Do non human animals have rights?
Of course
Side Score: 12
|
 |
Of course not
Side Score: 5
|
|
|
|
|
Human beings are complex evolved creatures who are accorded rights on the basis that they are able to think and to feel pain. Many other animals are also able to think (to some extent) and are certainly able to feel pain. Therefore non-human animals should also be accorded rights to lead a free healthy life ;) Side: Of course
Human beings are complex evolved creatures Just for the record, so are almost every living creature in the entire planet. Millions of years of evolution have brought most creatures to a high level of complexity, and every organism is the pinnacle of evolution. who are accorded rights on the basis that they are able to think and to feel pain. Please define think. Thinking is a quite complex and covers a wide variety of concepts. Man is the only creature that thinks in some regards, and very few animals have been proven to have conscious thought. Obviously animals have some realm of thought (an ability to interpret chemical signals), but it is too much of a broad category to award rights without specification. Therefore non-human animals should also be accorded rights to lead a free healthy life Due to your reasoning (that rights should be awarded based on pain and thinking), should animals that do not posses these attributes be awarded rights? How about plants? Is there a bright line or threshold to this argument? Side: Of course
Ok, humans have a conscious making them a more complex creature than anything else on the planet. By think I am trying to say as in a octopus can open a jar with food inside of it. It has to solve the problem by itself it isn't going off of memory, therefore it is thinking. Plants do not think and feel pain, we'll use the same definition of think as used above. Since plants do not think or feel pain they do not deserve rights as they do not have these attributes. Side: Of course
Not the same rights as people of course. And I have nothing against hunting, fishing, etc. as long as what is being killed is used in some way. I would say some minimum rights though should be observed. For instance purposeful torture should be unacceptable. And slaughter houses and othe such establishments should be held to some standard of ethical animal treatment prior to killing them, and the actual killing should be done in a far more humane way than it currently is. You can look up the videos on YouTube, not sure how they can get away with some of the stuff they do in those places. Side: Of course
1
point
|
Human beings are infinitely more complex than any other living creatures. Their abilities to think and talk, to form social systems with rights and responsibilities, and to feel emotions are uniquely developed well beyond any other animals. It is reasonable to try to prevent the most obvious cases of gratuitous suffering or torture of animals, but beyond that, non-human animals do not deserve to be given rights as though they are of the same level of life as a human being. Side: Of Course Not
2
points
animals don't feel pain they are conscious automata they have certain receptors in the brain that allow them to know what pain is but not actually exhibit any form of emotion. Human beings on the other hand are more complex and since they have a higher form of consciousness they have the ability to rationalize and feel pleasure/or suffering and even if animals were given said rights what would they do because wild animals as far as anyone's concerned do whatever they want. Side: Of Course Not
Do you have proof of your first sentence? I am fairly sure studies of several animals' brain activity show pretty difinitevely they feel. I'm not sure being able to rationalize what they're feeling constitutes not feeling. A two-year-old can't rationalize, but we know they feel. Side: Of course
|
