Libertarians for Cruelty to Quarterbacks
Radley Balko writes, apropos of the Michael Vick indictment, "I don't think there's anything unlibertarian about laws against animal cruelty." Balko thinks Vick should go to prison if he's convicted on federal charges related to a dog-fighting enterprise allegedly run out of the NFL quarterback's property in Virginia.
Whether you agree with Balko that government laws against animal cruelty are consistent with libertarianism--and if the war in Iraq can be libertarian, what can't be?--he's misstating the question. The federal government did not charge Vick with animal cruelty. As is often the case in today's prosecutor-based judicial system, Vick and his co-defendants are charged with a vague derivative offense of dubious constitutionality. If Balko wants an honest debate, he should ask, "Are laws against 'Conspiracy to Travel in Interstate Commerce in Aid of Unlawful Activities and to Sponsor a Dog in an Animal Fighting Venture' unlibertarian?"
The indictment identifies three key components of an alleged conspiracy to commit "offenses against the United States":
- First, "traveling in interstate commerce . . . with intent to commit any crime of violence to further any unlawful activity . . . to wit: a business enterprise involving gambling in violation of [Virginia law]";
- Second, "knowingly sponsoring and exhibiting an animal in an animal fighting venture, if any animal in the venture has moved in interstate commerce"; and
- Finally, "knowingly buying, transporting, delivering, and receiving for purposes of transportation, in interstate commerce, any dog for the purposes of having the dog participate in an animal fighting venture".
UPDATE: Balko recants in reply to my post above. He restates his animal cruelty thesis as follows:
My approach to animal cruelty laws would be about the same as my approach to the abortion issue. Most people would agree that many animals deserve more moral consideration than, say, a table. Exactly what animals have what rights, and how those rights should be protected, are matters of line-drawing--police powers. And police powers are best left up to as local a jurisdiction as possible, so they can write laws that best reflect each state or community's values.
Comments (49)
I am very much personally opposed to dog fighting, but I agree that the greatest danger here is the absolutely unsupportable involvement of the feds in what should be a matter only of state law.
Published: July 18, 2007 10:43 PM
Oliva, you're going at this all wrong. IF you want to make a libertarian based argument against government intrusion and over-stepping, then first establish the principles by which you hope to draw the distinction. To this, I refer to Rothbard. HEre is what I think Rothbard would have said (and I paraphrase from the chapter on animals in his Ethics of Liberty book):
It has become fashionable to apply the notion of rights to animals, and to assert that since animals have the same rights men do, it is impermissible to either eat or kill them. Clearly, there are many problems with such an argument.
First of all, how far should we extend the notion of animal rights? If it is wrong to kill dogs, then why should it not also be wrong (or illegal) to step on a cockroach, or swat flies? Even granting this much, as some do, why not apply the notion of rights to every living organism? Must it then also be illegal to kill bacteria and eat plants? These considerations show that the unscrupulous application of rights to non-humans would hinder rather than promote the notion of true human rights. (Men would not go very far if they were prohibited from consuming meat or using plants).
One must also understand how the notion of rights developed. Why is it a common feature of man, and why do rights only exist in the faculty of human reason? This is because rights are grounded in the nature of man, who is a social, rational being. Reason allows man to develop a theory of natural rights. Only man possesses reason, and therefore only men can have rights. No other living being has the ability to reason, to make conscious choices, to use his mind, to pursue values, and to discover physical laws about the world.
It is also true that the concept of rights, for it to have any validity, must be applied universally to the particular species concerned (in this case man). Every human being, regardless of race, color, sex, or creed possesses rights by virtue of their existence. No one may aggress or violate these rights. Why? Because everyone has them.
Now try to apply this to the animal kingdom. Animals follow different laws than men do. For example, it would make no sense to say that the wolf is violating the sheep's rights by devouring it for supper. It is equally absurd to say that man is aggressing against cows for the production of dairy products. Rights violations can only apply to actions of men against other men.
This argument is much more sound. In fact, I believe such a train of reasoning would lead to the quick and painless exoneration of Michael Vick. Come to think of it, I am going to forward this post to his legal team now.
