Should elephants have the same rights as people? A Colorado court may decide
denver7.com
denver7.com
The elephant (ha ha) in the room is another slippery slope leading to the question whether we should be killing and eating intelligent and social beings.
Related: I hope that Spanish cephalopod farming operation gets axed by law soon for precisely the same reason.
Industrialized animal farming is a cruelty factory that (mostly) doesn’t even produce quality product. Senseless by any sane measure.
Another cruelty is, especially in regards to hunting, the difficulty is getting a painless kill. At least on a farm you can always guide the cow into a barn, knock it unconscious with a bolt pistol, and kill it humanely from there.
“Nearly all animals farmed in the U.S. (99 percent) are raised on factory farms.”, “ Large-scale farms make up only four percent of the nation’s farms but “control two-thirds of U.S. agricultural land,” reports The Guardian” - https://www.farmsanctuary.org/news-stories/2022-ag-census-fa...
Our whole society is based on animals not having rights.
Some people see a gradation where we could have criteria to determine how many rights could each kind of animal have, and argue about small details. But of course the other point of view will be that any fissuring of the concept of animals as "things" will break the dam and there will be no going back.
For anyone seeing simple and clear lines that could be drawn, try to classify the elephants in the article, the differnt kind monkeys, pigs, cows, dogs , racoons and ant colonies. You see the wall that rises the minute elephants get special rights while cows keep feeding us, for instance.
Any truly objective observer will say humans are no different from other animals on Earth.
And of course, an elephant will likely say they're special while everything else isn't.
We're special to each other because we wouldn't function very well if we didn't find each other special.
Except in all the ways that we are?
What other species have left the planet and came back to tell the tale?
It seems askew to attribute 8 billion+ humans with an attribute marking so few humans .
What is your point that elevates the value of human life above that of other animals?
No, but we have and regularly do move faster than any cheetah and fly higher and further than any eagle.
My point is that, to an objective observer, there are things that humans have done and can do that make us obviously separate, as a species, than any other animal on earth.
The scale of our combined efforts dwarf the efforts of other animals. Especially when considering that, physically, we have very few advantages over other animals.
Arguing against that point is just playing mental gymnastics to say “oh actually humans aren’t really exceptional”
Idk what that might say about the “value” (whatever that means) of human life compared to other life.
A concrete example would be climate change. Humans have been pumping the atmosphere full of shit for a long time and it’s causing global climate changes. No other animal has affected the climate at that scale.
Bad or not, that kind of thing makes us humans exceptional.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event
The environmental impact humans have had, if any, is astronomically negligible. Even if it wasn't, we certainly aren't the first and certainly won't be the last.
> This began approximately 2.460–2.426 Ga (billion years) ago during the Siderian period and ended approximately 2.060 Ga ago during the Rhyacian
So it took them what, like 400M years?
Our Industrial Revolution was 500ish years ago? Hell, we’ve only been around for 10k years.The scale of that is wildly different.
Also let’s not forget that we can quickly change the atmosphere’s composition, leave the planet and return, move faster than any cheetah, and fly higher and further than any eagle. All of that and more.
The rate of change of our species’ capabilities seem to change much faster than other animals as well
It’s crazy that you’re serious, I’m sorry.
Yeah, and we're talking about maybe we could cause the oceans to rise a few fractions of an inch in that time.
The impact of humanity has been massively overblown by people like you, which only take away from any worthwhile conversation.
My point is that an objective observer looking at the world would absolutely recognize that humanity is an exceptional species (not necessarily in a good or bad way) among all that exist on earth in many ways.
The impact we have on the planet is non-negligible. A few fractions of an inch in 500 years (effectively instant on a geological timescale) is indeed meaningful, but not what I’m trying to argue.
> people like you
You know next to nothing about me. Try not to generalize.
I'm not going to say this is human nature, because I think all species have the same instinctive frame of mind if we could but communicate with them. I have no doubt that elephants look down upon us as crazy apes, but I have no way to prove that since I don't speak elephant.
“Based on this one comment thread, I know enough about you to be able to tell that all of human society is based on humans being special“
Is a crazy statement that has next to nothing to do with the conversation I’ve been having…
This isn't a jab at you, rather you're demonstrating the axiom of human society as a member of it.
So far, so good.
> Any truly objective observer will say humans are no different from other animals on Earth
And...we hard exit stage left. It's sad when presumably good intentions, like the ethical treatment of animals and cultivating some well needed humility as a species, leads to such an unfounded point of view.
From a purely biological perspective, I could see that argument. But until animals start hunting, experimenting on, cultivating, and eating humans, en masse, creating symphonies or buildings that will last centuries, and start sending themselves to space, I'll continue to believe the difference between humans and animals is a qualitative and not just a quantitative difference. I don't think a truly objective observe could see it any other way.
- Humans can easily treat other humans as things as well. Humans being special is to me more or a convenient fiction than something really at the core of our societies.
- For such a long time, we didn't have to care whether humans need to be separated from animals, the value scale was pretty flat in that respect. In many circumstances a horse from a higher up would be more important than a peasant's life.
Let's be honest, these laws won't apply to the average person. It'll apply to where it really matters:
Poach an elephant in Africa and come home? Now you're going to court for murder.
Keep a Monkey inside your house? Looks like you're going to court for kidnapping.
Keep a dog outside chained to a fence and barely feed it? Looks like you're going to court for abuse (more severe than what we do now).
We can make provisions for things. Animals eat animals that's the reality of our world. But make cows sit in their own shit for years and eat food that's non nutritional for them? Now you're going to jail for mass incarceration of living things.
It's wildly accepted bees are quite intelligent. Let's treat the company who made insecticides that killed all the bees with genocide. Once that legal president is set, let's do the same for people who continue to use insecticides.
