Re: Extropians and animal rights

From: Ian Goddard (Ian@Goddard.net)
Date: Tue Jan 12 1999 - 10:23:35 MST


At 05:31 AM 1/12/99 -0800, Terry Donaghe wrote:

>>I'd rather not live in a society where people could
>>torture animals in their own home if they felt like it.
>
>Why not? Again, as I've said, not too many people are going to
>torture animals in the first place. If you decide to create laws
>against it, you're just cheapening everyone's property by telling them
>what they can and can't do with it.

  IAN: But that argument fails to observe
  the fact that there's a difference between
  a chair and an animal... owning a self-owner,
  a sentient being, is not the same as owning
  a chair. An animal is inherently a self-owner
  because it claims to own its body; apart from
  existing, a chair or table make no such claim.

  The fact that sawing the leg off a chair and
  sawing the leg off a live dog would be drasti-
  cally different events (one being neutral and
  one being a sight of horror and pain) is just
  the measure that animals are not the same kind
  of property as inanimate objects. "Caretaker"
  is the proper context of the animal "owner."

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