Published: July 18, 2007 11:25 PM
At first I was like, whoa, who can be against animal cruelty laws. Then I looked at it through the prisim of libertarianism, or more especially federalism.
That is, that animal cruelty should be against the law, but it should be local states to inact those laws and leave the ever increasing federal government of the equation.
Published: July 19, 2007 7:59 AM
Are you one of those Libertarians that give other half-decent Libertarians a bad name miller888sd? "Pitting dogs (or cocks, etc) against one other, tearing each other apart, killing the loser is my right because I don't believe animals have rights and that makes it OK" or some bullcrap like that? Or "if you don't like animal cruelty, especially for sport, then you have to become a recluse vegetarian because where do 'animal right begin and end' and 'how can a man feel red-blooded if he can't get his bloodsports'"? This is the sort of rubbish that makes Conservatives seem rather-level headed, decent and left-wing in comparison.
Published: July 19, 2007 8:02 AM
I support the Rothbardian argument against "animal rights," but the commenter above misses the real lesson of the Vick case -- individuals place a high subjective value on certain animals. What's driving the Vick case in the mainstream (as opposed to the animal rights activists) is revulsion against the pain and suffering allegedly inflicted upon animals that most people view as companions rather than meat or instruments of gambling. This is really a case where a majority is trying to punish the minority--which includes the people who watch and wager on dog racing--for holding an unpopular economic preference.
I recall a television writer who once said you could hurt a cat on a show but never a dog -- the latter would always lose the audience. Subjective preference is funny that way.
Published: July 19, 2007 8:03 AM
"Are you one of those Libertarians that give other half-decent Libertarians a bad name miller888sd? "Pitting dogs (or cocks, etc) against one other, tearing each other apart, killing the loser is my right because I don't believe animals have rights and that makes it OK" or some bullcrap like that? "
You seem confused. No, the fact that animals do not have legally enforceable rights (and this is what Rothbard is getting at) does not mean it is moral to mistreat them ; that would be an ethical issue. It is this that the commenter was getting at. Constructing strawmen has never helped anyone.
Published: July 19, 2007 8:40 AM
What seems to be missed throughout any argument I've seen the last few days, is that no one discusses the cost of investigating, arresting, prosecuting, and imprisoning such people. And another effect of having it come from the Federal level versus a local level is that it is much easier to get ones indignation at anothers translating into State action without thinking of the cost. Values are sundered. If people realized and balanced the hundreds of thousands of dollars against the "interests" of a few dogs they may think very differently as to how to approach "punishment". Too often people will resort, default, to using a cudgel and cement boxes against people instead of cultural mechanisms.
I am against dog fighting. But I'm not going to contribute one dollar to force being used against those who are in favor of it. The cost benefit just isn't there, even if disinterest wasn't the overriding factor to mind my own business.
Published: July 19, 2007 8:48 AM
Brad - Like the Mike Nifong scandal, the Vick case was incubated in the closed world of the sports media before being exposed to the mainstream press. This partially explains why there's little consideration given to the type of analysis you mention. Because Vick is a high-profile athlete, it is accepted within the sports press that anything he does deserves a high level of attention. This attracts prosecutors looking for attention.
Published: July 19, 2007 9:01 AM
I concur with the various posters above, that animals have no rights. At the same time, I do not condone blood sports.
As libertarians, we are in a tight spot when it comes to animal welfare. Animals are property. If we choose to protect them via animal welfare laws, we must accept the necessary private property infringement that will result.
For example, banning dog fighting. We are infringing on the dog owners right to use his property in a manner he sees fit.
Obviously, purists would never accept such laws. Moderates and pragmatists probably would. I think moderates and pragmatists would probably agree that if such laws exist, they should only be at the state and local level of government.
On a rather amusing note to a rather sober subject. About four years ago, a cock fight was being held. The handler had just fitted the cock with a spur and was about to start the fight when the cock pulled loose, turned around, and split the guy's abdomen open from top to bottom with the spur, spilling this guy's guts over the cock fighting ring. Truly, a provident act of justice. :)
Published: July 19, 2007 9:12 AM
I only wished we lived in a minimal state or private-protection-agency anarchy. That way, if I came upon someone engaging in acts of cruelty to dogs as outlined in the case with Mr. Vick and friends, I could put a couple bullets into them and likely not have to deal with a leviathan prosecutorial system coming down on me.
