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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (79319)	12/1/2003 5:01:56 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Not in and of itself. As I said previously--you and I might have much the same view of animal "rights". I am questioning the basis, not the judgment. People such as Kant and Aquinas eschewed animal rights on the basis that animals felt no pain. However, any intelligent person with modern awareness and knowledge may reasonably infer pain by analyzing response. So what does pain have to do with it? Well...there is a school of philosophy which holds that rights depend on interest. First there is consciousness, then there is directed consciousness. It is thought (at a minimum) that most animals are sufficiently sentient to feel pain and to have an interest in the matter. In a world where might (and species prejudice) is automatically set aside as an arbiter of moral inter-relationship--we might be left with a rational basis for "rights"--individual interest aside from coercion or claim. So pretending the pig cannot consciously form an interest in tomorrow...we are at least reasonably convinced that most animals have an interest in avoiding suffering. On this basis, a considerate creature (recognizing that there may be far superior life forms in the universe) ought to consider a policy of "rights" which involves at a minimum the appreciation of sentience--and the fact of sentient interest present in other organisms. That is the minimum--to minimize pain. Now if animals have a higher "interest" than such a limited consciousness...then we need to do some serious soul-searching. Any person with any sort of sensitivity (if they be honest) will admit that animals exhibit a range of emotions and of thought...