Animal Rights
Steven’s Note:
I found this issue pertained more to animal rights than the Vick situation. Due to this, I decided to move it to another post.
Please note that this was originally a comment and it will be left unedited.
I have really enjoyed the comments about my blog post and appreciate everyone writing about it. I think Steve and Jessica had good points that further expanded my thoughts about the difference in outrage. I think Nick also had a good post about the hype that has surrounded Vick. I think to a certain extent Michael Vick has been at a stalemate; he has extraordinary physical gifts, but has never really taken his team to the next level. His teams just seem to stay mediocre and he never seems to take steps backwards or forwards. Like Nick said, maybe any major Vick story was bound to explode, simply to pry him from mediocrity.
All of the comments have been great, but I would like to respond particularly to Mr. Trevino’s. When I read Mr. Trevino’s comment, I was taken aback. He presented a well thought out argument against animal rights and I spent a couple days questioning my own thoughts on the subject. After spending some good time thinking about it, I have reached several conclusions that I hope are well rounded, as they have only circulated in my mind and haven’t been exposed to other trains of thought.
I apologize in advance for the length of this comment, but I’ve had some time to think out some things and was quite stimulated by Mr. Trevino’s comment.
Firstly, I am not entirely convinced that rights are purely something that must be exchanged between groups. If homosexuals were given the right to marry, wouldn’t I gain a right to marry another man if I wanted to? Being a heterosexual, haven’t I gained another right with losing my own right to marry? Similarly, a women’s right to vote does not infringe on my right to vote, it is merely a right that is shared. When women gained the right to vote, who lost a right?
In conjunction with this, I think often times when there is an actual exchanging of rights to another group, the rights that one group exchanges are hardly necessary and quite superfluous compared to the right the other group has gained. In Mr. Trevino’s sofa example, my right to cut a dog to pieces, relative to a dog’s right to not suffer and continue living, seems unnecessary and wanton. I think that when rights are exchanged, often times the rights aren’t equal and some are completely unnecessary.
I also spent a good amount of time thinking about responsibility in conjunction with rights. As much as I would like to say responsibilities are mandatory for a right, in many cases they aren’t. Is my right to vote revoked because I didn’t do any research into the candidate’s beliefs? Is my right to marry revoked if I neglect my wife and kids and commit adultery? I find that responsibility does not define rights, that many rights can be exercised without adequate responsibility. Because an animal can’t perform certain responsibilities or isn’t aware of them doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve rights. If that were true, half of the American voting populace shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
Why then, you may be asking, do animals deserve rights? When thinking about this, I had to think about why laws are made and regulations defined. I came to the conclusion that most laws have either a moral or practical basis. I define moral as an action that society collectively deems as correct or incorrect. The reasons why said action is correct or incorrect can be based on anything, God, nature, or preservation of peace, but the importance is the judgment of right and wrong. Moral laws include laws against murder, robbery, fraud and abuse. All of these laws define certain actions as incorrect, as viewed by society, and thus are not to be permitted.
Practical laws are exactly that: practical. Laws about taxes, traffic rules and other regulations are practical in maintaining a working society. Taxes are collected, in theory, to do things that individuals cannot do: build roads, hospitals and emergency response. While many of these do not have specific moral purpose, they have a purpose that society has deemed as necessary.
Dog fighting laws are laws that have a moral purpose. Society, whatever its various motivations, has deemed this action as unacceptable and punishable. Personally, I have moral reasons why I think dog fighting and animal abuse is incorrect. Just because dogs are property doesn’t mean they are the same as a couch, just like an HD TV and a toothbrush aren’t the same thing. The life of an animal is held in higher value, in my opinion and others opinions, than a piece of property that is innate. In this sense they are a unique property, a property that has different rights than that of a couch.