Published: July 19, 2007 9:20 AM
One of the few problems I have with libertarian thinking is the acceptance of animals, especially regarding the treatment thereof, as private property, in the same way that tools, houses, equipment, etc., are private property. I simply cannot resolve the issue in my mind although I have given it much thought. I consider this to be one of the most perplexing issues with which libertarians must contend. I am not satisfied with the arguments on either side. I felt the same way regarding the pro-life/abortion debate until I read Walter Block's paper on the matter. Is there such a third alternative regarding the "animals as property" issue?
Published: July 19, 2007 11:49 AM
Luke:
I think the "animals as property" theory can work in a minarchist state, if we are willing to accept ethically based laws against cruelty. The laws would explicitly disclaim any animal rights, but work from an ethical and moral standpoint to prohibit certain acts.
I will admit, this is a very difficult issue, because the "purist" approach leaves us in a very unsatisfactory position of appearing to tolerate very savage activities.
Published: July 19, 2007 12:19 PM
Mark: Let me see if I've got this right; you're saying that so long as we don't care about having a rational ("purist") system of ethics, we can just keep making up arbitrary and inconsistent laws until we feel better about the end result?
How is that any different from what we have now?
Anyway, if you take a minarchist State (which I would claim is no State at all...) and add to it even one more law, you no longer have a minarchist state.
Published: July 19, 2007 3:18 PM
In this case, force applied would not be in self-defense.
We must swallow the fact that we have little control over many facts of life. When it comes to animal cruelty, stick to reason and persuasion, else face the consequences of liberties trampled in the name of arbitrary values.
Published: July 19, 2007 5:36 PM
Jesse and Kevin B.:
As I said previously, this is a difficult issue. I could easily toe the purist line and act accordingly.
If I walk down the street and see someone burning a kitten with gasoline, I would just continue down the street and let the perpetrators go about their merry business.
Maybe that is the consistent position I should take.
I will think further of a way out of this conundrum.
p.s.
As for the time being, in the current real world, if I see such an act being committed, I will make sure the perpetrator suffers more than the animal he abuses.
Published: July 19, 2007 6:25 PM
Should private property owners desire it, they can enter voluntary covenants protecting animals on their properties. E.g. a condition of living in a community may be that one adheres to animal protection rules. Naturally, harming owned animals will be an infringement of property rights, and thus a possible ground for claims. Sorry if this is too "purist" for some, but I see animal "rights" as utter bunk. One need not even be a natural-rights ethicist for this; Kantian ethics alone will do.
Published: July 19, 2007 6:42 PM
"Armed with rational thought but burdened by conscience, humanity faces questions that the amoeba, the dandelion, and the killer whale do not.
Life feeds on life - but where does a moral creature draw the line? Did the legendary noble savage hold the secret - that a simple prayer of thanksgiving over the slaughtered deer absolves the murderous deed? What does it mean to OWN a pet? Can you rightly own even a tree?
The perception of difference is foundation for the slave trade, the holocaust, the holy wars that are still waged today, and countless other atrocities, past, present, and sadly, future. The realization that we are all the same is key to their undoing. Many embrace the truth of this already.
Does the future hold a similar leap of awareness - that humankind is but one family in the nation of all living things? Or are we truly apart and above, rightful rulers of creation, set upon a sacred throne, as so many still firmly believe?"
Published: July 20, 2007 9:41 AM
Luke Fitzhugh: I sympathize with your position (or rather, frustrating lack of position). Most of my libertarian beliefs are held with an absolute conviction - but I am completely unable to accept the wlack and white dichotomy of "humans are not property; everything else is".
Perhaps oddly, I find the 'pro-life' question relatively easy to resolve in comparison. I'm unequivocally pro-choice.
I hate not having the answer. Definitely a frustrating issue.
