SkepticalGreg said:
Dessi has repeatedly said in one way or another that we shouldn't treat animals in a way we wouldn't treat humans.
I may be wrong, but I don't think that's what she's saying. The fact is we treat everybody differently, humans, animals, whatever. What Dessi is advocating for isn't treatment per se, but
regard. We should regard and respect animals with the same consideration that we regard human beings. Once we see animals in that light, appropriate treatment follows. It will be different from how humans are treated, but it will be as loving, as compassionate, as respectful. That's what I think she means.
100% correct. Its about
equal consideration of interests. I'm really fond of Peter Singer, I think this view sums up my feelings in a nutshell:
Peter Singer said:
If a being suffers there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with the like suffering – insofar as rough comparisons can be made – of any other being.
I'm fond of excruciatingly long posts, so here goes...
Imagine if someone denied the existence of human rights on the basis that we don't literally treat people exactly the same irrespective of differences. They might say "of course we treat people differently, you deny patients organ transplants if they have an incompatible blood type, you're discriminating on blood type!". Or how about, "its legal to discriminate against white actors who want to portray Martin Luther King in movies, that's racial discrimination!"
What would you do upon hearing that? Would you say, hmmmmmm, equal rights but different treatment, I guess human rights are a fiction? Or, would you laugh in that person's face, "here's your sign".
Sometimes differences between people really don't matter, sometimes differences rationally justify different treatment between others. I like the example
given here:
If two of my students have the same grades on exams and papers, and have identical attendance and class participation, I am morally obliged to give them the same final grade. That one is blue-eyed and the other is brown-eyed may be a difference between them, but it is not morally relevant to grading them.
There's a whole class of civil rights laws which fall under
bona fide occupational qualifications. It's illegal to discriminate against women seeking positions as software developers, yet its legal to discriminate against women who audition for the role of president John F Kennedy in historical films. If someone feels its important to discriminate against female developers, they better have a
damn good reason.
With regard to animal rights, we'd likely not strap our cat into a child safety seat because those devices weren't designed to accommodate a cat's safety or comfort. We'd likely not put our children in pet carriers for the same reason. The distinction here has nothing to do with cats and children being different species. We need to care for each one's welfare and safety, but we also need to understand that there are anatomical differences between them which rationally justifies accommodating them in different ways.
We might consider an interest in not starving to death to be important. We'd likely not force a child to graze outdoors, or force a cow to eat pancakes and hashbrowns at the table due to obvious anatomical differences, wants, etc.
Occasionally, I really do compare animals and humans being treated literally equally. I'm quite fond of saying things like
this:
I'd say its ok to slaughter animals for food, infect them diseases and cancers, and use their organs for transplantation only in the areas where it would be acceptable to use a mentally similar human in the exact same way.
How do we rationally justify slaughtering and tormenting animals if treating mentally similar humans would be undeniably cruel? Is it due to an anatomical difference? Mental difference? Species difference?
That question pretty much
is the animal rights debate in a nutshell. Years of discussion on the subject have lead me to the following view described
here:
Dessi said:
Should we treat animal rights as 'equal' to human rights?
Yes, animals and mentally similar humans are moral equals. Arguments against animal rights are problematic because they unavoidably carry over to arguments the human rights. For example, if I make an argument that animals have no rights because they aren't rational moral agents, I must concede that mentally similar humans are no more advantaged; if I argue that non-rational humans have rights, I must concede that rationality is not a prerequisite for moral consideration, and such a principle logically carries over to non-human animals. Animal rights and human rights are two sides of the same coin.
