WEBVTT NOTE 21. The "Rights" of Animals 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.720 Chapter 21. The Rights of Animals It has lately become a growing fashion to 2 00:00:07.720 --> 00:00:13.520 extend the concept of rights from human beings to animals, and to assert that since animals 3 00:00:13.520 --> 00:00:19.700 have the full rights of humans, it is therefore impermissible, that is, that no man has the 4 00:00:19.700 --> 00:00:26.860 right to kill or eat them. There are, of course, many difficulties with this position, including 5 00:00:26.860 --> 00:00:55.860 There are not many theorists, for example, who would go so far as Albert Schweitzer and deny the right of anyone to step on a cockroach, and if the theory were extended further from conscious living beings to all living beings such as bacteria or plants, the human race would rather quickly die out. 6 00:00:55.860 --> 00:01:03.060 But the fundamental flaw in the theory of animal rights is more basic and far-reaching. 7 00:01:03.060 --> 00:01:08.860 For the assertion of human rights is not properly a simple emotive one. 8 00:01:08.860 --> 00:01:14.340 Individuals possess rights not because we feel that they should, but because of a rational 9 00:01:14.340 --> 00:01:18.340 inquiry into the nature of man and the universe. 10 00:01:18.340 --> 00:01:23.100 In short, man has rights because they are natural rights. 11 00:01:23.100 --> 00:01:29.620 They are grounded in the nature of man, the individual man's capacity for conscious choice, 12 00:01:29.620 --> 00:01:35.340 the necessity for him to use his mind and energy to adopt goals and values, to find 13 00:01:35.340 --> 00:01:41.280 out about the world, to pursue his ends in order to survive and prosper, his capacity 14 00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:46.680 and need to communicate and interact with other human beings, and to participate in 15 00:01:46.680 --> 00:01:48.840 the division of labor. 16 00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:56.040 In short, man is a rational and social animal. No other animals or beings possess this ability 17 00:01:56.040 --> 00:02:02.280 to reason, to make conscious choices, to transform their environment in order to prosper, or 18 00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:07.040 to collaborate consciously in society and the division of labor. 19 00:02:07.040 --> 00:02:14.200 Thus, while natural rights, as we have been emphasizing, are absolute, there is one sense 20 00:02:14.200 --> 00:02:21.760 in which they are relative. They are relative to the species man. A rights ethic for mankind 21 00:02:21.760 --> 00:02:28.840 is precisely that, for all men, regardless of race, creed, color or sex, but for the 22 00:02:28.840 --> 00:02:36.760 species man alone. The biblical story was insightful to the effect that man was given, 23 00:02:36.760 --> 00:02:44.040 or in natural law we may say has, dominion over all the species of the earth. Natural 24 00:02:44.040 --> 00:02:48.520 The law is necessarily species-bound. 25 00:02:48.520 --> 00:02:54.160 That the concept of a species ethic is part of the nature of the world may be seen, moreover, 26 00:02:54.160 --> 00:02:58.420 by contemplating the activities of other species in nature. 27 00:02:58.420 --> 00:03:04.400 It is more than a jest to point out that animals, after all, don't respect the rights of other 28 00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:05.400 animals. 29 00:03:05.400 --> 00:03:10.440 It is the condition of the world, and of all natural species, that they live by eating 30 00:03:10.440 --> 00:03:12.480 other species. 31 00:03:12.480 --> 00:03:18.200 Other species' survival is a matter of tooth and claw. It would surely be absurd to say 32 00:03:18.200 --> 00:03:24.960 that the wolf is evil because he exists by devouring and aggressing against lambs, chickens, 33 00:03:24.960 --> 00:03:31.480 etc. The wolf is not an evil being who aggresses against other species. He is simply following 34 00:03:31.480 --> 00:03:38.480 the natural law of his own survival. Similarly for men. It is just as absurd to say that 35 00:03:38.480 --> 00:03:45.160 Men Aggress Against Cows and Wolves as to say that wolves aggress against sheep. 36 00:03:45.160 --> 00:03:50.540 If furthermore a wolf attacks a man and the man kills him, it would be absurd to say either 37 00:03:50.540 --> 00:03:56.640 that the wolf was an evil aggressor, or that the wolf was being punished for his crime. 38 00:03:56.640 --> 00:04:02.960 And yet such would be the implications of extending a natural rights ethic to animals. 39 00:04:02.960 --> 00:04:09.340 Any concept of rights, of criminality, of aggression, can only apply to actions of one 40 00:04:09.340 --> 00:04:14.620 man or group of men against other human beings. 41 00:04:14.620 --> 00:04:16.720 What of the Martian problem? 42 00:04:16.720 --> 00:04:21.560 If we should ever discover and make contact with beings from other planets, could they 43 00:04:21.560 --> 00:04:24.920 be said to have the rights of human beings? 44 00:04:24.920 --> 00:04:27.160 It would depend on their nature. 45 00:04:27.160 --> 00:04:32.960 If our hypothetical Martians were like human beings, conscious, rational, able to communicate 46 00:04:32.960 --> 00:04:38.440 with us and participate in the division of labor, then presumably they too would possess 47 00:04:38.440 --> 00:04:42.680 the rights now confined to earthbound humans. 48 00:04:42.680 --> 00:04:47.560 But suppose on the other hand that the Martians also had the characteristics, the nature, 49 00:04:47.560 --> 00:04:53.500 of the legendary vampire, and could only exist by feeding on human blood. 50 00:04:53.500 --> 00:04:58.680 In that case, regardless of their intelligence, the Martians would be our deadly enemy and 51 00:04:58.680 --> 00:05:03.880 we could not consider that they were entitled to the rights of humanity. 52 00:05:03.880 --> 00:05:08.860 Deadly enemy, again, not because they were wicked aggressors, but because of the needs 53 00:05:08.860 --> 00:05:15.180 and requirements of their nature which would clash ineluctably with ours. 54 00:05:15.180 --> 00:05:20.320 There is, in fact, rough justice in the common quip that we will recognize the rights of 55 00:05:20.320 --> 00:05:23.360 animals whenever they petition for them. 56 00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:29.600 The fact that animals can obviously not petition for their rights is part of their nature, 57 00:05:29.600 --> 00:05:34.520 and part of the reason why they are clearly not equivalent to, and do not possess the 58 00:05:34.520 --> 00:05:37.480 rights of, human beings. 59 00:05:37.480 --> 00:05:42.540 And if it be protested that babies can't petition either, the reply of course is that 60 00:05:42.540 --> 00:05:49.320 babies are future human adults, whereas animals obviously are not. 61 00:05:49.320 --> 00:05:55.040 A fundamental error, then, of the advocates of animal rights is their failure to identify 62 00:05:55.040 --> 00:06:02.280 or even to attempt to identify the specific nature of the species man, and hence the differences 63 00:06:02.280 --> 00:06:06.200 between human beings and other species. 64 00:06:06.200 --> 00:06:11.640 According to think in such terms, they fall back on the shifting sands of subjective feelings.