Theodore Jenkins
PHL 310U, E.E.
T TH, 10:00-1200
Prof. David Weber
Human Beings Lack Intrinsic Rights
I plan to show that Human beings cannot have intrinsic rights, as individuals or as a species, through an investigation of individual claims that humans do have intrinsic rights. My position in this paper is that humans can only have rights ascribed to us by us. We try to justify our self ascribed rights in many ways, all of which I think fall short of logical viability.
First I will discuss the rights of a bear to eat an Elk vs. eating a human. Humans value nature and natural order in some observable ways. We pass laws against cruelty to animals by humans (exempting agriculture) on the basis of the animals’ ability to experience pain and suffering. However we think it would be wrong to interfere with pain and suffering that is linked with the natural process. For instance a predator will cause much suffering on the part of its many victims. The suffering caused by the predators hunger is far out weighed by the pain and suffering of many animals being ripped apart and eaten alive. If a bear kills an elk the bear has not violated the elks rights because there is no such thing in nature as the right to be free from pain and suffering. In fact, the inescapability of pain and suffering seems to be a universal natural law. Where then do a human’s rights to be protected from hungry predators, the elements, natural disasters or any type of pain and suffering come from? I believe that circular logic and fallacy can account for most of the reasoning behind attributing one species special rights over all or any others.
Now I will compare the rights of other species to the rights of humans. In the protected wilderness area of Yosemite National Park attacks on humans by brown bears are almost unheard of. However approximately twenty brown bears are killed by park rangers every year for destroying personal property, all cases involve un-occupied cars that smell like food. In this case human life is not even being threatened, but a human’s right to secure property extends into protected wilderness areas, and trumps any right to life that the bears might have.
We as humans are dedicated to promoting the good of our own kind over the good of other kinds. Sometimes the forced extinction of a species is seen as good and or necessary. If it were possible, we as a species would permanently wipe out all viruses, parasites, and diseases that affect humans. The extinction of the AIDS virus is seen as a top medical priority. The virus as a species is not seen as having any type of rights that would exclude it from forced deliberate human extinction. Why do we have a thing called “rights†that make us more important than another species? Is there a reason behind this kind of logic?
One answer is that we do not have rights to exploit and kill anymore than other species have these rights. This logic boils down to the phrase “might makes rightâ€. We deserve to exploit the environment because we can. We are at the top of the food chain, therefore we own everything. By this logic, the AIDS virus has a right to overwhelm the human population if it can. The mega fauna predators have the right to over populate and eat all available food at the expense of all other species. The locusts have the right to consume all the crops if they can. This view leads me to believe that no species has rights over another except as they have the power to enforce those rights. We will let the bear starve in the winter if that is its natural fate, but if it tips over a car to get at the candy bar, then we pay a government employee to shoot it in the head. This is the way that the world currently operates. Humans take what they can, because they can, and justify it by saying that we have rights, animals do not. However, I seriously doubt that a majority of the global population would say that a more advanced civilization of aliens has the right to enslave us, or to take our fertile planet by force just because they are capable of it. Or even the more down to earth example of the killer virus. Does it have a right to kill even some of us? The survey says no. Do we have a right to kill not some, but all of the virus? Most people would say yes, some would say we have the responsibility to do that. This is a fallacy. It is the definition of hypocrisy and a double standard. We have ascribed these rights to ourselves, and all species will do the same (subconsciously, of course). Every species of animal on the planet knows what type it is at least enough to find a mate and reproduce. At some level the creatures are valuing there own kind over other kinds. For humans to consciously decide that we are more important as a species than others is referred to as speciesism. The term was coined by the utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer, who writes: “[Speciesism is]…a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of the members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species.†Of course this is not the main stream view. The main stream view is that humans are more important than other species, and that this is perfectly acceptable. An average person in main stream American culture would probably be offended if this view was referred to as analogous with racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry. I, obviously, side with Singer on this point.
The complexities of human emotions have, I believe, clouded our objectivity. By this I mean the attachment that we feel towards loved ones, and the projecting of the related emotion to all humans. We empathize with what we can relate to. It is easy and natural to say something along the lines of “It is wrong to kill a human.â€, or “It is wrong to cause a human to experience unnecessary pain.†But one might not be able to convince a hog farmer that it is wrong to kill a hog, or to cause a hog unnecessary pain (such as chaining them to a concrete floor in an overcrowded warehouse). Why the discrepancy? Modern science has proven that a vegetarian diet can be far healthier for humans than one based on the daily consumption of meat. We also know that the amount of food that goes into producing meat would be more efficiently used if it were consumed directly by malnourished humans. Modern science has also proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that animals can and do experience a great deal of unnecessary pain and suffering for minimal human benefit in the area of agriculture. The hog chained to the floor benefits only the financial interests of the farm owner. Not chaining hogs to floors would only moderately affect human pleasure, and would in no instance cause any human suffering. Any normal person with a loved pet would be outraged if it were suggested that there pet be treated in the same way as the warehouse hog. Again, we see that humans most easily empathize with what they can relate to. The one sidedness and hypocrisy of the ascription of rights only to humans becomes immediately clear in this scenario.