For some people it might look far fetched at first, but considering that women only got full voting rights around a few decades ago in most western countries, and are still far from there in so many countries, humans getting different rights is still totally a thing.
Only if they pay taxes. Jokes aside, there's no legal framework for this kind of stuff. "Full rights" means citizenship, passport, ability to travel, requirement to pay taxes etc etc. There's no other kinds of not-exactly-people-rights
There are rights without requirements for people that can't function in society: babies, infants, mentally handicapped, elderly with alzheimers, etc.
They all have rights even though they can't fight for them themselves. Especially the right to not be imprisoned or killed by humans, which are the typical fundamental rights sought after for animals with high cognitive capabilities. It's not all or nothing.
Paying taxes, citizenship and ability to travel are one level of abstraction higher and has nothing to do with these fundamental rights. Similarly some other rights like the right to vote are not granted to all citizens.
I would protect the elephants because I like them. No use bringing rights into it.
They absolutely do exist, but it's really unfortunate that we don't talk about them more accurately.
History would beg to differ.
>I would protect the elephants because I like them. No use bringing rights into it.
Rights are rarely needed to protect x from y when y likes x..
- There may not be much of a "wild" left to release animals into.
- Some animals have been bred for hundreds of generations and are now dependent on humans.
- Who has the right to speak for these animals? How do they divine what their client wants? It's not reasonable that any person on the street can bring a motion of habeas corpus on behalf of your dog.
Watching the foxes and squirrels that live near humans has suggested to me that domestication is two-way. The animals want what we have: spare food, shelter. Some of them are brave and willing enough to interact with us, some aren’t. Over time, more of them become brave and willing enough to interact.
Anyone that considers a cat their pet will observe that cats are mainly in it for themselves. They (try to) go out when they want, they’ll make it clear when they’re not in the mood for attention. They spend hours each day ignoring us whilst making use of the shelter we provide. They’ve been known to leave their humans and return to their familiar territories when their humans move house.
I don’t think pet “ownership” is inherently immoral, but some people’s implementations of it, and the terminology, probably are.
I don't think being given personhood would necessarily make it illegal. There is the precedent of dependent persons (mentally handicapped, babies) that have personhood but are also under the control of someone else that take decisions for them.
Should policies of countries be decided by a small number of single minded zealots whilst make pretending there's some sort of 'democracy' taking place?
Anyhoo :)
The title indicates that this isn't a thread for the discussion of that small number of single minded zealots who have captured the US Court system in a thoroughly undemocratic manner .. but by all means discuss that further.
We generally are too soft on animals abuse and abuse of an animal like an elephant should carry a sentence similar to abusing a person.
Therefore, who deserves personhood and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship? An individual termite, or its mound and colony as a whole? How mature and ancient is any given termite mound in the Australian outback? Do presidents and kings owe tribute to Termite Pharaohs?
We need something like child support for dogs. Shelters are horribly underfunded. Animal abusers deserve to have their income confiscated, so their family members can have a dignified life!
How about slugs ? Or bacteria ?
That you don’t take a second to consider they may have a subjective reality similar to your own, and instead ridicule the mere thought that these animals deserve some kind of protection, leaves me troubled.
I'm personally not sure where I stand, but there is a whole can of worms when we start to evaluate which animals "deserve" protection and on what grounds. For instance many of the characteristics you underline probably apply to crows, except crows are either categorized as nuisance or only tolerated in many places in the world.
And it might be too much expanding the subject, but there is a chance that most animals that are living in urban or technically advanced settings are getting some boost on "inteligence" and will show traits that make them better fit for a human environment, including better display of emotions for instance. I think we're already seeing such a development in cats, and as animals crossing that threshold would be protected while other get the boot, the selection for that trait could happen pretty fast.
In a broader scope, I think we’re just now realising that continuing the human way of life is just not sustainable and makes the planet inhospitable to Sapiens: We consume too much at once, and bring a disbalance to the global ecosystem. Fixing that requires rethinking a lot of the systems we rely on, and yes, also restraining ourselves from doing things that damage the ecosystem we depend on. A practical consequence is drastically reducing meat consumption and mass farming, and that ties back in to the point of reducing suffering.
I think we’re aware of an equilibrium in our environment, and if we look at the world close enough, everyone realises the status quo just won’t work much longer. Drawing the consequences is the hard part, and realising animals suffer and that that is a sign something is wrong is one of them.
You can't do this stuff unless you have a working definition of personhood. Good luck with that. The moment that animals have rights you run into a huge series of ethical problems. Should dogs have rights? Should rats? Should insects? Should tardigrades? Should plants? Bacteria?
Most of these philosophical questions have no univocal answers and are usually the layperson can't go beyond "this cute animal has rights because I like it and this other animal doesn't because it's ugly", which frankly is appalling.
[Elephant Lawyer]: Dear Republican Party,
On behalf of our clients, the global elephant community, we formally request that you cease and desist from using their likeness as a party symbol. The unauthorized use of their image fails to represent their values, interests, and, most notably, their stance on environmental preservation.
Our clients object to being associated with policies that conflict with their dedication to ecological stewardship and community welfare. Therefore, we urge immediate cessation of any elephant imagery in relation to your party. Further unapproved usage may result in legal action.
Sincerely, Counsel for Proboscidea
Glad we cleared that up.
The animal rights group NonHuman Rights Project
Where do you stop? Insects? Bacteria? Viruses?
In these times, what about an AI?
EVERYONE IN THE GALLERY TURNS QUICKLY TO FACE THE BACK OF THE COURT. THERE STANDS AN ELEPHANT WEARING A TRENCHCOAT AND CARRYING A BRIEFCASE, READY TO GIVE HIS DEPOSITION.