Planet Debate 2011 September/October l-d release Animal Rights
AT: “Animals Lack Rationality”
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- AT: “Animals Lack Intelligence Self Awareness”
AT: “Animals Lack Rationality”JUDGES GRANT LEGAL RIGHTS TO HUMANS WITH LITTLE OR NO PRACTICAL AUTONOMY Steven M. Wise, Animal rights attorney and professor Vermont Law School, 2002, Drawing the Line: science and the case for animal rights, p. 237 Judges and legislators actually do this. Some humans have little or no autonomy but have legal rights. We were introduced to a couple of them in Rattling the Cage: Joseph Saikewicz, a sixty-seven-year-old man with an IQ of ten, and Beth, a ten-month-old girl born into a persistent vegetative state. The state of Louisiana has even enacted a statute that designates a fertilized in vitro ovum a legal person before it is implanted in a womb. Louisiana judges may appoint curators to protect its rights, and the fertilized ovum can even sue and be sued. SEVERELY IMPAIRED HUMANS STILL HAVE RIGHTS Steven M. Wise, Animal rights attorney and professor Vermont Law School, 2002, Drawing the Line: science and the case for animal rights, p. 237-8 Imagine a little girl like Beth was born in a local hospital to a young woman who doesn’t want her. No one knows who the father is. Her nearly nonexistent brain does nothing more than keep her alive. Her heart pumps, her lungs inflate, her intestines absorb. But she is neither conscious nor sentient. She cannot think or feel. She is so utterly devoid of any higher brain functions that emergency surgery was performed on her immediately after birth without anesthesia; she didn’t need any. She has no mind. Yet she has the legal right to bodily integrity, though it must be exercised by someone else. It is important to note that no one suggests she be eaten or used in terminal biomedical research.
Joan Dunayer, Animal Rights Activist, 2004, Speciesism, p. 23-4 Nonhuman behavior continually refutes the assertion that only humans reason. While a family of beavers slept in their lodge, a vandal tore a large hold in their dam. Water escaped with such force that the beavers’ pond soon would drain. Emerging from the family lodge at his usual time of early evening, the father beaver rapidly swam to the dam and, wide-eyed, observed its condition. Quickly he crossed the pond, felled a large shrub, dragged it into the water, towed it to the break, and wedged it into the top of dam’s wall. He repeated this process, which failed to staunch the outflow, only once. By sight and sound, the pond’s water loss was obvious only at the surface, yet the beaver addressed underwater damage. He started to uproot lily plants (usually reserved for eating) and began using them to plug the dam’s underwater leaks. Soon three of his offspring emerged from the lodge and hurried to assist him. The four beavers worked to repair the dam with vegetation, mud and sticks. Whenever dissatisfied with his offsprings’ placement of sticks, the father repositioned them for greater tightness and stability. The next day while the beavers slept, human volunteers carried sticks to the dam. When the father beaver emerged from the lodge at his usual time, he pulled a log from the roof and towed it to the dam. Clearly, he remembered the urgent need for building materials. With cries of joy, he discovered the pile of sticks left by human well-wishers. He started putting the sticks to use. Soon four of his offspring arrived, towing logs that they had removed from the lodge. Of those beavers able to help, only the mother stayed behind, to care for newborn kids. In addition to making the dam leak-proof, the beavers added six inches to its height, so that future rainfall would raise the pond’s water level. Beavers plan, deduce, and act accordingly. DIFFERENCES IN INTELLIGENCE AMONG HUMANS DON’T JUSTIFY DIFFERENCES IN TREATMENT CONCERNING RIGHTS Joan Dunayer, Animal Rights Activist, 2004, Speciesism, p. 25 Some humans have much higher IQs than others. Should the law permit those with high IQs to enslave or murder those with low IQs? We don’t accord rights in proportion to a human’s IQ. In the 2002 case Atkins v Virginia, the US Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment of humans with profound mental disabilities is unconstitutional. The law affords special protections to humans of exceptionally low mental capacity. Yet, the allegedly lower intelligence of nonhumans is cited as justification for denying them rights. AT: “Animals Lack Rationality”INTELLIGENCE IS MORALLY IRRELEVANT TO THE QUESTION OF RIGHTS ENTITLEMENT Joan Dunayer, Animal Rights Activist, 2004, Speciesism, p. 26 Normal human intelligence isn’t a valid criterion for basic rights. Any signs of thought indicate than an individual is conscious, capable of experiencing. Beyond that, intelligence is morally irrelevant. Regardless of their degree of human-like intelligence, nonhumans would greatly benefit from laws protecting them from human harm. We don’t require that a human possess any particular level of intelligence in order to have rights. Democratic societies protect all human animals, whatever their intellectual capacity. The same should apply to other animals. AT: “Animals Lack Intelligence & Self Awareness”USING INTELLIGENCE AS THE BENCHMARK FOR RIGHTS WOULD EXCLUDE SOME HUMANS Joan Dunayer, Animal Rights Activist, 2004, Speciesism, p. 25-6 Those who disqualify nonhumans from rights on the grounds that they lack human-like intelligence unwittingly disqualify many humans as well. Humans differ widely in their cognitive abilities, which overlap with nonhuman ones. If no nonhuman can solve complex equations or write a philosophical treatise, neither can most humans. Even by conventional standards, a mature catfish is in many ways more cognizant than a newborn or a senile human, and the average pigeon or rat possesses greater learning and reasoning ability than many humans with mental disabilities. ARGUMENTS OF LACK OF INTELLIGENCE OR THE ANIMALS ABILITY TO MAKE CLAIMS ON ITS OWN EXCLUDE MILLIONS OF HUMANS Steven M. Wise, Professor Animal Rights Law at the Harvard Law School, 2000, “Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals” Questia p. 57 Must a person be able to physically make a claim in order to have one? The answer depends upon whether one emphasizes the "claim" part or the "duty" part of the claim-duty pairing. One school of legal scholars (we'll call them the Benefit/Interest School) emphasizes "duty." Any being with interests--an adult woman, a profoundly retarded man, an infant, a chimpanzee, or a dolphin--could, if allowed to be a legal person, have a claim that correlates to another person's duty. The opposing school (the Control/Choice School) accents "claims." These scholars argue that a person must actually have the mental wherewithal to be able to choose to make a claim and to control how it is made. 36 Profoundly retarded men / WOMEN and infants, who lack these mental abilities, cannot then have claims. An even stricter branch of the Control/Choice School--we'll call it the "Strict Control/Choice" School--says that claims and duties can only exist between members of a "moral community." Unless one has the capacity not just to choose but to act morally, one can have no claims. If required to meet the more stringent requirements of the Strict Control/Choicers, none but the most extraordinary nonhuman animal could ever have a claim. But here's the rub: Millions of human beings would also be ineligible--and not just the profoundly retarded, but the insane, the permanently vegetative, and the very young. Many more human adults and older children, and perhaps even apes, whales, and parrots, might have claims if the Control/Choice School prevailed. But vast numbers of human beings would still be ineligible, as would most other animals. However, if the Benefit/Interest School triumphs, aside from the permanently vegetative, virtually every human being would be entitled to claims; but so would a large number of other animals. 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