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Answering Arguments Against Animal Rights |
| Part VII -- Argument Six: Animal rights advocates put animals ahead of people |
Argument six: animal rights advocates put animals ahead of people.
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This argument states that those who advocate the rights of non-human animals
want these rights to take precedence over human rights.
To answer this charge we need to understand that in moral philosophy
there are...
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...natural rights, and there are what I will call luxury rights.
A natural right would be, for instance, my right to breathe the air.
A luxury right would be your right to smoke.
Ignoring environmental and health concerns for the moment, we'll say that
you have every right to smoke.
What if, one rainy day, we find ourselves waiting for the same bus, and
sharing a bus shelter.
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When you light up your cigarette we have a conflict between your right to
smoke and my right to breathe oxygen. Your filling the shelter with
smoke is not just a petty annoyance; one thousand non-smokers die from
inhaling second-hand smoke every week!
How do we resolve such conflicts of rights? It is clear that a luxury right
(such as smoking) must always yield when it conflicts with a natural right
(such as breathing non-poisoned air.)
The conflict between luxury rights and natural rights is what occurs most often
in the case of human rights versus non-human rights.
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For instance, the right to wear a fur coat is clearly a luxury right: fur
coats are not necessities.
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Now consider the many animals whose lives were taken to make the fur coat.
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Clearly, the right to live one's life and not be...
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...imprisoned or murdered, is a natural right. When luxury rights conflict
with natural rights, the luxury right must yield.
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It is in this sense that we do put animal's rights ahead of people's rights.
But it is the same sense in which we put one person's rights ahead of another's.
Namely: only where a luxury right conflicts with a natural right.
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To advocate the rights of non-human animals, then, is not to deny rights to people.
It is simply to be consistent in giving natural rights precedence over luxury rights.
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