Subject:
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Re: 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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Wed, 4 Jul 2001 18:29:36 GMT
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Viewed:
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1011 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Daniel Jassim writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton writes:
> > Excellent. As I've advocated many times, taking something to the extreme is
> > the only way to test its validity. If it doesn't hold at the extremes, it
> > doesn't hold.
>
> But I'm sure you'd agree the validity of
> something (an action or idea) is often situational and cannot be
> judged/argued if it happens in extremes or abolute vacuum. ... For example,
> yelling at a loved is not very nice, but in an emergency like a house on
> fire, you'll be yelling like crazy because of the tense situation.
*Exactly* my point. The statement "It is not very nice to yell at loved
ones" therefore does not hold, because it is untrue in extremes. It does not
mean it is *always* *not* "not very nice", but that the statemtent/theory
itself is not correct, because situations (extremes) can exist which make it
untrue.
> A side note about "rights": They change and evolve to suit our times and
> even selfish purposes.
I'm not sure I agree with that or not-- mostly because I would argue that
what you're referring to as rights were not "fundamental" rights, which
really are the only rights I'd consider to be valid. Everything else is some
form of developed situational morality, which may not apply in other
situations, see above :) Of course, that doesn't mean they're NOT rights,
but I wouldn't call them such because (again, as above) calling them rights
doesn't hold in our society at least (to draw an extreme).
> I think believing animals do not have rights, that animals are somehow
> beneath us or our God given servants, is downright ignorant. WE are animals,
> that is a scientific fact.
Agree. As I said before, I think morality is conceivable without "advanced"
thought-- all one needs (I think) is the ability to posess desires, the
ability to recognize others' desires (existant or not), and the ability to
contrast others' desires as having value in the same manner that one's own
desires have value. And personally, I think each of these is developmental--
and buying into evolution, I think applies to animals quite easily.
DaveE
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