Thursday, January 16, 2014

What Will Libertarian Chumps Advocate Next?

Laurence M. Vance speculates:
The Nonhuman Rights Project is seeking to apply habeas corpus rights to animals. The group filed a lawsuit in New York in December asking “this court to issue a writ recognizing that Tommy is not a legal thing to be possessed by respondents, but rather is a cognitively complex autonomous legal person with the fundamental right not to be imprisoned.” So far the court has rejected this and other lawsuits. Give it time, though, and Tommy and his chimp friends will be recognized as persons. Then someone will say that he wants to legally marry the chimp. And the sad thing is, some libertarian chumps will think it is a good idea, a new birth of freedom or something.

27 comments:

  1. the ole strawman attack. If you can't debunk the arguments of your opposition, just misrepresent it so that you can.

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  2. Err, so you don't think there is any legitimate grounds for a discussion about whether any animal can be considered to have the degree of intelligence necessary to afford them some level of rights?

    I can see this argument if you are a particularly religious person and believe that God made human beings special (I actually do believe this, myself), but even if you did, it does not necessarily follow that we are the only creatures special in a particular way.

    What if there was a group of aliens twice as intelligent as humans that wanted to harvest us like cows? Would that be ok? I guess you can throw out the question as irrelevant until such aliens exist, but this seems foolish and presumptuous to me.

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    1. "Err, so you don't think there is any legitimate grounds for a discussion about whether any animal can be considered to have the degree of intelligence necessary to afford them some level of rights?"

      No.

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    2. "No."

      Why not? Chimps are sentient, use tools, feel pain, are intelligent, have social groups, and are moral. If these aren't pretty good grounds for discussion, I don't know what is.

      Why do humans have rights? In some sense, because we demand them. But we also demand them for other humans that cannot demand them themselves. We might also want to demand them for sentient non-human animals.

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    3. I do think there is a legitimate discussion to be had. However, I do NOT believe they should be recognized under the law as a 'person'

      This is mainly because our whole body of law is based on the idea of a person being a human. Once you define an animal as a human - which would be the effect - things will get wacky very quickly.

      More importantly, I don't think the government is equipped in any. way. to deal with the complex ethical issues of deciding who is capable of being a 'person' and who is dinner.

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    4. AnonymousJanuary 17, 2014 at 8:51 AM
      I tend to agree. Certainly we could extend rights to certain animals via common law. (As we already do. You cannot, for example, abuse your dog or horse in certain jurisdictions.) The same could be done for sentient, non-human animals, such as chimps.

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    5. "Why not?"

      Shit, people are actually asking this question. Why don't we just give them the right to drive and vote while we're at it?

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    6. Hey, Mike.

      If you really can't give a well thought response, then why not just admit you have no real argument to refute them?

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  3. Vance commits the slippery slope fallacy here by bringing up marriage to a chimp. Instead, he should address the claim that chimps are cognitively complex autonomous legal persons with the fundamental right to not be imprisoned.

    Rothbard did. He said that animals should be granted rights to the extent that they can demand them. (Forgive me for not having a reference to the youtube video.) I'm not sure this is a very solid critique, but at least it is a critique.

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    1. Here's a further discussion by Rothbard in the Ethics of Liberty
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTIABOdVBQM

      His criticism against so-called animal rights is based on Natural Law with regard to human beings only. He's wrong throughout the criticism about animals. He says, for example, that "animals, after all, don't respect the rights of other animals."

      No, lions don't respect the rights of antelope. However, chips absolutely respect the rights of other chimps. There is a moral and social order among primates and other animals. I think Rothbard, upon reading the latest research, would be forced to agree. This, I think, damages his notion of species rights belonging only to human animals.

      http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20moral.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
      http://www.ted.com/talks/frans_de_waal_do_animals_have_morals.html

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    2. "He's wrong throughout the criticism about animals."

      What are you, a libertarian or a shithead liberal?

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    3. Re: edward,
      -- However, chips absolutely respect the rights of other chimps. --

      Especially when they eat each other.

      Right?

      http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18454-hippy-apes-caught-cannibalising-their-young.html

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    4. Once again, Rothbard is right. I would love to see ANY non-human animal that's able to demand its rights. You know, lack of language centers in the brain and whatnot.

      Goofy liberals :) Animals are property.

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    5. I also know for a fact that dogs piss all over the marked territory of other dogs. So much for respecting each others' property rights. I mean, how else could a dog claim property but by pissing on it, right?

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    6. "Re: edward,
      -- However, chips absolutely respect the rights of other chimps. --

      Especially when they eat each other.

      Right?"

      Since there have been, and continue to be HUMAN cannibals (such as the Korowai tribe in Guinea), i can assume you don't mean your response to be along the likes of "Chimps can be cannibals, therefor they don't deserve rights."
      Because then you'd destroy the argument for human rights as well.

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    7. "Because then you'd destroy the argument for human rights as well."

      You're even dumber than I thought.

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    8. "You're even dumber than I thought."

      Coming from a non-arguing, borderline troll like you, i'll take it as a compliment.
      Please become liberal or conservative, because your level of reasoning fits with them a whole lot better.

