Does an animal hold any natural rights? If a hunter kills an animal in the wild, is it aggression? What if the hunter absolutely had to eat the animal in order to survive?
As far as I can tell, natural rights applies only to people.
If it applied to animals... animals would be violating other animal's natural rights all the time. Does it apply only to mammals and reptiles? Why not bacteria? (Not that any of this is an objection to them having natural rights, but just an observation)
Giant_Joe: As far as I can tell, natural rights applies only to people. If it applied to animals... animals would be violating other animal's natural rights all the time.
If it applied to animals... animals would be violating other animal's natural rights all the time.
Human animals violate other human animal's natural rights all the time. It doesn't follow therefore that natural rights do not apply to people.
I have only thought about this subject fleetingly, but it is of great concern to me. If I recall correctly, in The Ethics of Liberty Rothbard claimed that animals do not have natural rights because they cannot petition for them. That chapter just about ruined the entire book for me because it displays a clear lack of imagination on the Murray's part. Of course an animal cannot petition for its rights in the same way as a human: it is not a human, and anthropocentric concepts are not applicable when dealing with non-human animals. In the same way that we understand humans to have a specific nature, we must understand that non-human animals also have their own specific nature, and we shouldn't judge them by human standards. They can't petition for their rights like we can by declaring it self-evident, but they are perhaps declaring it in their own way when they defend their property, ie. their bodies, when under attack by another animal. Try poking a panther with a stick and then try to claim that it is not defending what it perceives to be its property.
"Does an animal hold any natural rights?"
Some on this site like to state that animals don't have any rights because they cannot reason as humans do (though this is a scientifically unproven assumption and also assumes that reasoning behaves like an on-off switch); others base it on the belief that animals aren't conscious and therefore have no rights. Yet others believe that there are varying degrees of consciousness and reason, and some animals (such as dolphins) should be afforded some rights due to their high degree of intelligence.
"If a hunter kills an animal in the wild, is it aggression?"
Well, how is it not aggression? You just killed a living creature. Whether or not the aggression was justified is a moral and ethical question, though ;)
"What if the hunter absolutely had to eat the animal in order to survive?"
Well then, unless you are willing to let yourself die of hunger in order to preserve moral principles, it really doesn't matter whether it's right or wrong. Even if it could be proven to be objectively wrong by some moral standard, you're still going to eat that animal in order to live, because you personally value survival over death by starvation.
Ultima: "What if the hunter absolutely had to eat the animal in order to survive?" Well then, unless you are willing to let yourself die of hunger in order to preserve moral principles, it really doesn't matter whether it's right or wrong. Even if it could be proven to be objectively wrong by some moral standard, you're still going to eat that animal in order to live, because you personally value survival over death by starvation.
But you can justify any aggression using that logic. "If I don't steal from my rich neighbor, I am going to starve and die."
The entire notion that a being can be denied rights because the cannot petition them seems to me to be an advocacy of positive rights that are based not on natural rights that are intrinsically linked to a being's essense, but rather rights based on a being's ability to claim them. As a result, it would be completely sound for me, via this line of reasoning, to state that the state gives its citizens rights due to the fact that it defends their capability to claim those rights, or that a defenseless man has no rights because he cannot defend himself.
Also, there is a problem linking the rights of man with his rationality due to the fact that it would exclude marginal cases like the severely mentally retarded, and result in them essentially being equivocated with animals for all legal matters.
Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.
- Edmund Burke
Humans first. Always.
Anyone who has spent any reasonable amount of time in the wild would understand this instantly.
Nature, and its animals, are merciless, remorseless, and deadly; hence our evolution and migration as far away from these things as possible.
Marxists first. Always. Anyone who has spent any reasonable amount of time in a capitalist economy would understand this instantly. Capitalism, and its practitioners, are merciless, remorseless, and deadly; hence our evolution and migration as far away from these things as possible.
Marxists first. Always.
Anyone who has spent any reasonable amount of time in a capitalist economy would understand this instantly.
Capitalism, and its practitioners, are merciless, remorseless, and deadly; hence our evolution and migration as far away from these things as possible.
This doesn't seem like a good argument to me.
JosephBright: Marxists first. Always. Anyone who has spent any reasonable amount of time in a capitalist economy would understand this instantly. Capitalism, and its practitioners, are merciless, remorseless, and deadly; hence our evolution and migration as far away from these things as possible. This doesn't seem like a good argument to me.
Luckily, you don't have to think your strawman arguments are good arguments...
Hard Rain: JosephBright: Marxists first. Always. Anyone who has spent any reasonable amount of time in a capitalist economy would understand this instantly. Capitalism, and its practitioners, are merciless, remorseless, and deadly; hence our evolution and migration as far away from these things as possible. This doesn't seem like a good argument to me. Luckily, you don't have to think your strawman arguments are good arguments...
Haha
Seriously though, why should it be humans first? I agree with you for the most part, but I am just trying to get to the intellectual root of the matter. To an outside observer, humans are merciless, remorseless, and very deadly. Even if we dismiss overt examples of human violence such as war, look at what goes on in a slaughterhouse. How are we any less deadly than the animals? I think the fundamental thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to recognize our capacity for violence, and choose the (much more productive) alternative.
JosephBright: I think the fundamental thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to recognize our capacity for violence, and choose the (much more productive) alternative.
Bingo. We are aware of choice and we can make choices.
To a degree, animals can make choices too, but these are typically motivated by instincts for survival. Humans can supplant their instincts- sometimes because it will be to our benefit, and sometimes because we wish to be lead to our demise.
They can not have rights because you can not reason with them and get them to respect our own rights. If you were to grant them rights then you would have to put them on trial when they trespass over your property or eat a human. Do we grant a hippopotamus that has killed a person habeas corpus rights and a hearing before a judge? Do we proportionately punish a fly for crapping on our desk and imprison it for a few hours under a jar? What exactly would this accomplish?
Marko: Do we grant a hippopotamus that has killed a person habeas corpus rights and a hearing before a judge?
Do we grant a hippopotamus that has killed a person habeas corpus rights and a hearing before a judge?
Naturally we do. Haven't you ever heard of a Kangaroo Court?
(Sorry, I couldn't resist...)
JosephBright: Ultima: "What if the hunter absolutely had to eat the animal in order to survive?" Well then, unless you are willing to let yourself die of hunger in order to preserve moral principles, it really doesn't matter whether it's right or wrong. Even if it could be proven to be objectively wrong by some moral standard, you're still going to eat that animal in order to live, because you personally value survival over death by starvation. But you can justify any aggression using that logic. "If I don't steal from my rich neighbor, I am going to starve and die."
Sure, if you equate being out in the wilds and having a choice between killing an animal and starving to death to living in modern society. Exactly in which situation in the real world is there a simple, binary choice of stealing from a rich neighbour or starving and dying? If such a situation existed, would you really argue that the rich neighbour's justification for his desire to not part with, say, a loaf of bread, is superior to the starving neighbour's justification for his desire to live? I don't think there is an objective answer to that question.
Whatever your answer is, the fact of the matter is under most circumstances, such a binary choice simply does not exist. In real society, there are charities and welfare. In proposed an-cap societies, there would be private charity, and even should it come down to the binary choice, at most the guy would have to repay the loaf of bread + some damages at some point in the future. Small price to pay for continuing to live.