Will animal rights ever be established?

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I think the distinction between moral agent and moral object is useful to make. We ascribe moral agency to actors capable of rational thought and some degree of self-initiative; a moral agent can weigh the moral impact of an action or inaction. A moral object is something we may have a moral duty towards that nevertheless may lack moral agency. We may owe any sentient being a minimum of suffering, for example. It really wouldn't make sense to assign personhood or rights as they are typically understood to non-human animals because we typically think of them as lacking in the ability to know right from wrong in the human way. Animals may have certain rights in the sense that we ought to restrain ourselves from acts of cruelty against them or negligence when they're under our care, but it makes no sense to speak of rights to speech, religion, marriage, etc. in this context.

When Cows and Pigs start building cities, writing several thousand languages, build their own technology and find their own way to the moon, we can start talking about giving them equal legal privileges, but for now, lets keep them on the table....the dinner table.

Also: how do we punish a cat that eats a mouse? What rights does a mouse have against its feline aggressor? Man eats animals to survive, we cannot have a complete diet without animal products; veganism a joke.

to john browning......a couple of years ago i had the chance to speak with a rep/lobbyist of the nra during a session of the kentucky general assembly. a law was being proposed that would make torture/killing of dogs/cats (pets only) a felony. a lawmaker from frankfort that i knew from high school said the nra was putting pressure on the general assembly to not pass the bill.

why are you opposed to this bill, i asked, it has nothing what-so-ever to do with guns. the lobbyist was very patient in listening to my question as i have some trauma induced speech problems. patient until i finished. he then blasted me with a verbal assault. 'what a dumb ass liberal (?) clown f... you are' or something close to that. he then went on to explain to me and the crowd that had gathered that animal rights clowns use any opportunity to go after gun laws. if you help pets, then deer will be next. then they'll take away my guns. yak, yak, yak. i just left. i understood. it's the domino effect.

you help one type animal and the next thing you know deer and squirrel and turkeys will be protected.

i'll repeat, the nra is the no. 1 reason laws dealing with helping animals almost always fail. do you deny the nra has bought 100's of politicians, national and state? surely you do not.

i have a pistol and a concealed carry permit. when i'm going to a suspected dog fight area or raiding a puppy mill
i'm usually armed. would not mind at all if a dog-fighter pulled a gun on me. i would join the nra if it weren't for their policy of opposing any law to help animals...............i haven't put my vietnam skills to use in a llllooooonnnnng time.

still don't believe me? i would think that of anyone i've read writings of on w. p. that would be an nra member, it would be you. ask them. you could go to a neutral site like the humane society of the united states (not for animal rights) and see what they have to say about the nra..

honest, es verdad.

One of my grandmothers founded the Phoenix chapter of the ASPCA and devoted most of her life to animal rights, yet as far as I knew she thought the PETA people were nuts. The stories we used to hear were about her going into the Phoenix barrios and rescuing abused animals by force if necessary, I know for a fact she punched out a guy in the process of getting him off of a dog he was hitting. Intriguingly, she also carried a gun most of the time, but I only ever heard about her punching people... Funny lady.

Edit: Just googled her name because I couldn't remember exactly which animal welfare group she founded (Arizona SPCA and the Arizona chapter of the Humane Society), but the first link that came up was to a "Saint" award for lifetime achievement from the Animal Liberation Front. Sweet, I'm tangentially related to a figure revered by domestic eco terrorists!

If we began treating animals like humans, they would end up in jail 4 seconds after the animal rights bill gets approved.

Food is among the most fundamental of human passions. We have likes and dislikes about food, far more than almost any other element of our lives.

It is not suprising, then that our politics around creating and obtaining food are complex.

I have no objection to the consumption of animal flesh, nor to the use of other parts of an animal for other purposes. There are, however, many practices to which I have a great deal of objection:

1) Inhumane practices. Some, like the practices around raising milk-fed veal, are old cultural practices that have simply outlived the time in which they arose. (Note, the veal we find in stores today is simply young beef. Milk fed veal is the meat from calves that have been treated inhumanely. I will eat the former, not the latter).

2) Practices motivated by a political "cheap food" policy. Feedlots, poultry batteries and some aquaculture practices are my principal bugbears, here. Cows digestive systems are not meant to process corn, which necessitates the excessive use of antibiotics, which creates ongoing problems in both the health of herds and in the food chain. The offensive practices of poultry batteries are well known. While this does put cheap meat, eggs and salmon in the grocery store, it does so at the expense of quality (both from the perspective of nutrition and taste).

3) Unsustainable practices. The consumption of species at risk is entirely improper.

4) Wasteful practices. Shark's fin is the poster child here.

I think it lamentable that we have lost the understanding of how our food comes to the table. A burger is not simply a puck of meat product that you pull out of the freezer and throw onto the grill. I buy half a cow every year from a local farmer, and a lamb from another. Each year I see the animals in their fields. They have never been given a hormone or an antibiotic that they didn't need. I have seen where the animals are slaughtered and butchered.

I know exactly where the meat that is on my table has come from--and it doesn't arrive in a nice, neat styrofoam pack with a blood sponge. (And it doesn't cost as much, either!)

Haven't some animal rights already been established? It seems like it when I see those TV shows about people getting into legal trouble due to abusing their pets.... also, what about laws that keep people from hunting certain creatures?

I think that if it hasn't already, that there will be some firmly established laws protecting animals from being tortured or abused.

The tricky part of animal rights is that they cannot clearly communicate with us, and that so many people use them for food.

If the communication barrier persists, I do not think that animals will be fully integrated and equal in most human societies But I do think that when synthetic meats technologies are advanced enough for these meats to make a full replacement, we will be able to truly give animals the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.