Do non-humans possess the same inherent rights that humans do?

in #life8 years ago (edited)


Are all animals self-owners with the same inherent rights as Humans?

Defining terms:


Inherent: existing in something as a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute.

Right: an inherent entitlment to perform a specific type of action unobstructed.

Privilege: a non inherent right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit or advantage.

Self-ownership: the inherent ownership one has over their own body.

Power: the ability to do something or act in a particular way, especially as a faculty or quality.

Freedom: the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint; or, the absence of necessity, coercion, of choice and or action.

Self-agency: the subjective awareness that one is initiating, executing, and controlling one's own volitional actions in the world.

Capacity: the ability or power to do, experience, or understand something.

Almighty: having complete power; omnipotent; superior to all others known.

The origin of human rights.

Self-ownership; Self-ownership is the foundation in which all rights take root, and it is an inherent state. Negative rights are not to be conflated with privilege, as they are not subject to be taken away; only respected and or violated; and they create no positive obligations. Humans own their own bodies, and as a result, they own the effects of their actions. That is axiomatic and self evident; but do animals own themselves too?

When the same reasoning is applied to animals that is applied to the concept of humans being self-owners, the answer is yes, they are autonomous beings possessing self-agency, are capable of demonstrating self-ownership, and often times, are sentient. The difference is their rights are just violated way more often out of greed.
(Link to greed post.)

If it is not an aggressive act to violently confront someone who has shown himself to be in violation of somebody's non-consent, then there is no objective difference if the aggressing man's victim is a dog. Therefore, next time you see someone mercilessly beating on a dog, you can stomp a mudhole in their ass, secure in the knowledge that you haven't violated the non aggression principle.

Negative vs. Positive rights

Positive rights create positive obligations for people, while negative rights create negative obligation. Positive obligations require certain actions, like providing somebody with health care; while negative obligations require the absence of certain actions, like not aggressing against somebody.

A negative right is a claim to the entitlement of being able to perform a certain action, or maintain a certain state, without obstruction.

A positive right is a claim to the entitlment of being provided with a certain service.

Negative rights are in line with morality and protect an individuals autonomy, while positive rights conflict with morality and often require violating somebody's non-consent and or autonomy; public health care for example.

Positive rights, are pseudo rights, and are actually just privileges to the detriment of negative rights.

Here is a list of positive "rights" that people often claim, and or believe to have:

  • Protection of person and property
  • Food
  • Water
  • Housing
  • Education
  • Healthcare
  • Internet access
  • Imposing your will on people via voting

And here is list of inherent negative rights that humans universally do have.
You have the right to the freedom:

  • from aggressive force and fraud.
  • of defending one's self and property.
  • of first use ownership and homesteading.
  • of association.
  • of motion.
  • of thought.
  • of vocalization.
    Since negative rights are the only legitimate rights, all uses of the word "right", or, "rights", used within this content, from now on, will be used as defined in the defining terms section; or as a negative right is defined.

Comparing non-humans and humans


Dogs and cows are:

  • conscious
  • sentient
  • autonomous
  • often respect property rights
  • often adhere to the NAP
  • can learn words / be "trained".

All of the above applies to humans and are components and or points used to form arguments intended to logically prove what is already axiomatic, self-ownership.

Most animals possess all of the traits that are required in order to be identified as a self-owner.

Video examples of cows demonstrating self-ownership, and that they are concious, autonomous, intelligent and or sentient beings.

Cow mourns over slaughtered and butchered family member:

Happy cows:

Cows who are rescued from slaughter:

Cow demonstrating intelligence and problem solving:

Cow demonstrating intelligence and problem solving(2):

I'll spare you the dog videos.

Dogs and Humans share an almost parallel evolutionary timeline.

It was previously believed that humans had been keeping and training (and hence living alongside) dogs for over 100,000 years. That is, until it was discovered that certain specimens of higher-ape species, (bonobo, orangutan, and chimpanzees, specifically) were capturing wild puppies to take home, feed and train using both positive and negative reinforcement methods.

In light of these discoveries, it is now believed that dog and man have been living alongside one another for well-over a million years. Since before we were homo sapien.

Experiments provide evidence that humans and dogs now inherently understand each other's communications.

Recent experimental and clinical trials have established that human beings are born inherently understanding dog's communication methods, and dogs are born inherently understanding human's communication methods.

Also, previous reports of dogs exhibiting traits such as generosity, sympathy, spite, and even love, have now all begun to be re-examined as more than just projections of our imaginations onto insentient animal behavior.

