The argument for why humans are "superior" to other animals is usually that we are self-aware and that other animals are not. While it is impossible to know, due to the lack of ability to communicate with them, for certain if they are aware of their own existence, it is a reasonable assumption by virtue of the fact that they cannot communicate their own thoughts. We therefore afford ourselves certain rights, such as the right to life. We cannot say that all animals are afforded this right because we regularly take that right away in order to survive. I would argue, however, that this falls outside the right to life and into the realm of nature. Humans are, to my knowledge, the only animal that wastes. Most other animals will only kill to eat or to protect themselves. True, by killing them, you are taking away their right to life, but in doing so you are asserting your own right to life. As we discussed in class, certain rights have more weight or have a larger scope than other rights. It can be concluded then that our right to life simply trumps other animal's right to life. Individually, every animal would take a life in order to save his/her own, or in order to provide sustenance to continue living. Would we call an animal a murderer if it killed me to eat or protect itself? No, we would simply say it was acting like an animal—so, too, with humans killing other animals. Humans are the only being, therefore, capable of murder, or (for my purposes) the unnatural destruction of another human's or other animal's right to life. This allows for all animals to have a right to life without hypocrisy.
This argument, however, only holds water if one believes that any living being a fundamental right to life. I am going to assert, however, that this is true using the exact same argument Mill used to argue the idea of justice. It is in the best interest of all to agree with the fundamental right to life simply because if this were removed, nothing would protect anyone else from simply killing another person. It is through sympathy that we are able to generalize our own self-preservation in order to agree, in the common interest of all, that we should protect the life of all. It is therefore illogical to disagree with the right of everyone to life.
Interesting thoughts. I'm not sure that I entirely agree with the idea that one's personal rights trump another's, as then that thought process would hold true for everyone else, thus possibly endangering the first individual. Of course, I think it is evident that most people do put themselves ahead of others, but it doesn't make logical sense in a structured system like this.
ReplyDeleteYour point in the last paragraph is something I considered when we first started discussing rights, and whether they were intrinsic or constructed. I completely agree with what you had to say here. I'm unsure, though, what that means about the nature of human rights: are they a social construction we've created and carried on for our own welfares, or are they innate in us, an evolutionary/adaptive concept? Maybe I'm just over-complicating things.