Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

So am I. I also have respect for the life that is on this planet. You should kill animals only if you intend to EAT them.

Saying animals do not have the right to live shows absolutely no regard for other life on this planet. None what so ever.

The more we study dolphins, the brighter they turn out to be, writes Anuschka de Rohan

You really need to reconsider what intelligence is

 

An excellent question!

 

Oh well, that's too bad. You have yet to address the fact that only humans have will--as shown by the fact that only humans take moral responsibility for their actions Until you can show a dolphin that does this, I don't care if the dolphin can factor quadratic equations. I'm unwilling to respect the "rights" of a species of which not a single member can be shown to respect the rights of either my species or its own.

 

They'd have to be intelligent enough to possess free will and take responsibility for their actions and would have to have in their nature the ability and willingness to respect the person and property both of members of their own species and of the human species.

 

All animals behave by their own social standards, not ours. Next.

 

Leftist psuedo-scientists religious earth worshipers and AGW alarmists are just to fricking stupid for words.

 

And there social standard does not respect their person or property? Yet you want me to? Again, I ask: is a dog morally responsible when it mauls a human being? Should I tell it to go to Confession?

 

Dogs do not have human morals. That does not mean their right to live is abolished.

 

Neither do dolphins. Ascribeing human rights to dumb animals is social incompetence at its leftist loser worse.

 

Dolphins are a starting point. Whales are in danger and supposedly protected, but Japan laughs in the face of that and carries on, using science as an excuse to continue hunting and killing whales.

Whatever the current number of dolphins, it doesn't excuse how unethically the real animals treat them.

Indeed. Despite the usual neanderthal attitudes here, it has to be done and will be done, if not this time then in the future. Because there is plainly no excuse for enslaving creatures like killer whales. There is also no excuse for imprisoning animals and using them to test non-urgent human products.

I don't know if you saw this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...mpanzees-see-daylight-for-the-first-time.html

The article says they were released after a legal battle, but I read the lab they were held in changed hands and the new owners found the research pointless.

What horrifies me above everything is the length of time those animals were imprisoned. 30 feckin years. 30 years. That is a life sentence. What on earth can justify that?

In UK everything threatening has been eradicated already. The midgie is still here though, so I sympathize with your plight.

Animals do have rights. This is an extension and it is long overdue.

Yes and I think you should become the Dolphin Police and flash your lights.

Of course they have a right not to be maltreated, as any living thing should have that right. As humans should have the same right, but in many cases do not.

Dogs are held responsible for their actions even when the action is caused by the owner. Dogs are executed if they maul a human being.

According to the "logic" of some in this thread, it should follow that dogs then have other legal rights, as it would not be fair to hold them to account unless they have the same right to protected life as the human victim...

 

You do realize that humans are animals right?

 

Why not? You simply state, "They have the right to live" like this is obvious and requires no argument. Where do you think rights come from?

 

Dogs have their own morals, as does every animal.

Animals can tell right from wrong

 

No. We are human beings. Not animals. Animals have no souls, humans do. Would I like to see Dolphins protected? Yes. But I will not get my undies all bunched up worrying about their rights, which is far different from protection. Leftists earth worshipers always get the two mixed up.

 

You are not an animal? Interesting. Do you grow out of the ground then? Have branches? Need to be watered. TO fruits fall from your branches?

 

Where do rights come from? I think they derive from having a mind with the qualities of sentience, sapience, and volition. Animals only possess the first two. Furthermore, they have never respected the rights of others, including members of their own species. Nor do they have moral responsibilities, the corollary to having rights. So where do this rights come from, other than the fact that you want them to have them.

Why? From where? From your emotions? Should plants also have that right?

That's a practical act. It doesn't mean the dog was morally responsible for it. Nor is the victim allowed to sue the dog for compensation.

Just so. They should have a right to a lawyer and a jury under this harebrained notion.

 

They can't tell right from wrong enough to be held morally responsible for their actions or to be expected to respect the personhood and property rights of humans. How are you going to convince a dog to respect my property line? It doesn't even possess language.

 

Once again, animals have their own sense of morals.

You are trying to impose the morals of one specie onto another, which is pure lunacy.

 

Hell, even humans do not have the same morals!

 

So are you, it seems, by saying humans should be required to expect the person of other species.

 

Pretty funny stuff watching the Daily show mocking the lunacy of PETA.

This is just a 3 minute snip of Cass Sunstein (the whole thing just gives a headache listening to this retarded Obama Regulatory Czar) yet is enough to see what America has coming down the path., Cass being the guy in charge.

Really funny how he echos the Daily show mocking of PETA...but he is for real, and the man behind the man in the Oval Office.

Lawyers for animals, and it slavery/genocide to the pigs and chickens etc.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaJ8VXYdBrg&feature=related"]Cass Sunstein On Hunting, Animal Slavery & Right To Bear Arms - YouTube[/ame]

 

Can you provide a objective reason why they shouldn't?

 

By what principle are they accorded rights under the law? Intelligence. There's no measure for that.

This is not a question of rights per se. You and I are welcome to respect perceived rights of animals all that we want. It's a question of law. Once the law is used to create arbitrary measures of rights, there is no objective case against using law to benefit some special interests over others. Why should dogs be accorded rights, but not cats? Or cows, or pigs, or sheep, or chickens, or bugs.

 

You are deliberately misunderstanding the point. The point is that humans as a species are the only ones capable of making rational decisions about their own behavior. We're the only ones capable of refraining from an action that our passions demand. Show me a dolphin capable of thinking about the plight of a wounded fish, and I'll consider the cause.

 

Agreed. It's pure lunacy to impose rights on animals.