From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Fri May 03 2002 - 18:13:32 MDT
YP Fun writes
>> No, animals should not have legal rights.
>> The basic reason is that they've never been
>> citizens of any society based on law. We
>
> Let us narrow this down. Say instead of rights we
> use the following term:
>
> "Ownership". According to Merriam-Webster:
>
> 1 a : to have or hold as property : POSSESS b : to
> have power over : CONTROL <wanted to own his own life>
Very well then. Animals can be owned, and the
owners can legally do with them as they will.
(Note for all the fellow sentimentalists out
there: this means that *occasionally*, very
rarely, absolutely frightful abuse will occur.)
The convention that animals can be owned has been
successfully tested by countless societies.
> Currently the assumed and unwritten law suggests
> that any HUMAN being has a write to own or to take
> as a possession an ANIMAL.
> This law transcends legal law. Ownership has been
> around since humans stopped being nomads.
Yes, just so.
> > (i) that tree would never have been considered
> > a citizen in any society that has ever
> > existed, any more than a blood donation is.
>
> I guess until the day a TREE can express pain and
> discomfort we can ignore it.
Trees do NOT experience pain and discomfort. They
cannot because since they can never do anything about
it, they would never successfully complete with other
plants that don't waste resources causing such
experiences to occur. Well, one must be extremely
familiar with evolutionary arguments, I suppose, for
the foregoing sentence to be easily understood.
You other implication is unacceptable, morally: just
because something or someone cannot complain doesn't
change in any way the actual suffering that they
experience, and it is unconscionable (to me) to
treat their suffering any differently that you would
otherwise.
> Really if a tree cannot disagree than it really
> doesn't matter.
I don't agree: if trees truly had experiences and
could feel pain, I'd strongly disapprove of many
things that are done to trees.
> ... because, we could basically dominate
> and bully all other animals on the planet.
> The potential that there will be a species
> smarter than human beings creates a need
> for us to write laws to protect ourselves.
That's very, very true! This is another
restatement of I. J. Good's "Meta-Golden
Rule". We hopefully pass on the memes of
compassion and protection of the weak, so
that we ourselves may benefit. But read on...
> Which is why we may all of sudden feel
> the need to create laws for animals.
No, people's feelings for animals are often
deep and genuine, and not so self-serving
as you indicate. But yes, it's true, I'd
be much in favor even of laws (which would
spread such memes) were it not that liberty
and freedom have been shown to be of such
crucial importance in economic and social
evolution.
> Would you like to have a stand by body bank?
> How much safer is a stand by body bank from
> plastic surgery? There are a great deal of
> benefits to having replaceable body parts.
Yes indeed! A "body bank" such as you suggest
would harm no one, except the usual Luddites
who are afraid that something may change, or
that someone may benefit in an unforeseen way,
or in a way that doesn't personally interest
them.
Lee Corbin
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