Animal stuff almost done

[sawyl]

I think the main argument of my essay is done, although it still requires polishing, bolstering with quotations, and proof-reading. The basic question was, "Does denying that animals have rights have absurd consequences for our treatment of some human beings", to which my, perhaps rather surprising, answer was essentially no.

The basic argument goes a bit like this:

Tom Regan says that animals have rights because they have inherent value. All who have inherent value have it equally. Inherent value comes from being an experiencing subject of a life (what a yucky phrase!).

This isn't the case, it's based on a misunderstanding of rights. Rights exist because rational beings can opt into them and can agree reciprocal relationships of rights and duties with other rational beings. Animals aren't rational, therefore it's as nonsensical to talk about animal having rights as it is to talk about trees having rights. Unfortunately, this means that humans who aren't smart enough to understand the opt-in relationships can't have rights either. Not good — absurd to say the least.

Ok, so here comes the science bit, time to concentrate. Let's accept the situation and deny that animals have rights and, being fair, let's do the same for some humans. What does this mean? Can we do what we like with these people? Nope. They may not have rights, but we still duties towards them even if these duties don't stem from rights. The idea that morality is entirely defined by rights and duties, by the sphere of justice, is wrong: non-right based duties can be just as strong as rights based ones.

Therefore, denying that animals have rights does not have absurd consequences for our treatment of some human beings.

Obviously, there's a bit more to it than that, but that's the basic gist of it. And now, for my next trick, I will offer a comprehensive a priori proof for the existence of zebra crossings...