Published: July 20, 2007 9:56 AM
I walk down the street and see a man savagely beating a human child.
As a theoretical libertarian, is this none of my business? Would intervening to restrain the man be equivalent to a 'war of aggression' or 'foreign adventurism'? Would it represent an 'entangling alliance'? It certainly would not be self defense.
I know what my actual answer is: I would never coerce another individual to assist me in restraining the man, or to restrain him on my behalf; but it is within my rights (and the rights of my voluntary agents) to restrain him, because his act of aggression justifies a proportional use of force.
If the man was savagely beating / torturing a dog, a cat, a hamster, a lizard, etc., I want to respond identically.
If the man is pulling a weed out of his grass or swatting a mosquito, I don't really care.
If the man is putting out a mousetrap in his home, I also don't care.
Where's the consistency in my intuition? Maybe there is some after all. Looking at it laid out here, the common thread is that in the cases where I condone the man's force, I perceive the animal to have aggressed against him (that the animal does not and cannot recognize, nor refrain from its aggression is of no consequence).
Perhaps put in these terms, animal cruelty comes down to a simple application of the nonaggression axiom - thus not an 'ethical' question but a legal one as well, and consistent with libertarian principles.
Published: July 20, 2007 10:32 AM
Jean Paul: "I walk down the street and see a man savagely beating a human child. . . . As a theoretical libertarian, is this none of my business? Would intervening to restrain the man be equivalent to a 'war of aggression' or 'foreign adventurism'? Would it represent an 'entangling alliance'? It certainly would not be self defense."
The man's actions were not coercion directed at you, so you would have no standing to employ coercion against the man on your own authority. However, the man is acting in aggression against the child, who possesses self-ownership, and the child would thus have standing to authorize you to assist in its defense against the man's aggression.
Obviously in practice things would not be nearly so formal, but your only defense after the fact against charges of aggression remains the fact that believed you were acting as the child's agent at the time, and in accordance with the child's wishes.
Whether or not this argument could apply to animals depends on whether animals are considered to have self-ownership, and whether a human can act as the agent of an animal and yet retain the rights afforded humans; I believe the consensus so far has been negative on both counts. If the animal is not a self-owner then any actions taken against it are not aggression and incur no (human) right of defense.
Published: July 20, 2007 11:13 AM
Leaving aside the issue of bizarre, rococco criminal statutes, these debates illustrate the moral vacuum in which libertarianism operates. The perspective of Christianity and other faiths would be that men are charged with being faithful stewards of creation, and thus the criminalization of animal cruelty is entirely justified. Lacking any idea of a priori duty, libertarianism can only talk about rights, leading to another kind of tyranny: people of civilized sensibilities must abide every behavior from public masturbation to neighbors torturing animals. And if they act on their sensibilities and halt such barbarism, THEY are going to be the ones hauled into court. Thus, the resources of society are expended in protecting the behaviors of society's most marginal actors: anarcho-tyranny.
Published: July 20, 2007 11:40 AM
Reactionary: I disagree.
Morality cannot be contrary to natural law (I will not try to argue this in the positive, but I challenge anyone to contradict it).
Libertarianism recognizes this and equates the two. In its determination of natural law, libertarianism observes the fact of 'moral pluralism' on thousands of issues, and speaks only on issues which can be conclusively argued. All other moral issues are unconclusively debated, thus subjective, thus cannot be matters of natural law.
Libertarianism asserts that it is immoral to impose what may be a false morality as if it were conclusive natural law.
So it's not a moral vaccum at all... it is a skeptical morality demanding an extremely high standard of proof.
And that's why I, at least, consider myself a libertarian: in my desire to be a moral actor, I have only natural law to guide me, which leads me strictly away from all other forms of social organization and directly to libertarianism.
Published: July 20, 2007 12:48 PM
Reactionary,
You are intentionally ignoring obvious libertarian solutions to the hypothetical problems you pose.
Should we take your "moral vacuum" comment seriously, or are you just trolling?
Published: July 20, 2007 12:53 PM
I also feel it is impossible to consider torturing an animal an act compatible with natural law, hence my discomfort with the issue.