Example One: Domestic canines were shown images of human faces, with whom they were not familiar. In every, meaning 100% of the trials, the dogs exhibited definitive evidence that they were able to read the emotional state of the human depicted, via observing the facial expression of the image shown. If the face looked angry, the dogs became scared; If the face looked sad, the dogs became concerned; If the face looked happy, the dogs became playful, etc.

In this same test, the eye-movements of the dogs were tracked. In 100% of the trials, the dogs' eyes tracked left, (meaning they instinctively looked at the right side of the person's face). The right side of your face is more faithfully expressive of your true emotional state. Human eyes instinctively track leftward when looking at each other's faces, as well. The dogs all did this when looking at humans, but not when looking at other dogs.

This experiment, and various variations of it, have been recreated and or performed with strikingly similar findings, time and time again.

Example Two Human beings were played sounds of various dogs making noises. They were asked to describe the particulars of what they were imagining when listening to the dogs. They were over 90% accurate in describing the situation that each recorded dog was in.

Even babies inherently uderstand dog vocalizations.

Sources

University of Lincoln. "A man’s best friend: Study shows dogs can recognize human emotions." ScienceDaily. Http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160112214507.htm

University of Helsinki. "How dogs see your emotions: Dogs view facial expressions differently." ScienceDaily. Http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160119074313.htm

A Hungarian university discovered dogs process barks the way humans process speech: https://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/663967.htm

Brigham Young University. "Babies Understand Dogs, Bark-matching Study Finds." ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090720163559.htm

Another canine vocalization study: https://thesciencedog.wordpress.com/2014/08/27/you-barkin-at-me/

Due to this evidence, there is every reason to suspect that we, as two separate species, have evolved together.

Applying the same argument(s) that are used to morally justify the act of humans treating other animals like property, to the concept of a superior and or almighty alien race morally enslaving humans.

When the same reasoning is applied to humans, that is applied to animals in order to morally justify them as property of humans, then an argument could be made for an advanced and or superior alien race morally enlsaving humans and or treating us like non-humans, like cows for example.

Some of the arguments for humans possessing inherent rights over non-humans, have been the potential for capacity.

Some of the following capacities have been used as talking points as part of their arguments:

  • developing family ties
  • solving social problems
  • expressing emotions
  • starting wars
  • having sex for pleasure
  • using language
  • thinking abstractly

Some of these things can't even be indefinitely proven, like thinking abstractly, having sex for pleasure, or starting a, "war".

  • Many behaviors of non-humans imply that they think abstractly; like mating rituals, decorating their nest, flying v's, and seemingly playing games for fun, even ones with an objective.
  • Brain scans of non-humans do show pleasure centers lighting up when engaging in sex.
  • If you don't speak their language, how can you indefinitely identify a declaration of war? By observing non-human action, it is pretty safe to say that most non-humans will enage in war-like behaviors under certain stressors and or conditions. Also, is the potential capacity to start a war honestly a good factor to be used to determine if a being has inherent rights or not?

The rest of the listed potential capacities should be blatantly obvious to be possessed by most non-humans.

  • Many non-humans demonstrate that they develop family ties. An example of this would be herds, packs, and flocks. Another example would be non-humans that mate for life, or the period of time that a mother and or father spends raising their offspring.
  • An example of nonhumans organizing a social problem is the V formation made by flying birds, or the hierarchy that is present within a wolf pack.
  • Animals express emotion all of the time, every dog owner has experienced this. If you havent owned a dog, watch the videos of the happy cows, or go to youtube and type, "happy animals".
  • Any observer of nature knows that it is self evident that animals use language amongst themselves. Chemical signaling, body-language, and sound are all mediums of communication used by non-humans.

As I grow older though, I realize that the majority of people have comparmentalized, and apparently believe that what makes human's rights inherent, is that non-humans do not possess the same potential capacity for intelligence and or power, even though intelligence and or power is not the focal point of their argument to as of why humans possess inherent rights. With that said; following that logic; all it would take for another species to morally enslave, and to treat humans as property, is for them to be significantly more powerful and or intelligent than us; for them to be almighty.

The line between a being with rights, and a being considered and treated as a piece of property, is apparently predicated on the degree of the intelligence differential between the two beings, according to some. In which case, the parent of the child who fell into the gorilla enclosure may need to have her IQ tested to see if she is deserving of possessing those elusive inherent rights that humans are suppose to possess.

