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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) recently protested the CBS show, "Survivor." The heinous crime committed by the participants in that television program? Killing and eating rats.
Rats.
"Rats have rights!" PETA activists proclaimed. How dare the contestants struggling for survival on their isolated island of Pulau Tiga hunt, kill, cook, and eat what most people consider to be vermin, i.e., creatures deserving to be destroyed! Indeed, PETA even complained when one contestant speared a stingray. According to a Fox News article, PETA spokesman, Lisa Lange, declared that, "They [the contestants] basically abused animals. If it had been done here (in the U.S.) in another setting, they would have been charged with animal cruelty."
CBS's response displayed a similar level of cogency and rationality when it said, "We have the highest regard for PETA and its causes. But we truly believe that our viewers recognize that hunting and fishing as a means of sustenance have been acceptable since the dawn of time."
"Highest regard"? For PETA? Perhaps we would be well-advised to evaluate the claims of these rat guardians. Many questions come to mind.
Utilizing a strategy similar to one employed by other collectivist and statist groups, PETA name calls for the ethical treatment of animals. In reality, however, they seek to conflate and confuse the difference between that proper approach to the creatures of this world and the notion that all animals have rights identical to those possessed by human beings.
Before we consider the proposition that animals have rights, perhaps we should explore an even more fundamental concern: Do humans have rights?
A plasma physicist friend of mind once said, "Rights are just what we give ourselves. If it can be taken away from you, it isn't a right. Not only that, but people trivialize rights. For example, someone might say, 'I have a right not to pay this parking ticket.'"
His main objection seemed to be that a "right" could not be physically measured like a phenomenon in physics, i.e., the notion of a "right" cannot be subjected to empirical investigation. Also, for something really to exist as a "right," it should not be capable of violation (in the same sense that one cannot violate the law of gravity).
In response, I pointed out that the principles of biology are such that you can, to a certain extent, violate them and still survive. For example, you can ingest low levels of poison for a long time and still survive. (Women once took arsenic to give their cheeks a rosy glow.) But by exposing yourself to such toxicity, you won't be living up to the full potential (health) of your body. Similarly, you can eat like a glutton, regularly drink yourself into oblivion, stayed perpetually stone, or get too little exercise and fresh air. You will survive -- perhaps even for a long time -- but you will do so at a diminished capacity.
The principles of proper biology and nutrition have always existed, even when we didn't know what they were. Those standards for optimal existence affected humans who unknowingly violated them, even when the effects took decades to manifest themselves.
So, too, can one deal with the objection that violating the proper rights of human beings negates their existence. As Ayn Rand pointed out in The Virtue of Selfishness and elsewhere, rights exist and arise objectively from our natures as volitional beings (rational animals). Those rights -- those principles for guiding us in social interactions -- simply needed to be discovered.
People can, of course, exist in societies that don't believe or acknowledge that individuals are important in and of themselves and possess rights; societies that, instead, raise the State to that lofty position. Yet the principles proper to humans in their dealings with others are precisely those principles that enable a society to function the best and most smoothly. Those principles are the ones that enable individuals separately and collectively to reach their fullest potentials...for their own sakes and for their own enjoyment.
Those who believe the State is the sole entity of interest in a debate on rights don't succeed even by their own standards. Nazi Germany followed the principles of collectivism and ended destroying itself as a state. The Soviet Union survived for 70 years, but that existence was a paltry one. Its fulfillment as a "State" reached even that anemic level only by crushing the human promise of its citizens. The eventual breakup of the USSR demonstrated the final consequences of the political disease that infected that nation for so long...and the failure and invalid nature of the principles they espoused. To the extent that the United States continues to lurch towards viewing the State or Society as supreme, to that extent it and we are and will suffer the same problems that devastated the nations behind the Iron Curtain.
My friend countered my arguments by claiming that someone who disagreed with my belief that the individual is supreme could or might kill me. Therefore, he said, so much for my belief that rights exist.
But in physics, you would not grant credibility to someone who declared that the Law of Conservation of Energy does not exist; that if you disagreed he would kill you; and therefore perpetual motion machines are possible. Why would you not accept his outlandish declaration? Because you can look to reality to show that the Law of Conservation of Energy does exist whether you accept it or not.
Yet this physicist could not (or would not) acknowledge that in the realm of philosophical and political ideas, one looks to the same source to discover and validate one's ideas. To this man, might determines what is right. There is nothing objective about rights, at all. Because people can disagree about what a right is, rights do not exist. Because a right can be violated, it does not exist.
In any event, when people such as those in PETA call for "animal rights," they do, at least, admit that there are such things as rights. The major source of disagreement comes when they assert that animals other than human beings have rights.
To begin analyzing the notion of "animal rights," we should first decide the answer to the question: What is an animal?