Natural law is also by definition not something relative to the human experience specifically but universal to all things and interpretable in terms of the human experience. Thus it should not attribute special status to humans versus animals unless there is an objective distinction.
Rothbard tries, but I'm not sure he succeeds in drawing this distinction. Certainly a tortured dog's howls of pain and attempts to fight back or escape could be considered a protest to the treatment, thus a performative assertion of the right of self ownership.
Anyway, for now the subject of 'animal rights' seems to fall in the 'unconclusively argued' pile, which means libertarianism must be silent and allow subjective morality to reign.
As I stated earlier, my intuitive resolution of this is to consider aggression the objective measure, which is problematic, and so the frustration remains. But I think the answer lies in that direction.
Published: July 20, 2007 1:01 PM
Jean Paul,
By your own admission, you can't come up with a reason why people don't have the right to torture animals to death. Now, most people would say, esp. on a visceral level, that such things are wrong, but I don't see libertarians able to explain why.
I, on the other hand, can.
Published: July 20, 2007 3:24 PM
Actually I don't think the reconciliation here is all that difficult.
The natural order for mankind includes the rights and self-ownership that Rothbard and Hoppe speak of fairly eloquently. But this is not the whole of the natural law, as it is based largely on deduction from circumstances. The natural law find stronger footing in our own cognition, or what John Finnis has called the irreducible "basic goods." You don't have to accept Finnis' particular list of basic goods to at least seize upon the immediate logic that certain concepts are understood as good in themselves, and that such understanding is rational as opposed to emotional--i.e. certain concepts or things are not just reflexively treated as goods, but in fact are intelligbly understood to be goods.
One of these goods is life. Our understanding of the natural order--deductively--allows us to "prioritize" life by humans and animals. There is also an argument that the basic good of life is in fact split - the basic good of human life and the basic good of other life.
The point is this: cruelty to animals is wrong not because it upsets their self-ownership or some other non-existent right that cannot be extended to an irrational creature (especially in light of man's natural need to hunt animals), but because it denigrates the intelligbly good concept of life.
We don't go around pissing on life, causing undue pain or undue cruelty. Torture is probably better seen as disgracing the good of life (as JP II eloquently stated, attempts to coerce the human spirit) than seen from a distance as "undermining self-ownership." By torturing or unduly hurting animals only for sport, the basic good is contradicted. This is why so many people on this board seem to think the cruelty to animals is wrong despite that their libertarian ideology isn't providing them the immediate answer. Like Rothbard would do, you just need to go back and consider first principles.
(I want to note that mere hunting for sport arguably does not violate this basic good as it is more properly placed within man's basic good of "life," which includes sport, hunting, priority over animals, and the like.
Rather, hunting that emphasized pain and suffering to the animals is where things go awry, because 1) the life of the animal is shown no respect, and 2) such things serve nothing of the natural good in man, only his darker sins, such as masochism....I might add that the weakness inherent in all natural law frameworks is not that they are wrong, they aren't, but that they too often ignore the reality of sin.)
Published: July 20, 2007 4:26 PM
Jean Paul: "Anyway, for now the subject of 'animal rights' seems to fall in the 'unconclusively argued' pile, which means libertarianism must be silent and allow subjective morality to reign."
Just because the animal-rights argument is "inconclusive" does not mean we cannot draw any conclusions whatsoever. For example, the actions you propose against the animal's owner are unquestionably coercive regardless of any conclusions on animal rights. If you cannot come up with a rational argument to the effect that your coercive actions were defensive in nature -- that the animal had rights which were being infringed upon and you were acting as its agent in administering a proportional response -- they must be presumed to be aggressive. So long as the status of animal rights remains inconclusive, the libertarian stance must be that known coercion takes precedence over potential coercion -- which is effectively a stance against animal rights from a legal/ethical point of view.
This obviously does not mean that I support such behavior; I would support any non-coercive measures (such as social ostricism) proposed to counter it. I simply do not feel that a coercive response can be justified on the basis of the evidence available at this time.
