Planet Debate 2011 September/October l-d release Animal Rights
Animal Rights System Creates Problems
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Animal Rights System Creates ProblemsANIMAL RIGHTS CREATES MANY CONUNDRUMS Richard A. Epstein, Professor of Law, University of Chicago, 2004, Animal Rights: Current debates and new directions, eds. Sunstein & Nussbaum, p. 153 Even if we could answer these conundrums, we still face a greater challenge: Do we have it within our power to arbitrate the differences among animals? Do we train the lion to lie down with the lamb, or do we let the lion consume the lamb in order to maintain his traditional folkways? Do we ask chimpanzees to forgo eating monkeys? It is odd to intervene in nature to forestall some deadly encounters, especially if our enforced nonaggression could lead to the extermination of predator species. But, if animals have rights, then how do we avoid making these second-tier judgments? We could argue that animals should not be restrained because they are not moral agents because they do not have the deliberative capacity to tell right from wrong, and therefore cannot be bound by rules that they can neither articulate nor criticize nor defend. But at this point we must ask whether we could use force in self-defense against such wayward creatures, or must we let them have their way with us, just as they do with other animals? In answer to this question, it could be said that animals cannot be held responsible by human standards because of their evident lack of capacity to conform. SAYING THAT PROTECTIONS SHOULD BE EXTENDED FOR ISSUES THAT IMPACT ANIMAL INTERESTS UNWORKABLE—WOULD INCLUDE THE RIGHT TO VOTE Steve F. Sapontzis, Professor of philosophy, California State University, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 274 Voting is an example of this. Non-human animals cannot understand what voting is all about and how it affects their interests. Consequently, unlike humans, nonhuman animals do not feel vulnerable or demeaned because they are not allowed to vote. None the less, which politicians are elected and which are not critically effect their interests. For instance, it would benefit the interests of nonhuman great apes if politicians who oppose harmful experiments on nonhuman primates were elected. Thus, nonhuman great apes have an interest in voting, even thought they cannot take an interest in voting. So, if we are to extend to nonhuman great apes the same sorts of moral and legal protections of their interests that humans currently (are supposed to) enjoy, then this interest in voting must enter into our deliberations. We might conclude that nonhuman animals need the right to vote—through a concerned, informed guardian – in order to protect their interests in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, the difficulties of implementing such a right are so great as to render that conclusion thoroughly implausible. How are nonhuman animals to be counted and registered, and how are human proxy voters to be selected and nonhuman proxies assigned to them? Also, in the case of children, whose interests are also affected by voting, we do not conclude that protecting their interests entails that they have the right to vote. By analogy, protecting the interests of nonhuman great apes would not entail such a right. ARGUMENT THAT RIGHTS MUST BE GRANTED TO PROTECT ANYTHING SOMEONE HAS AN INTEREST IN IS OVERLY SIMPLISTIC Steve F. Sapontzis, Professor of philosophy, California State University, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 274 Such cases indicate that it is simplistic to infer that because something has an impact on the basic interests of members of a group, and those interests should be protected, we must conclude that members of that group have a right to (or against) that something. There is a tendency, especially in the United States, immediately – and vociferously—to employ the concept of rights whenever questions of protecting interests arise. But that concept does not readily fit all such situations, especially when the interests in question are not those of normal, human adults, i.e. those of intellectually sophisticated, autonomous agents. Consequently, morally and legally protecting the basic interests of nonhuman animals may involve some ingenuity and thoughtful working with a variety of moral and legal categories, rather than automatically demanding rights for nonhuman animals to (or against) those things which (can, will, would) have an impact on their basic interests. For example, the Declaration of Great Apes defines the community of equals in terms of “moral principles or rights”, and among the three principles enumerated, only one is identified as a right, the others being a “protection” and a “prohibition.”
Richard Posner, Federal Circuit Judge, 2004, Animal Rights: Current debates and new directions, eds. Sunstein & Nussbaum, p. 57-8 Wise has no theory of rights, no notion of why legal rights are created in the first place. It is not in recognition of cognitive capacity. Slaves have cognitive capacity but no rights. Legal rights are instruments for securing the liberties that are necessary if a democratic system of government is to provide a workable framework for social order and prosperity. The conventional rights bearers are with minor exceptions actual and potential voters and economic actors. Animals do not fit this description, and Wise makes no effort to show that extending rights to them would nevertheless serve the purposes for which rights are created. And to the extent that courts are outside the normal political processes, his approach is deeply undemocratic. There are more animals in the United States than people; if the animals are given capacious rights by judges who do not conceive themselves to be representatives of the people—indeed, who use a methodology that owes nothing to popular opinion or democratic preference—the de facto weight of the animal population in the society’s political choices will approach or even exceed that of the human population. Judges will become the virtual representatives of the animals, casting in effect millions of votes to override the democratic choices of the human population.
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