They’re worried about our welfare.
My last philosophy class discussed animal rights, and pretty much agreed that the issue isn’t rights, as such, but welfare. You don’t have to give animals rights to be nice to them – right?
I look forward to this principle being applied by the Alpha Centaurians when they get here. They probably won’t ask to be taken to our Leader – I mean, when you go into the paddock do you ask for the head cow? They’ll just, you know, assume dominion (since the Intergalactic Bible states that God has given them authority over the universe and all the beasts within), and then they’ll begin farming us. If we’re good for anything. Exterminating us, if we’re not.
Rights are a funny thing. I saw a sign in Target a while ago that said ‘You have the right to look good on a budget!’ I do? Maybe I also have the right to be a famous novelist and …no hang on, I don’t think you can just claim rights, Rose. Somebody has to be prepared (and able) to give them to you. Which is why pigs don’t have them. Or Chechens, most likely.
Carl Cohen says that rights are ‘a claim that one party can make against another’. Apparently, you have to belong to a species whose members have ‘moral agency’ to have a right to rights. That is, you have to be human. What good luck, to be born into the only species on earth with the unique qualities necessary to have rights! Phew!
Which led me to think…what if a lost tribe of Australopithecii were discovered living in the swamps of Paraguay (ok I don’t know if Paraguay has swamps but let’s just say it does). Would they have rights (in virtue of being, perhaps, pre-human)? Or would we just have an obligation to ‘minimise their suffering’? Because as our cousins, or ancestors, or whatever, they’d be great for medical experimentation, you’d think…
I mean, isn’t being human a sort of continuum? Stan the Man writes out his New Year’s Resolutions, plans his next trip to Fiji and agonises about the homeless. Chad the Chimp resolves not to get into another fight with Big Bruce, plans to seduce that sexy chick with the red butt, and is pretty damn cross about that time he got beaten up for stealing the bananas when it wasn’t even him, it was that sneaky two-faced bastard who goes round picking out everybody’s fleas like butter wouldn’t melt!
Basically, I think it comes down to this. If you want rights, you have to be able to fight for them. You have to be powerful enough to demand them. You’re an Iranian woman who doesn’t want to wear her headscarf? A guy in an orange jumpsuit in Gitmo? A sheep? You have no rights.
Not yet, anyway. But if you did, you’d have something more than just ‘welfare’. You’d have something to wave around, to appeal to. You could say ‘you bastards, you’re denying MY RIGHTS!’.
That is, you could say that, if you could talk.
butimbeautiful 
Thoroughly enjoyed this. Do you ever think, you think too much? Rights are only spoken of in situations where they are unfairly denied.
No, honestly I think that I think about the right amount. Although some more thinking would be useful at times… I think we don’t question enough, as a society…. but then I remember conspiracy theorists. Now that IS thinking too much!
Lots of strawperson debates and scenario’s make my head go all whoosy, and yes I think that you think too much.
Speaking of aliens and talking to cows, that was on the very first? episode of Southpark.
It was? I’ll have to rewatch my Southpark:)
“The aliens have landed and…”
… turned their ships around, without saying hello or even charging up the planet destroying laser cannon. We’re not worthy of such a colossal waste of energy. 😐
You’re right, we’re not.
Right are only afforded us by the people who run us and only to keep them in power. The minute they become inconvenient they are removed. It’s not the way to run a society…
Yeah I agree. So where does that leave non human animals, who relatively speaking have no power?
They are only afforded the rights we give them, in countries where these rights or privileges are limited or non existent the result is normally obvious and not pleasant.
Yep!
I’m still struggling with this … “rights are ‘a claim that one party can make against another’.”
Why must a right only be “against another”?
‘on another ‘ might be another way of putting it. Meaning, perhaps, that if I have a right to shelter, whoever is able is obligated to give it to me? And if I have the right to vote, it is the government’s duty to see that I’m enabled to do that. But you’re right, it’s a peculiar construction. It emphasizes, without meaning to, the truth that you don’t have any rights at all if you can’t effectively ‘claim’ them from someone. Or some group, authority or whatever.
The people suggesting you think too much have it exactly wrong.
Thank you, well said!
Well said very well said.
Hi Jane/Rose, I hope this finds you well and your garden is blooming in this unexpected wet patch we’re in. My daughter has taken over my house in the country and it’s now overgrown inside and out…. But at least it’s green.
Now, the point of all this… My Facebook page is friends with 2 you, Jane and Rose…….. I was I a covid fog last week… first time I had it and I was very unwell. .. that’s my excuse. I got hacked and now my FB and messenger are not mine. I do not have access to them and will not be getting them back. They are poisonous. Recently I have been selling Taylor Swift tickets and asking people to help me with log in codes. So, I am asking all my friends to defriend me. I’m not in phone contact with you so this is my approach.
Happy summer, may you have red tomatoes by the 25th without any fruit fly and please keep writing. Regards, Rob.
Sent from my iPad
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Oh dear, I’m sorry to hear that! So you’d like me to unfriend you? But… that could be the hacker speaking! And…can I get a Taylor Swift ticket? Just kidding, no interest in Tay Tay…off to unfriend, and happy Christmas!!
Haha, Rose, your take on animal rights and the potential arrival of the Alpha Centaurians is both humorous and thought-provoking! It’s interesting how rights seem tied to power and the ability to assert them. Do you think the concept of rights is evolving, or are we stuck in a framework that favors the powerful?