Published: July 20, 2007 4:31 PM
I'm cautious about dismissing the non-human lifeforms as irrational versus the infinitely rational human lifeform.
Certainly I've observed the pets I and others have 'owned' during my lifetime (cats and dogs, foremost) behaving in a ways that I must consider intelligent. Certainly they are communicative of their expectations and desires, and they allow or even invite certain interactions, but protest (with escalating degree of force) others.
Conversely, I have met humans who are little more than mindless brutes; and for example, i need to be in a very charitable mood to consider your average socialist 'rational'.
So really, it's not all that black and white.
Published: July 20, 2007 4:42 PM
Jesse: "For example, the actions you propose against the animal's owner are unquestionably coercive regardless of any conclusions on animal rights"
I don't think I propsed any actions? When I said "libertarianism must be silent and allow subjective morality to reign", I meant: let each human actor be guided by their own subjective morality within the libertarian framework of rights.
Which is basically me conceding that, yeah, I guess because I don't have a better answer, animals can be property and you can abuse them with impunity and cruelty as you see fit.
Although I concede the above, I am deeply, deeply troubled by it. It cannot possibly be the right answer. I just don't have a better one to give, and so I must abstain from enforcing my (or any) moral code as if it were law.
I will maintain that the real answer must conclude with some concept of the 'personhood of nature', with some attendant concept of rights (strictly negative of course), and an implied permission for 'rational' agents to act in defense of those rights on the behalf of 'nature'.
Fuzzy yes, today, but not incompatible with liberty once properly delimited.
Published: July 20, 2007 5:09 PM
Reactionary: "By your own admission, you can't come up with a reason why people don't have the right to torture animals to death... I, on the other hand, can."
To be clear, my admission is that I can't come up with a conclusive reason, and neither can you, and neither can Rothbard, because if any of us could, we'd agree and move on to other problems.
My subjective reasons are many, and born of my own subjective spiritual beliefs, one of which is a critical need to reconcile all my beliefs (scientific, natural law, spiritual, etc.) with each other; another of which is the belief that such reconciliation is possible at all.
Libertarianism has never let me down on the questions it does answer. As Luke Fitzhugh indicated, this is just one area (among several) where libertarian thought is not sufficiently developed... yet.
Published: July 20, 2007 5:24 PM
Some people here need to get back to basics... For the most part I agree with Jesse.
"I walk down the street and see a man savagely beating a human child."
The man, by initiating force against a fellow rights-bearing entity, cannot consistently argue that force may not be used against him. Therefore, any intervention in the matter is justified.
"I, on the other hand, can."
How? By referring to God?
Published: July 20, 2007 5:30 PM
Very tough issue, no doubt. Great posts by
Jean Paul.
But Reactionary, enough boasting; let's hear
it: What is your justification for employing
force against those who would engage in, e.g.,
dog-fighting?
Published: July 20, 2007 7:42 PM
The basis of anti cruelty laws is the fact that sociopaths and other unsavory individuals warm up on animals before moving on to humans.
Also fighting dog trainers steal other peoples pets to act as training fodder for their fighting dogs.
Valid reasons aside from the obvious ethical issues for the illegality of dog fighting and the financial and transport issues that surround it.
Published: July 21, 2007 12:28 AM
It's very easy.
Animals have the same negative-rights than babies do. There is no point in discussion what is evident and clear. They cannnot be hurt in any way (except in self defense).
Published: July 22, 2007 12:29 PM
Anthony,
That would be correct. The Christian view of man as the steward of Creation, which is itself a gift from God, establishes the foundation for prohibiting cruelty to animals. (I don't believe this is exclusive to Christianity but I'm not familiar with the ecological views of other faiths.)
Published: July 23, 2007 10:32 AM
This is a problem though because one may not believe in God (I do not, for instance.) Hence why I said this is a matter of personal ethics. Deriving rights for animals must still be done within the boundaries of logic.
Published: July 23, 2007 5:54 PM
Jim wrote: “Animals have the same negative-rights than[sic] babies do.”
Jim, are you thinking of Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal?