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  4. I don't know whether this is so simple. Why shouldn't we give the great apes some level of rights? Some apes have higher cognitive abilities than some mentally disabled people. Would you argue that the mentally disabled don't have rights? They may not have the same level of rights as other people, if, for example, they have to have a caretaker, but you certainly couldn't perform cruel experiments on them. I think this issue is another example of a shortcoming of the natural rights theory, and why your (hopefully forthcoming) theory of designed rights is appealing to me. If a large number of people wants to give the great apes some level of designed rights (e.g., no cruel experiments), why not?

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    1. No "right" has ever been "granted." It has been demanded or taken by the people to whom the right belongs. Show me ANY non-human animal that can demand its rights or designate some other being to do it for them.

      What a stupid discussion.

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    2. People have also demanded or taken someone else's money. Does that money therefor belong to them?
      Obviously not, so demanding or taking something does not mean anything.

      You claim they demanded or took the rights that BELONG to them. But you have yet to argue WHY those rights BELONG to people but does not BELONG to animals.

      You have asserted it, yes. But you have no argued it.

      So there is nothing "stupid" about this discussion.

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  5. My girlfriend left me not for another man, but for a chimp. It's sad but true.

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  6. Giving apes granted rights by the USG is just cruel and unusual. Nobody ought to be taxed or economically aborted. Think about it. As soon as the apes skip paying taxes, they're going from a large animal cage to jail. Counterproductive I say.

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  7. Quite frankly, i find it hilarious that some libertarians who are against any rights for animals think they can get off of the matter by giving a stupid non-argument as a response (see Vance, see Mike).

    You are proving the point that, apparently, some libertarians have NO IDEA WHY animals do not have a claim to at least some rights.
    If you truly believe no case can be made for animal rights, it shouldn't be that difficult to offer the argument.
    I myself believe that animals can certainly not have anything close to EQUAL rights to human being; but i also don't believe the other extreme; that animals are mere objects to be used in any way human beings see fit (such as deliberate cruelty), in the same manner as inanimate objects.

    The case that human beings *demands* or "take" rights while animals do not, is NOT an argument. Humans can demand or take plenty of things, that doesn't mean you ought to have them.
    The case that human beings can reason is NOT an argument. There are people who cannot reason, yet we still claim they have rights.
    The case that human beings are superior in some way, is not sufficient, as it would open the argument that there should be different amounts of rights between inferior and superior people as well. An argument would still have to be made why there is a differentiation between the human species and other species.

    I don't take people such as in the above main article seriously, who believe in EQUAL rights for animals. But Vance's response to it is completely meaningless, and i believe no non-argument for the opposite extreme should be taken seriously either.
    Either come up with a well-thought, irrefutable argument, or don't pretend your side of the argument is presented in any better way.

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    1. "Quite frankly, i find it hilarious that some libertarians who are against any rights for animals think they can get off of the matter by giving a stupid non-argument as a response (see Vance, see Mike)."

      Like you just did? Go marry a bear and see how long it takes to eat you.

      Moron.

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  8. The notion that animals have the SAME rights as people is ridiculous, but let's examine Laurence Vance's "wonderful" counterarguments a bit:

    "Give it time, though, and Tommy and his chimp friends will be recognized as persons. Then someone will say that he wants to legally marry the chimp."

    First of all, i understand Vance is religious. But that's not my problem. The question is: if a person wants to "legally" marry the chimp (as if marriage should have anything to do with the law), then SO WHAT?
    It is certainly bizarre, perverse and utterly crazy, but again: SO WHAT? Who is Vance, a supposed libertarian, to decide that in a libertarian society a man cannot marry a chimp? His bible may have something to say about that, but i don't care about his holy bible.
    So as an argument, what Vance says here is absolutely irrelevant to the question at hand of whether animals can or cannot have rights. Vance seems to be basically saying: "Well, marrying a chimp is just plain CRAZY, so doesn't that prove that the concept of animal rights is ridiculous?"
    Eh, no it doesn't, Laurence.

    Yes, it's a slippery slope argument to make in the first place. But we don't even have to stop there. Even if it actually happened, it would still not be any of a libertarian's business if a man wants to marry a chimp. You may personally reject such a crazy, extreme form of libertinism. But NOT in terms of libertarian rights.

    "And the sad thing is, some libertarian chumps will think it is a good idea, a new birth of freedom or something."

    Equal rights for animals is not a good idea. But let's not pretend that Laurence has made a case for "libertarian freedom" against the concept of ANY animal rights. His counterarguments have been way too sloppy or downright stupid for that. He has most certainly not made ANY case whatsoever that animals cannot have any rights.

    Sometimes i wish Laurence Vance would just stick to talking about war. Aside from his excellent posts about war, i have to say i've never been much of a fan of Laurence Vance, and the above post proves me again why.

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    1. Wow, Tony, that was an awesome comment. I agree with everything you said.

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  9. Aristotle, a biologist by trade, solved this problem long ago in a little work known as de anima.

    I guess we don't learn this in school so that we can waste our time arguing for thd personhood of animals 2,000 years later.

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