I wasn’t referring to the media, I was referring to the people who use this argument. It rarely makes sense. It’s just a way to dodge the issue of the mistreatment of animals.
I wish people would extend their sympathy for Cecil to all animals. I agree that Planned Parenthood didn’t get enough coverage, and I agree that this one incident of animal cruelty is overblown, but I do feel that you are perhaps not seeing the bigger picture. Humans tend to treat animals like commodities or objects to be used or played with, and their suffering is generally ignored. I’m sure a lot of people mourning Cecil have a very superficial view of his death. Again, I only ever see your abortion argument as an attempt to ignore other issues.
I don’t recall saying that. It isn’t proportionate at all, no. I just said it’s irrelevant and an attempt to derail the discussing regarding our mistreatment of animals. Even if abortion takes place we still mistreat animals as well. In fact, the extent of that is also ignored by the media.
Let’s try to be clear about the difference between human beings and animals.
Human beings are moral agents because we have the capacity for moral agency. That means EACH individual
as an individual moral agent has a certain set of determinable rights – the right to life being one.
Having a right means other moral agents have an obligation to respect and uphold that right. In the case of a right to life, other individual human moral agents are obliged to respect the right to life of other individual human moral agents.
Please take note: animals are not moral agents. If they were, they would have obligations at the level of each individual to respect and uphold the rights of other moral agents. They could, therefore, be held responsible and liable for moral failures.
When was the last time a lion was held liable for killing a wildebeast or zebra? For eating its own offspring? The answer is pretty obvious. Lions are not MORALLY accountable BECAUSE they are NOT moral agents. Lions do what lions do. They are part of the natural order, not part of the moral order.
Animals do not have moral rights precisely because they are not moral creatures. Individual human beings, on the other hand, are capable of moral agency and, therefore, have moral rights at an individual level.
It is incorrect to speak of animal
rights. It is NOT, however, incorrect to speak of animal
welfare. Animals are part of a natural system, for which human beings ARE responsible. If animals had rights it would be as wrong to harm or kill any one individual without moral warrant as it would be to harm or kill its entire cohort. Clearly, this is not the case.
Animals that are as sentient capable as lions are killed every day for food. Humans have NO moral responsibility towards any one individual lion because lions do not have moral rights. If they did, the natural order would reflect the moral order and animals would NOT kill each other for their next meal and human beings wouldn’t either.
There is such a thing, however, as
animal welfare. Human beings DO have responsibility towards animals as classes of beings. We are responsible for the well-being of each animal group – which is why environmentalism is morally laudable. We have responsibility for using the environment in such a way as to preserve and protect it and all the living creatures that are part of it and for its well-being as the abode of all living biological entities. We have responsibility for the whole, not for particular individual animals except to the extent that the welfare of the entire system is placed in jeopardy by their demise.
Individual animals exist for the good of the whole because that feature is intrinsic to the natural order. Individual moral agents, on the other hand, do not exist for the good of the whole. The whole exists for the good of each moral agent – that would be the true and objective GOOD of each moral individual, not merely to satisfy whims.
Note the difference.
Moral responsibility means we have obligations to uphold the rights of each individual human being as human being qua moral agent.
Environmental responsibility means we have responsibility for the welfare of the whole natural order. The life or existence of any one particular individual is NOT the concern except insofar as the whole is affected. That is why it is permissible to hunt for food provided that the hunting is sustainable and maintains the integrity of the environment within which that animal lives. That means our behaviour vis a vis the environment should reflect concern for the good or well-being of the whole and particular individual animals to the extent that their existence is required for maintaining the whole.
This is why, for example, that it IS permissible to destroy large numbers of animals infected with a disease that threatens the entire population, but a similar move would be immoral if human beings were involved. We would not ever choose to kill and burn human beings infected with, say, ebola, but, rather, do everything we can to save every life. That is because we intuitively know that each individual human being has intrinsic moral worth, but individual animals are not owed that level of obligation. At least there is not the moral warrant for that kind of obligation towards any one animal.
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