Published: July 23, 2007 7:19 PM
Jean Paul> I walk down the street and see a man savagely beating a human child....As a theoretical libertarian, is this none of my business? Would intervening to restrain the man be equivalent to a 'war of aggression' or 'foreign adventurism'? Would it represent an 'entangling alliance'? It certainly would not be self defense.
Libertarian theory is a *social* theory, not a state of nature theory. Therefore libertarianism has no answer. When you see something like that, you might think the child is in a crisis -- it is in a state of nature. The child is not benefiting from society, so a society's rules do not strictly apply. (The social rules -- even other than libertarian -- are perhaps not applying to the child.) You can, in your own judgement, leave your state of society and enter the child's state of nature and act to restore the child to the benefits of society. In a state of nature, and absent the benefits of society, social rules of conduct do not apply, and essentially a state of nature exists.
Watch out though. One of the benefits of existing in a society is to take advantage of its courts. In other words, society will post-judge your decisions and decide just how much of a state of nature actually existed and the appropriateness of your response.
The Case of the Speluncean Explorers: http://www.nullapoena.de/stud/explorers.html
Published: July 23, 2007 8:25 PM
the 'animal rights' issue is the least clear-cut element of Libertarian thinking.
Particularly in this modern biological age, when the differences between human and other animals have been reduced to a question of degree rather than substance. This issue also highlights the folly of crisp classifications which are more often than not arbitary. This issue, like so many others, incolve shades of grey rather than black and white.
Let me say right now that I happily eat cows and chickens. And fish. I am quite happy, if pressed, to commit to slaughtering what I eat myself, albeit that this is no longer necessary given the modern supermarket. However, I also recoil with horror at needless cruelty being perpetrated on animals of any sort, for the pleasure of the tormentor.
Being a Darwinian, I acknowledge the fact that , for example, Bonobos are very closely related to humans, and their physical characteristics and behaviour are a lot closer to their human equivalents than, say, lizards.
SO, on the broad sweep, the more 'sophisticated', or 'cognitive' the animal appearts to be, the less I am likely to enjoy eating it , and vice versa. But within that scale of probability, I would hesitate to draw any absolute line separating what is off-limits and what is fair game. Faced with different environmental ciurcumstances and the choice between eating a bonobo or starving, I would probably eat the bonobo. (And the bonobo would probably do its best to avoid being eaten). But in different circumstances, with plentiful availability oif cows or fish, I wouldn't dream of it. Ditto for gorillas, chimps, whales etc etc.
Quite how rights come into it is not entirely clear, except as hinted in the bonobo's probable response above: when it comes down to it, the most fundamental 'rights' of all organisms boil down to just two: the right to seek nutrition, (by definition, eating other organisms), and the right to take steps to avoid being eaten. There remnains a fundamental conflict between those two opposing imperatives, which have long bedevilled theologians and ethicists . Mostly because there is no objective way to quantify the desirability of either imperative in terms that can be measured against the other.
Removing animals from the equation, and you can construct a social compact where A agreees with B that he will not aggress against and eat him, in return for a similar, reciprocal undertakikng from B - the 'exchange of forbearances' principle that underpins the libertarian , voluntary approach to all social interaction. But we cant make similar agreements with other animals, which leaves the point forever moot. I hesitate to draw arbitary lines defining right from wrong in the ethics of interaction with other animals, but let pragmatism and common sense within any particular context be my guide. Never was one for absolutist classifications.
Published: July 24, 2007 7:22 AM
Anthony,
That is why, after the collapse of social democracy, all the atheist libertarians paralyzed by their rationality from preventing animal cruelty or exhibitionism or child abuse will live in the Anarchist Book Fair, and all the people of faith will live in the places with the rising property values and the safe streets.
Published: July 24, 2007 11:23 AM
So when a cougar murders a human, who is going to be the cougar's interpreter at the fair court trial? Anyone speak cougar?
Published: July 24, 2007 2:38 PM
Reactionary: "...all the atheist libertarians paralyzed by their rationality from preventing animal cruelty or exhibitionism or child abuse..."
Your narrow-minded accusations lend no credit to your argument.
