Planet Debate 2011 September/October l-d release Animal Rights
AT: “Rights Talk Bad” – Solves Rights Kritiks
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- AT: “Rights Talk Bad” – Solves Rights Kritiks
- AT: “Rights Talk Bad” – Animal Rights Talk Increases Meaning of Rights
AT: “Rights Talk Bad” – Solves Rights KritiksUTILIZING RIGHTS DISCOURSE FOR ANIMALS MAINTAINS THE MEANINGS OF RIGHTS WHILE SOLVING THE KRITIKS OF RIGHTS Silverstein, Professor, Lafayette College of Government and law, 1996 Unleashing Rights: law, meaning and the animal rights movement, p. 79 In short, there is good reason to believe that philosophical and political attempts to extend rights to animals maintain the power of the language while at the same time infusng the language with alternative meaning. Still this extension of rights is significantly constrained. It is constrained by the fact that not all animal advocates are proponents of rights talk. Even for those advocates who use rights, there is not complete clarity on what the language means or how it ought to be applied. The indeterminacy of rights, while offering flexibility, does create some degree of ambiguity and incoherence. If, for instance, animals have the right to be free from suffering, is it acceptable to kill and eat them if the killing is done painlessly?
Unleashing Rights: law, meaning and the animal rights movement, p. 32 What may be surprising is that this movement deploys rights in a way that stresses the values of relationship, responsibility, caring, and community. Unlike the traditional, liberal conception of rights, which emphasizes individualism, separation, and freedom from interference, the implicit and explicit association of these alternative values with the terminology of animal rights has helped to imbue the language with a new content. As a result, the construction of animals rights based on the associated notions of sentience, reciprocal responsibility, and relationship to a broad community begins to challenge the liberal, individualistic underpinnings of rights and fosters a reconceptualization of the language. ANIMAL RIGHTS MOVEMENT PRESENTS THE OPPORTUNITY TO TRANSFORM RIGHTS DISCOURSE – SOLVE THE KS Silverstein, Professor, Lafayette College of Government and law, 1996 Unleashing Rights: law, meaning and the animal rights movement, p. 79 Nevertheless, the point to be stressed is the following. The ability to extend rights language, alter its content, and maintain its power is clearly constrained, but the constraints do not stem from anything intrinsic in or absolute about rights language. Nor are critics correct to suggest that rights are always constrained because only those in power control the meaning and potency of the language. Instead, the primary constraint stems from the philosophical and practical context within which rights have been deployed. On the other hand, this constraint also provides opportunity: the opportunity to find in the historical practice of rights the foundations for alternative meanings and power and the opportunity to alter the present practical context in which rights are deployed. This is what the animal rights movement sought to do.
Helena Silverstein, Professor, Lafayette College of Government and law, 1996, Unleashing Rights: law, meaning and the animal rights movement, p. 228-9 One of the most crucial contextual variables influencing the animal rights movement is its unique position, one that is politically and ideologically at the margins but occupied by advocates and supporters who are relatively mainstream and privileged in terms of wealth and education. When we consider this positioning, we see the importance of addressing context. On the one hand, recognizing the composition and characteristics of the movement’s constituency and leadership highlights the resonance and appeal that rights language and philosophical debate over rights have for supporters. At the same time, since movement supporters and leaders tend to be more privileged than the rest of the population, the appeal of the philosophical attempts to alter rights may be less successful beyond this white, educated, professional, affluent constituency. On the other hand the marginalized position of the movement as a whole signals the importance of addressing the view from the outside. As the minority critique of Critical Legal Studies suggests, scholars should “look to the bottom,” that is, to the perspective of the oppressed, in order to develop a more complete understanding of the turn to law. Delgado (1987) makes this point by arguing that rights continue to be useful for minorities who experience racism because they may make the oppressors pause before they oppress and inhibit further oppression. To dismiss rights, Delagado observes, might be easy for scholars theorizing about a more ideal future. But, for outsiders experiencing oppression in their everyday lives, rights offer a weapon that cannot yet be discarded. Along these lines, the marginalized position of the animal rights movement stresses the present-day utility of rights. Rights continue to provide an entry point through which the marginalized can challenge the system. Rights offer a language with which to communicate within the system. Given animal advocates’ views of the tremendous abuse and oppression nonhumans experience each day, the need to employ all the tools at their disposal is crucial. AT: “Rights Talk Bad” – Animal Rights Talk Increases Meaning of RightsRIGHTS DISCOURSE FOR ANIMALS STRENGHTENS THE LANGUAGE OF RIGHTS FOR HUMANS Silverstein, Professor, Lafayette College of Government and law, 1996, Unleashing Rights: law, meaning and the animal rights movement, p. 53 We should not be surprised by the turn to rights language or by the influence rights analysis has had on animal issues. Given Western theory’s emphasis on natural rights and human rights, the extension to animal rights is hardly shocking. Still, there is understandable concern that extending rights too far may diminish the power and content of rights language. However, I have argued that extension of rights to animals as it is promoted in philosophical works has not and does not threaten to undermine the power and meaning of the language. To the contrary, expanding rights to animals reaffirms human rights in a variety of ways and imbues rights language with a content emphasizing sentience. RIGHTS DISCOURSE FOR ANIMALS INCREAESES MEANING OF RIGHTS Silverstein, Professor, Lafayette College of Government and law, 1996, Unleashing Rights: law, meaning and the animal rights movement, p. 53 If it is true that philosophical debate over animal rights has offered alternative meaning to the language and reinforced the power of rights, then it may be said that specific debate over animal rights has constituted the meaning of rights in general. It is certainly true that rights theory in general has constituted the development and meaning of animal rights. But it also appears that the development of animal rights philosophy shapes, or at least has the potential to shape, the meaning of rights. By infusing rights with alternative content, the philosophical meaning of rights is reconstituted. Although this infusion of alternative content has not replaced more traditional notions of rights, it has offered a competing perspective on how rights might be understood. ANIMAL RIGHTS STRENGTHENS THE CASE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS Helena Silverstein, Professor, Lafayette College of Government and law, 1996, Unleashing Rights: law, meaning and the animal rights movement, p. 231 The alternative identity images of humans and nonhumans are noteworthy because not only do they elevate animals to the level of rights-bearing entities, they further speak to human rights. On the one hand, identifying animals as rights-bearing beings places considerable limits on what we now take to be human rights. If animal rights are accepted, the rights of humans to eat and wear what we choose is no longer viable. On the other hand, as argued in earlier chapters, animal rights reinforce certain human rights and, in turn, human identity. Because the notion of animal rights goes beyond rationality, it maintains the rights and identities of those humans who lack rationality, including the rights of the mentally disabled and children. 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