNOW WHAT RIGHTS ARE BUT WE ARE ALL EQUAL. WE ARE ANIMALS TOO!! How would you like to be electrocuted through your ass so peeps cab where your skin. Would you do that to a person with autism?? Well go fuck yourself in a hellhole if u think animals are lower because they dont speak like us.... FUCK YOU IDIOTS GO TO FUCKIN HELL AND DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!

[gyrate4]

@LifeIsABigPuzzle Funny. You say animals “can’t ask for rights,” but that they can “agree to be killed.” You’re full of “maybes” and justifications because you like eating and using animals, but here’s what we know for certain----animals, like humans have a nervous system and are sentient.

And we can certainly thrive without eating them. I agree with Engel that a moral person wants to reduce all suffering.

[LifeIsABigPuzzle]

@gyrate4 Everything suffers. Some experiments were done with plants and some leaves became distressed when the scientists even thought about harming them. Maybe even oxygen doesn't like to be inhaled and destroyed by people and animals. So if you really want to alleviate all suffering, then you should be a rock.

[gyrate4]

@LifeIsABigPuzzle “Rights are something that we give to people because people are intelligent enough to ask for them.” In your view rights are given by rank of intelligence. Flimsy premise for morality. You can kill and steal from all the mentally retarded people you want, eh?

Infants can’t “ask for rights,” and they would make great candidates for medical experimentation, but we recognize they suffer---animals suffer the same

[LifeIsABigPuzzle]

@gyrate4 I guess that I should ask this question. Do animals even know what rights are? Rights are something that we give to people because people are intelligent enough to ask for them. And animals don't care that they don't have rights. As soon as someone witnesses a cow writing "We Demand Rights!" in the snow with its hoof and it is not a human controlled robot or some people dressed up as a cow, then we should respect them more.

[gyrate4]

@LifeIsABigPuzzle Maybe some women "agreed" to be raped? Maybe africans caught by slave traders "agreed." Some people will say or do anything to keep abusing animals.

[gyrate4]

Great!

[LifeIsABigPuzzle]

Some New Age people believe that animals agree to be eaten by us and other animals before they come here. Then they forget that they agreed to be eaten and they try to get away when a hunter or another animal comes along. So they get eaten in the end because they agreed to get eaten. Read "Transition Now" by Lee Carroll and friends.