The borders of the answer to this question are somewhat controversial. For example, are viruses -- mere bits of replicating protein -- part of the animal kingdom? Reserving that possibility for another venue, we can state that animals extend -- at a minimum -- from bacteria and amoeba, to insects and amphibians, through reptiles and birds, to mammals. In the hierarchy of mammals, we might climb from shrews to chimps and gorillas, and finally reach what some consider the pinnacle of the animal kingdom, human beings.
Okay. We have described the general set of animals under consideration. Next we should ask: are we going to conclude that all animals have rights? Or do "animal rights" apply only to some animals?
Which animals are to be counted? If you are going to draw a line, what is the principle to be used to draw that line, that is, what is the basis for deciding which animals are to be included and which are to be excluded? Is it that the animal possesses consciousness? Some people might argue that consciousness, or awareness, extends all the way down to the level of single-cell animals, i.e., that they are aware of their environment as evidenced by their reactions to various stimuli impinging upon them.
Others might say that consciousness requires a certain level of complexity in a nervous system before awareness on the part of the animal exists. Whether one prefers to draw the line of consciousness at single-celled animals, at the level of insects, or at the level of amphibians, the argument remains essentially the same: if consciousness is the criteria for animal rights, then do frogs have rights? Do insects? Do paramecia?
Closely tied with this notion of consciousness is another commonly offered criterion: can the animal experience pain? Should we adopt this principle in deciding which animals have rights? Again, insects might be excluded since they do not possess the receptors we have identified as associated with the experience of pain. Amphibians, however, would qualify. (Of course, using the ability to experience pain to determine which animals are to be considered as having rights still leaves unstated exactly what those "rights" are.)
Suppose we adopt the guideline of "being able to experience pain" to determine those animals that possess rights. If that is the proper course, does it mean the rights of such animals are violated if another (human or nonhuman) animal causes them to experience pain? Is the right being invoked nothing more than the "right not to experience pain due to the agency of another animal"? Does a lion then violate the rights of a gazelle when it causes the gazelle pain? If it could kill the animal painlessly, would that not violate the gazelle's rights?
Is the right being invoked the idea that an animal has a "right to its own life"? Shall we limit this right only to those animals that have consciousness? To those that are capable of experiencing pain? I'm willing to accept either starting point.
If a gazelle has a right to its life, does the lion then not have a right to its life since it needs to kill the gazelle or some other such animal to survive? It is also true that humans are animals. If a lion somehow does not violate the rights of a gazelle when it hurts it or kills it, how can a human do so? (And does a lion violate a human's rights if it kills and eats a person?)
If the simple infliction of pain is a violation of an animal's rights, then is it immoral for a woman, for instance, to turn down a man who asks for a date and thereby cause him to experience emotional pain? Are "hurtful" words truly the equivalent of bullets as some politically correct activists contend? If the pain criterion is to be limited only to physical pain, why should it be so delimited?
If all animals have a right to their own lives, then what do you do with bacteria and amoebas and other such parasites? Do we then have no right to kill them when they invade our bodies? If animals have a right to their lives, we can't use antibiotics and vaccines or kill rats, insect pests, or other vermin. If we limit the discussion to conscious or pain-experiencing animals, what about rats -- not those running about in the wild as on "Survivor" -- but those that eat my food or carry the bubonic plague flea? When their actions lead to the death of my loved ones or to my own sickness, am I permitted to take any action to destroy them? If not, are they not violating my right to my own life?
If they are, how am I supposed to stop that violation? Talk with them? Reason with them? What am I going to do with carnivores? The very existence of predators requires the pain and destruction of other animals. Let us also not forget about omnivores such as bears. Are we to require that they abandon their consumption of salmon and eat only nuts and berries? How are we to prevent them from violating the rights of those fish without causing pain for the bears?
If someone refuses me shelter and I experience pain by sleeping outside in the cold, is that person violating my rights? How about denying me food? A job? A ride on a stormy night?
As you can see, the whole notion of appealing to mere consciousness or pain is fraught with difficulties.
It's time to look more closely at what rights really are.
As Ayn Rand says, "Rights are a moral concept." (In "Man's Rights," The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 92.) They provide a transition from ethics -- those principles which guide individual behavior -- to those principles which guide interactions between and among individuals. Individual rights serve to subordinate the State to the individual and thereby protect individual moral autonomy.
Rand defines a right as: "A 'right' is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man's right to his own life." ("Man's Rights," p. 93.) She goes on to point out that rights pertain only to actions, that is, to the freedom to act; it is a freedom from direct or indirect "physical compulsion, coercion, or interference by other" people. For the individual, a right is a positive: it is a freedom to act. For others, "rights impose no obligations...except of a negative kind": to refrain from violating the rights of another.
