Ajit Sinha wrote:
>
> Do you think animals have rights or not?
No. I don't like rights-based theories at all--they have intractable
problems-- but in some cases ,like
abortion, talk about "rights" makes the conversation a lot easier. Most
political philosophies, even contractarians like Rawls and Gauthier,
make some use of the concept of "rights". Nozick argues that one cannot
derive any conception of property rights from a right to life.(A,S,U
p129) So its possible to talk about a right to life while eschewing all
other talk about rights.
If yes, do you think animals have
> consciousness of right and obligation? The ideas of rights and obligations are our
> cultural construct.
On some theories, yes. A lot of rights-based theorists argue that
rights are absolute and universal with no difference across cultures
(Nozick). N's conception of rights is so strong that he assumes what he
is trying to prove.
Natural law theorists like Murray Rothbard try and derive rights from
nature. The most prominent rights based theorist (and defender of
abortion) ,Ronald Dworkin,I think, agrees with you, he says: "Individual
rights are political trumps held by individuals. Individuals have rights
when, for some reason, a collective goal is not a sufficient
justification for denying them what they wish, as individuals, to have
or do, or not a justification for imposing some loss or injury on them."
(Taking Rights Seriously pXI)
Dworkin isn't interested in discussing the ontological foundations
of rights, he posits them to derive his legal and poltical theories.
An entity does not have to be conscious of the right that is
> conferred to it by us--it has mainly to do with who we are.
To repeat, why assign rights to people and not trees? There must be a
criterion for assigning rights or rights become arbitrary.
By the way, an infant, in
> my opinion, has no consciousness of anything that would confer it a right to life by
> your definition.
An infant does have consciousness, so there must be some intentional
content.
A human infant, unlike many other small animals, is not born
> completely prepared to survive in the outside environment--this is the price we have
> to pay for having a large brain.
Yes, humans spend a lot of time--a great deal more than most animals--
in raising and rearing the young in hopes time invested now will pay off
later in terms of reproductive success. Most human brains operate at
about 10-15% capacity (and that's not just some of the participants on
usenet
groups).
But, Ajit, perhaps you know all this?
Sam Pawlett