Too low of a capacity = no inherent rights, correct? (Sarcasm)

So basically, according to consensus, if you are stupid enough (according to arbitrary standards) or there is a certain amount of power differential present, then you morally become viewed as property to the superior being, and somehow are never able to develop and or acquire inherent rights. You forfeit the ability to be a self-owner with inherent rights, and instead, are potentially morally subjected to enslavement and or an execution-farm.

Can an almighty, and or an intelligently superior alien race morally enslave humans, why or why not?

Sort:  

I think that is about time that we start thinking about the inherent rights of animals. After watching the Happy Cows, and the intelligence and problem solving video I would have to say enough is enough. Also just wondering if lifeworship can elaborate on the statement "no, i think that we, as humans should treat animals with respect," if that is true then we need to remove them from the enclosures, stop bringing them to the slaughter houses and get them off the dinner menu. I do not know the absolute solution to undo the wrong that has and is being done -but I do know that considering the animals inherent rights is a great start in the right direction... Deesaidit

Thought provoking content. I dig it. Slavery is always immoral.

the world needs to go vegan

i would defend myself against being forced to go vegan. maybe need is too coercive a word. how about doing some research on human dietary requirements. also, the effects of ruminants on reversing desertification. also, on the number of animal deaths caused by plowing a field, for planting of a mono-crop. i'd rather kill one steer per year than 10000 rodents, ground nesting birds, not to mention all of the insects. in the process of growing healthy beef, not this feed-lot garbage, the cattle works fertilizer into the soil with hooves that are evolved for the purpose. as a result more habitat is able to grow, increasing life all around.

I agree with you that the animals killed in harvesting plant food is a big problem. But it's one we could solve if society had the will to.

I am in favor of legal rights for nonhuman animals (and other sentient nonhuman entities) but I think they should be based on sentience (the ability to have positive and negative experiences) rather than on autonomy or any capacities other than that required by sentience.

I think when we start talking about autonomy and self-ownership, that’s setting the bar too high because sentience exists at a much lower level. It requires consciousness but not necessarily self-awareness. That would exclude the majority of the animals on the planet – who are capable of suffering but are not autonomous or even necessarily self-aware, as well as excluding many humans.

In my opinion, too much emphasis has been put on studies of animal cognition rather than animal sentience. Because in order to protect all beings who can suffer, we only need to know if they can suffer, and not whether they can pass the mirror test.

If we talk about legal rights (as opposed to moral rights), then technically personhood is based on autonomy. However, judges create legal fictions all the time to treat non-autonomous humans (who are cognitively disabled, senile, infants, etc.) as if they were autonomous and then appoint a guardian for them. So this actually shows that it is sentience that matters and not autonomy.

And I do agree with you that most of the animals we enslave for food, clothing, and entertainment demonstrate autonomy, but I am concerned about the wellbeing of the animals who don't as well.

Thanks for an excellent, thought-provoking post.

Are you aware of the Nonhuman Rights Project? http://www.nonhumanrightsproject.org/

Great response.

I am familiar with non-human project. Good stuff. Recently they were involved with studies that more animals than not posses self-awareness: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/self-awareness-with-a-simple-brain/

Also, I probably should have included autonomy in the defined terms section, as most animals are autonomous.

Autonomous: a person or entity that is self-controlling and not governed by outside forces.

Autonomous: acting independently or having the freedom to do so.

I am glad you were able to derive value from the content, and I appreciate the input!

The definitions can get a little confusing, depending on whether you're talking about moral rights or legal rights, and there are so many different definitions of autonomy, awareness, and self-awareness.

I'm planning to write a series of posts about animals as persons. I hope to get your input!

so, like the right to vote? i would not trust a tiger to adhere to the nonaggression principle in a crowded movie theater. no, i think that we, as humans should treat animals with respect, but that they will always be either dependents or wild and to expect them to be otherwise would be an undue imposition on them and their nature. we couldn't possibly hold them to the same standard that we do ourselves. imagine trying to apply human reasoned laws to animals. i admire your compassion for living things , but i don't think you've thought this through. most animals in the world would be considered homeless, indigent, delinquent. would have to crank up the science machine and figure out how to communicate with them. so we could let them vote. which bathroom does the hyena use? is species just a social construct? no, animals are different from us in that we reason. rights come with responsibilities. i for one would not do that to them.

Voting is not an inherent right, it is a positive right, or more accurately, a privilege.

When have you seen a tiger inside of a movie theater? Why would that ever happen? If the movie theater owner chose to not allow the tiger in, then it woupdnt be allowed in, because it woupd have to respect the inherent rights of other beings... If the tiger violated any body's self-ownership, then self defense would be morally justified. Total non sequitur and strawma/ red herring.

