Yes, yes, but I asked specifically about you and how you determine these things. I asked so I could better understand your reasoning. The given answer tells of general humanity which does me no good. If you care to answer specifically about the basis you use in determing that humans are obliged to act in a positive manner that would be super, but if you chose to bypass answering - life will go on.
Oh, you were asking for
my personal take on this - I do apologise. I got a little too caught up in the OP’s blustering insistence on
objective evidence.
As for what I believe, the basis upon which I feel it is right for humans to treat other creatures (and each other) with at least a basic level of respect - I do find it a little hard to explain convincingly to others, because it seems so self-evident to me, but I shall do my best. I think that basic altruism is inbuilt in human nature. I know that sounds counterintuitive, particularly in the days of ‘neo-Darwinism’, where people have co-opted evolutionary theory to use as an excuse for selfishness, but if you look at it from the point of view of species survival and perpetuation of one’s genetic material, it makes sense to look after your family and kinship group and help them survive. From these primitive roots, the social evolution of humankind has grown to larger and larger societies, and I must admit that I think we reached our optimum population levels a long time ago, and beyond that, altruism begins to break down. But I digress - that is probably a subject best left for discussion on another thread.
From the earliest days of our existence as Homo sapiens, humans have needed to work within the natural world, and respect the natural rhythms and relationships of which we were a part. We started out as prey, and gradually evolved into predators, but still didn’t take more than we needed to survive. Respect for their environment was integral to the survival of early humans - they had to know which plants were safe to eat, which animals were too big and dangerous to hunt, they had to observe the turning of the seasons and move around to where they could find the best resources. Their relationships with other animals were an essential part of their survival. The domestication of the dog - which is thought to have happened quite early in human prehistory - represents, to my way of thinking, the ultimate in symbiotic relationships between humans and other animals. Both species are social hunters and scavengers, and the bond between humans and dogs remains strong to this day. It is my belief, therefore, that human-animal relationships are at their best when they are
mutually beneficial.
I don’t believe in a might=right morality. Few if any things make me angrier than to see a strong person treating a weaker person - or animal - in a cruel or exploitative manner. I also believe there is a more-or-less direct correlation between the way a person treats animals and how they are disposed to treat their fellow humans. At the risk of employing the slippery-slope argument, I would say that mistreating animals can desensitise people to the suffering of other creatures - I have pointed out before that most serial killers start off by killing animals. If we are able to treat other animals with compassion, despite our greater powers, I believe that speaks highly of our humanity.
The other aspect that informs my own take on animal rights is the belief that “because we can” is never in itself a good enough reason to do something. We
can exploit and abuse animals for our own pleasure and convenience, but that is not a reason we should.
I am not sure who Jeremy Bantham is. I would ask not “Can they suffer?”, but “Can animals fake suffering?” I offer an event from a summer of 2003 bicycle ride for your consideration. Most summers I go on a bicycle tour. My dog Cyclops would go with me. I pull a trailer behind the bicycle and Cyclops (dog’s weight was 55 pounds) would ride on the trailer. That is except uphills. I mean come on 55 lbs is 55 lbs. Cyclops, a black and white springer/lab/pitbull, had to run uphills (only made one exception to this rule, but that is another story). Cape Sebastian is 3 miles of torture on a hot summer day on the southern Oregon coast. About halfway up Cyclops starts limping. I stopped to check the dog’s paw for thorns - nothing there. Continuing on I see Cyclops again limping. Another stop and I thought perhaps with the heat a tar ball from the road was stuck to a paw. This time I checked all four paws. Now, if I remember right Cyclops’ ‘lameness’ disappeared at the top of Cape Sebastian where the road leveled out. It is my firm belief that my dog was angling for a ride up the cape by faking a limp.
For the record, Jeremy Bentham was an 18th-19th century English philosopher and social reformer. He was a major proponent of utilitarianism.
It’s interesting what you say about your dog perhaps ‘faking’ suffering. It is quite true, as Limerick says, that dogs are naturally disposed to stoicism (cats too, I believe). In the wild, in a pack structure, it is dangerous to appear weak, and domestic dogs have inherited this aspect of their nature from wolves. I would suggest, however, that dogs can learn how to get sympathetic attention from their human ‘pack’ - the notion that they are able to fake injury or pain in order to do so speaks of more sophisticated social intelligence in dogs than some posters on this thread have been prepared to grant them!