Exhibitionism may or may not violate rights, depending on the case, and child abuse is obviously a trespass. Where no violation of rights has taken place, the law must remain silent.
Margaret More: Father, that man's bad.
Sir Thomas More: There's no law against that.
William Roper: There is: God's law.
Sir Thomas More: Then God can arrest him.
Published: July 24, 2007 3:21 PM
"Anthony,
That is why, after the collapse of social democracy, all the atheist libertarians paralyzed by their rationality from preventing animal cruelty or exhibitionism or child abuse will live in the Anarchist Book Fair, and all the people of faith will live in the places with the rising property values and the safe streets."
Oh come now, where have we ever advocated child abuse being even legally acceptable?
Published: July 24, 2007 4:34 PM
Anthony: "Oh come now, where have we ever advocated child abuse being even legally acceptable?"
I doubt that the poster will discontinue the practice of telling his friends that the children have no protection under a godless system.
Published: July 24, 2007 5:07 PM
If a cougar murders a pig, and cougars and pigs have rights, can we tax cougars and pigs? I mean, shouldn't they pay their fair share of taxes?
What about ants? Why stop at animals? Jellyfish anyone?
Published: July 24, 2007 8:51 PM
coincidentally, our newspapers today( Here in South Africa) carry reportage of the results of a court case, where the accused was sentenced to a fine of R10000( about 1200 dollars) or 12 months jail, all conditionally suspended for one year ( viz. if he doesnt commit another crime in the next year, the sentence falls away). Oh, he was also ordered to pay R5000 to the SPCA. ( quite what this payment is offically is not clear: fine, or forced donation, or what?).
The crime: having used a chainsaw to cut off the head of his 4 month old Siberian husky. He did it, he said, because he was angry because the puppy had eaten his macaw parrot. as the facts were reported, he had his gardener hold the dog down while he went off to fill the chainsaw with petrol, sorry, gasoline, first.
the populist howls of outrage are all bouncing over the place right now, because
- he got no jail time, and
- he was still allowed to keep his remaining dogs without any restrictions, and
- the fine was considered far too low - nonexistent in fact.
Oh, and the gardener was let off completely on the goounds that he didnt have a choice but to obey the orders of his employer, at the risk of losing his job.
I dont mind admitting that I dont have a clue as to what SHOULD have been done about it - it was his dog after all, says my libertarian self. bUt I find his actions completely unconscionable. The point, mis, do I have a right to take it upon myself to do anything about it?
cognitive dissonance, anyone?
Published: July 25, 2007 9:12 AM
Obviously the animal rights issue, isn't very clear in an all voluntary society. Lets say that one private defense agency does not recognize rights for dogs. Lets say another defense agency does recognize rights for dogs, in much the same way our laws do now.
Lets say that Vick uses the services of the one that doesn't recognize dog rights and the SPCA members use the defense agency that does recognize dog rights.
If SPCA members were to physically stop Vick from torturing his dogs, assaulting him in the process, Vick's only recourse would be to go to his defense agency and plead his case. Then his defense agency would have to make their case to the SPCA's agency. But since there is a fundamental difference in beliefs about rights, there is an insurmountable impasse.
In a way, you have established animal rights where ever the agency who recognizes dog rights has a presence, because anyone is allowed to stop Vick from torture, without repercussions in court so long as they subscribe to that agency.
Given the clear majority love of dogs in this country, it isn't hard to believe that a dog rights recognizing defense agency would have quite a bit of power and customers.
Published: August 21, 2007 1:34 PM
I've always wondered whether animal lovers would consider a pack of lions tearing apart and devouring a wildebeast alive - a truly gruesome spectacle - to be animal cruelty.
Published: August 21, 2007 3:00 PM
So, if someone was to "murder" a dog, who would receive the financial compensation? Surely not the dog's owner, since that would be doggie slavery. Would the funds go into the bank account that the bitch and puppies opened? Perhaps the money would be laid in front of the family members for them to spend at Petco, or perhaps they would merely be paid in bones...not animal bones of course, since that would obviously be appalling. I suppose the attorney for the victim's family will ask them what they think would be just.
Published: August 21, 2007 3:07 PM