Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

Rights aren't deserved - they're inherent.

But they must be recognized by their possessor, otherwise they have no meaning. And since dolphins cannot recognize these rights, they cannot possess them in any real sense. But that doesn't mean it's okay for humans to treat non-human animals sadistically. It should just be obvious to any decent human being that torture and cruelty against animals is wrong and serves absolutely no rational purpose. Personally, I'd like to increase some of the penalties for animal cruelty. People who run sadistic dog-fighting rings should face more jail time.

 

If animals do not have rights, then torturing them is a victimless crime, so how can it deserve jail time? This makes no sense to me.

Again, I take pains to say I wholeheartedly oppose needless cruelty to animals and think that people who engage in it should be shunned.

 

Well, I wouldn't necessarily say they don't "have" rights. I just don't think we can treat them as if they do because they are incapable of taking moral responsibility for the acts they commit.

So, insofar as these animals have rights, we should take practical and realistic steps not to infringe on them and to punish individuals who do.

 

I rather like the idea of trying dolphins for murder and making them pay their fair share of the taxes.

 

You better be careful. This opens the door to protecting human embryos and fetuses.

 

It is not so much that dolphins have rights, but more aptly that humans have laws.

 

You say people should be shunned for being cruel to animals, but you still seem to think its okay. Animals don't have the same rights as humans, but they are still protected, by law, from scumbags who wish to abuse them.

 

As near as I can parse this statement it says: Animals have rights, but we shouldn't act like they have rights, but we should act like they have rights.

???????

Where do rights come from? This isn't an easy or obvious issue, and we can't just base it on what feel right to us. We need to base it on a logical and universal principle.

 

I don't think you understand what the word "okay" means. You seem to conflate "it shouldn't be illegal" with "it's okay." I mean, I don't think it's okay to blaspheme, but I'm not going to lock someone in prison for it. Immorality doesn't equate to illegality.

 

I understand perfetly. You have stated that a person who harms an animal should be shunned, but nothing else. I take that to mean a person could set an animal on fire while it is still alive and you would not want that person to face any criminal charges.

That, in my opinion, is (*)(*)(*)(*)ing sick.

 

No they should be jailed because even a shunned person can end up with 15 bodies in their backyard. People who torture animals are criminals who most likely will graduate to harming humans.

 

Exactly. Thanks for saying what most people should be thinking.

 

Agreed.

/10 char

 

That's certainly the most consistent and scrupulous way to look at it. But I guess I cannot reconcile it. To me, non-human animals deserve not to be treated sadistically, but I cannot reconcile it with the notion of natural rights; however, my inability to reconcile the two does not necessarily mean I'm wrong. I believe "gut feelings" can have merit, as self-serving as that sounds...

 

AV is just wanting some kind of self-consistent reason why we should jail people who torture animals. Thus far, I haven't seen anyone provide one, including me. I guess I have to admit that my desire to imprison animal torturers is pretty much a "gut reaction", but it's one I generally feel comfortable with.

 

"Hey, it's okay to treat something as subhuman, as long as it's not mistreated, right? Those black people don't need to be recognized as human beings, as long as we don't beat them."

Granted, the extension of rights to dolphins is somewhat less obvious than the extension of rights to people with different skin colors.

 

In my opinion, your emotion-driven unwillingness to try to think logically and consistently about anything is (*)(*)(*)(*)ing sick. At least Ethereal is honest enough to admit this quasi-animal rights position is illogical, inconsistent, and based solely on feelings. But you simply don't care about reasoning things through, and that's distressing.

There really are only two philosophically consistent positions. The first is that animals don't have rights. We can advocate not taking care of them, but we can't "criminally charge" somebody for abusing them. The second position is that animals (of one species or another) do have rights. That means they are entitled to the same gamut of rights humans are. For example, we can't destroy their habitat because its their property. If they injure another of their kind they should be brought to court for it. And so forth.

You have to pick ONE or the OTHER if you want to be philosophically consistent. Anything else is weak, cowardly, emotional doublethink.

 

Killing humans is a rights violation since humans, unlike animals, have rights. Therefore, they can be legally penalized.

 

Well, I don't see why it's so important to put animal abusers into prison anyhow.

The point of prison is not to serve, but to restrain people. In a just society, people would only be restrained if they presented a danger to others in some way.

Even actual criminals (people who have violated the persons or property of others) should not be imprisoned if they aren't a likely threat to anyone. For example, swindlers and white-collar criminals like Madoff fall into this category; they are not likely to knock over a gas station. They can be kept under surveillance but not in a cell. Rather, their punishments should be solely to fully compensate their victims, working for it if they have to. In others words, to pay civil damages.

Now, animal abusers can not be said to pose a demonstrable danger to humans, so there's no reason to imprison them. So that's out. And as for compensating the victim, how are you going to compensate a dog? Dogs can't own property.

 

I would disagree.

 

But animals have rights too. They feel pain, they have thoughts, they are sentient beings. Yet you believe (for some reason) it is okay to hurt them. I don't understand your argument here.

 

I don't know if these scientists are right or not, I suspect they probably are. If dolphins have the same level of intellegence as humans and the same ability to feel emotions they have good basis for what they say.

No doubt they are convinced that dolphins do have that level of intellegence and emotion and are probably basing their opinion on observation.

 

It's a risk factor, but it's not sufficient to incarcerate somebody. Also, as I've said, there's far more animal cruelty going on in factory farms than a handful of lunatics torturing cats.

 

Rights to not derive simply from pain, thoughts, or sentience. Rights require free will and existing as a moral agent.

 

These weren't even scientists. They were philosophers and shrinks. Anyway, show me a dolphin that's willing to respect my person and property and I'll consider respecting that of the dolphin.