Subject:
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Re: 3 Question (was: Did animals have rights before we invented rights?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 3 Jul 2001 23:58:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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847 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Ross Crawford writes:
>
> > OK. You asserted "animals are amoral" with nothing to back it up.
>
> I think that until we have clear evidence that animals understand morality, we
> have to assume that they probably don't.
How well do humans understand morality? I doubt animals would have the same
idea of morality as humans, heck even different humans have different ideas...
> Even if an animal does lots of nice
> things, I wouldn't call it moral unless it had the ability to decide to do
> not-nice things as well.
Type "pit bull attack" into your favourite search engine. Do these animals
know they're doing a bad thing? I don't know. But then from a dog's point of
view, mauling humans may not be a bad thing?
> And even then, I think I'd lean toward not calling
> something moral until I had evidence that it understood the concept of morality
> and could discuss morals.
You're unlikely to find such eveidence (in the short term, anyway), because
another animal's concept of morals and methods of "discussion" are probably
totally different & not understood by humans.
> > To those who assert humans have "fundamental rights", I'd ask 3 questions:
>
> You aren't asking me, since I dont' think that, but...
Well, below you've said we have the fundamental right to agree on rights,
which contradicts that statement.
> > 1. What are these fundamental rights;
>
> The right to agree on rights?
Perhaps.
> > 2. When did humans get them; and
>
> When they first organized sufficiently to construct a social pattern that we
> now call rights.
And when was that? Are apes anywhere near sufficiently organised? Why / why not?
> > 3. How did humans get them?
>
> Through thought and socialization.
So that's saying they're devised by humans, which IMO means they aren't
"fundamental".
Or alternatively, they *are* fundamental, but were only "discovered" by
humans through thought and socialization, in which case I'd ask how do we
know such rights don't exist for other animals?
ROSCO
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