Humans appear to either be dependant or wild as well.

Acknowledging that they possess thr same inherent rights as humans doesn't involve holding them to the same standards as far as behavior and ot capacity goes.

A hyena woupd use the bathroom as he does now...in the safari, or wherever it calls home currently. Acknowledging that non-humans have the same inherent rights doesn't mean that they will be treated like humans and invited to eat at the dinner table, or allowed in all places of business, etc.

Arbitrary laws such as seatbelt laws, indecent exposure laws, or drug laws, etc, wouldn't be applied to non-humans, as they really shoupdnt be unilaterally applied to humans within imaginary borders either; because laws that create "victimless crime" are immoral, and are a violation of autonomy.

just making sure where you stand. we, humans in this country have the right to peaceably assemble, how do you communicate that to an animal? a tiger is an extreme example but it is apt. this is a right that we have naturally and is not given to us. the reason it is stated is for the benefit of the government knowing that they are not allowed to deprive us of that right. there is also the idea of innocent until proven guilty. this implies that we are not allowed to assume that a tiger is prone to actions that we as reasoning beings should be aware that a perfectly evolved predator is not just capable of but actively engages in a desire to do. i would not want to find myself in a situation where i am forced to defend myself against an animal i respect for doing what it naturally does. while we are able to exclude tigers from personal property, in places like india tigers do on occasion wander into the town square. so, that is when that would ever happen.
wild humans are capable of reason. they can reason their interest in not aggressing against others. animals have rights by merit of existence, provided they can defend them. i can't see where the rights of the gazelle are when being eaten by the lion. i like animals, i love animals but i am still grappling with the idea of rights when it comes to predator/prey relationships or parasite/host for that matter . some people might even argue that in relation to psychopaths and the rest of us. not me. psychopaths are human, can reason and so do not enter into it. i try to respect the natural rights of everything. from microbes to broccoli to cats and humans. there are dynamics that i am sure i don't understand. i keep trying, and this makes it easier to have people pointing out when i'm being outrageous without adequate explanation, or just being an idiot.
i am curious where you stand on the matter of plant life. this is in all seriousness. i want to know what you think. you showed enough interest to call me out. so, how about it? also i have doubts on the ethics of owning pets. i haven't been able to get anyone to take me seriously. humans have taken animals from the environment and not just killed them without need but bred them and turned them into things they were never evolved to be. things that are dependent upon us completely in some cases. it is an extreme argument but i find it is often the extremes that best shed light on where i stand.
any opinions or thoughts and especially facts are appreciated. thanks.

The rights of a gazelle who is being mauled and eaten by a tiger, are in the same location and or state that the rights of a rape victim are in, and that is violation.

A rape victim still has rights while they're being raped, the rapist is just violating them. A gazele still has rifhts when It id getting attacked and or eaten, the aggressor is just violating them. Rights are not guarantees.

Does an apple tree die when you eat its fruit? How about blueberry bushes?

If you do not pick fruits or vegetables, what happens? They get eaten, or they rot.

A plant can not express non-consent in any ways that a human can naturally identify. When you aggress against an animal, you get a reaction from the animal that innately informs you of their emotional state; same can't be said for plants.

Plants do not mourn and have never been proven to be sentient and or capable of processing emotion.

so, you're saying that a lion, i believe i said, that is eating a gazelle or some other animal, the only thing it is evolve to eat, is violating the rights of that animal.
is that correct? i don't want to put words in your keyboard.

@lifeworship Animal rights don't refer to giving human rights to nonhuman animals. Animal rights refers to the rights that are appropriate to each species. So no, a cow doesn't need the right to vote, but she does need the basic negative rights to not be enslaved and not to be made to suffer for someone else's benefit.

Rights do not always and do not necessarily have to come with responsibilities. Does a newborn baby have rights? What are her responsibilities? What about someone who is cognitively disabled?

Excellent article @stickman. I wrote a couple of posts on Vegan Anarchy and the non-aggression principle applied to animals. I learned quite a lot from this post. That video of the cow crying is tragic. https://steemit.com/anarchy/@mckeever/vegan-anarchy-part-ii-the-non-aggression-principle-applied-to-animals

This post has been linked to from another place on Steem.

Learn more about linkback bot v0.3

Upvote if you want the bot to continue posting linkbacks for your posts. Flag if otherwise. Built by @ontofractal

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.20
TRX 0.12
JST 0.028
BTC 65809.08
ETH 3604.05
USDT 1.00
SBD 2.54