Animals do not need nor are they capable of using ethics. They do not need to discover the proper behaviors required for their individual existences. Those actions have been programmed genetically through the process of evolution. They therefore do not have anything needing to be protected by rights in a social context.
Ethics and morality are applicable only to beings who possess a volitional, conceptual, rational consciousness. Since rights are an extension of ethics/morality, they are therefore applicable only to such beings possessing free will, and, more specifically, only to individual people. Only the rights of the individual exist: there are no gay rights or women's rights or Black rights or handicapped rights or the rights of the unborn.
There are only individual human -- human, not (non-rational) animal -- rights. For such a human, a right is a sanction of independent action that can be exercised without anyone's permission. Within the realm of your own rights, your freedom is absolute.
Animals one owns are property. A person may use his property as he sees fit (in a way that does not violate another's rights). The way one manages one's property may be wise or foolish. Regardless, no one else -- neither private citizens nor agents of the state -- has the right to stop a property owner from acting on his decisions.
There are any number of positive and ethical ways we can gain (objective) value from animals. We can use them for:
Animals are also often used in ways that should be judged as unethical (though not violating anyone's rights). These include but are not limited to:
In considering ethical versus unethical uses of animals, we should recognize that a rational person does not gain pleasure from inflicting or witnessing pain or causing unneeded pain. The SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and various humane societies should limit their strategies to those outlined below.
No one -- repeat, no one -- has the right to violate another person's rights.
Sad and disgusting though it sometimes is -- and as emotionally satisfying as it might be forcefully to stop an animal abuser -- we have to defend a person's right to be irrational. To accept the principle that the State has the right to permit the pursuit only of "objective values" opens the door to eternal abuses. Already, so many limits on freedom are "justified" by appeals to "protecting us from ourselves" or imposing one set of values (even common sense ones) on all people.
If we grant that such an expansive principle is valid, no barrier remains to prevent the State from prohibiting any other actions it deems might clash with objective values. Should we outlaw Nazism, fascism, communism? (Some countries have.) Should we outlaw the expression of racism? ("Hate crimes," anyone?) Is it fine to outlaw recreational drugs? (Virtually all States believe so.) Smoking? (We're getting close.)
How about certain sexual practices among adults? (Prostitution remains verboten in most societies.) Overeating, too little exercise, and improper diets are not objective values. Should they be banned? ("Junk food" taxes loom around the corner.) What about certain books, comics, television, movies? (Censorship has a long history of successfully suppressing out-of-favor creative works.) No place remains to draw a line once you grant the State the "right" to violate rights.
What should people do if they believe that certain animals should not be used for particular purposes? Convince others by rational argument, not by physical intimidation. If you don't like hunting, that does not give you the right to assault someone in a field. If you don't like the wearing of furs or the use of ivory, that does not give you the right to deprive someone of their property by throwing paint on a coat or otherwise damaging their property.
Boycott a company selling products you dislike. Educate the Board of Directors or the buying public. Argument, publicity, and ostracism are appropriate responses to convince an irrational person to stop what he is doing. Physical threats, actual violence, or coercive intimidation, however, violate rights.
Legal action, fines, jail, and confiscation of property violate rights at an even more fundamental level. Property rights enable the implementation of individual rights. Destroy one and you've destroyed the other.
Too many so-called "animal rights" advocates believe that animals have rights, but that somehow human beings are exempt. Break into a laboratory, steal disease-infected mice, release the critters on an unsuspecting public, and set fire to the laboratory. That's acceptable.
Vandalize a mink farm and send the animals into the wild where they'll either die or prey on penned chickens. That's fine.
Permit mountain lions or moose to roam free through our neighborhoods and kill children and bystanders. Great. But you can't shoot them.
People who advocate the myth of "animal rights" are at best ignorant of what rights truly are. At worst, they are anti-human, preferring that a humanity "infecting" the planet and disturbing "Nature" or "Gaia" be obliterated. Their anti-rational actions serve only to dilute and destroy the very concept of "rights." Promoting the moral position of animals over people -- the mantra that a rat is a pig is a human -- undercuts the distinctive and unique quality of free will that makes us who we are.
Such an anti-intellectual, anti-conceptual, anti-life stance nullifies what they think (or at least what they tell us) they are defending just as surely as do all the other promoters of pseudo-"rights." Do not grant them their false premises. Advocate the humane treatment of animals, if you will; advocate the minimum possible inflicted pain; advocate the use of animals only when it is objectively necessary. But do not invoke the interference of the State.
Most assuredly, do not advocate the dangerous notion that animals possess rights...not if you value your life and your freedom. If the animal rights crowd gets its way, both you and your liberty will go the way of the dodo.