Religious claims can enter in to the argument of why humans have intrinsic rights. Some people quote the “Old Testament†to show that humans and animals are different in important ways. The claim is that animals do not have immortal souls, and therefore are not important. According to The Scripture humans have immortal souls, and are therefore important or different, or better. Descartes was a proponent of this idea, as expressed in his book Meditations. Immanuel Kant also uses this argument to say that animals may be used in medical experiments without any moral objection. Experiments which we would find repugnant if preformed on humans, like boiling some mice alive to observe the burns, become acceptable under this rationale.
Claims have been made that God created this world to benefit humans. (Descartes) Another possible theory supported by The Scripture is that God created this world and us to see the end product of our free will. I describe free will as abstract, rational thought, extending into the past and future. If a human lacked these attributes I would argue that they had no more free will than the hawk eating the mouse. In this model we (humans) only destroy or care for the plants, animals, and environment (all of Gods’ creations) as we freely choose to do so. It is silly to think that God, assuming that It exists, wants us to destroy his creations just because we are (or were created) capable of doing so. If the thing that makes us different from animals is our free will then the virtue of this difference lies in our ability to act in non-self centered ways, non-psychological egoist and non-anthropocentric ways. We alone in the animal kingdom have the ability to stop ourselves from the drive to succeed at reproduction at all costs. This is a biblical (Christian/Judaic) reason for non-anthropocentric concerns for the environment. Be good to Gods creations because they have intrinsic value as Gods creations. The separation of thought and action from purely self centered goals is a high level of refinement. Just in case this isn’t enough, the psychological egoist can still have incentive to treat nature with respect in a Christian community. Santa Clause and God are watching. Santa will pass over a house, and God will condemn a soul to hell or heaven. This example of the carrot and the stick demonstrates that even religious leaders are reluctant to rest entirely on our good intentions, and instead adopt a style of virtue parsimony even towards those who have stated there allegiance to the ‘good word’ of God.
The creation of social normative behavior also creates what is defined as deviant behavior. Defining one thing as good defines by default what is not good. Both things are abstract ideas created in the context of a society of humans. When saying that an action is good or bad, humans often forget who they are talking about, what a thing is good or bad for. If a bear kills an elk this is natural, or good. If a bear kills a human this is bad. If a human kills a bear this is natural, humans are predators. But if a human kills another human this is defined as bad. This concept does not exist in nature. Good and bad are restricted to being relative concepts. A bird eats the bug. It is good for the bird, bad for the bug. A cat eats the bird. Good for the cat, bad for the bird, and so fourth. Almost everything is both good and bad from different perspectives. A sharp rise in CO2 emissions in the atmosphere might be bad for oxygen breathing beings, and very good for plant life. Now, is it bad or good to allow the human population of the world to increase at its current rate? Is it good or bad to allow the human population of the world to increase at all? The answer(s) to these questions rest entirely on who or what we are considering. Good and bad, right and wrong, are terms that create there counterparts and they are all subject to who is being affected (the cat or the bird). Ethical and unethical, moral and immoral are terms that also create each other. They are different in that they are terms that only apply to beings with free will, that is, humans. A cat does not behave unethically when it toys with a mouse before killing it. However a human behaving in the same way might be sentenced to jail because of cruelty to animal laws. We alone are capable of having the thought “it is immoral or unethical to behave in such and such a way.†To me at least, this strips us of the right to behave in a natural way, that is to say destroying the environment to get instant gratification with no thought of the future or past. It burdens us with the responsibility of behaving in a sustainable balance with our environment. Not to do so is consciously choosing to do the opposite at the expense of sentient beings that are capable of experiencing pain and suffering, and the environment which sustains there existence.
I am not saying that it is wrong for people to look out for the good of themselves and there own kind, because this type of behavior is the obvious reason that all current forms of life are still around. A human mother will always care for the interests of her child, that is natural. The implication is that there are too many people in the world for everyone to live in peace with the environment, and support traditional interests such as the family’s welfare. What is described in sociology as a ‘role strain’ then takes place. There is tension between two competing sets of values. An example of this is the choice of a Brazilian father to cut down rainforest for cattle grazing land, in order to support his family. Another example is the African poacher who is also more concerned with feeding his family than sustainable environmental practices.
Are the actions of the farmer or the poacher good? The term ‘good’ is a relative term. In order for something to be good it must be good for something. To say that a ‘reduction in the human population of the world is good’ is to say that it is good for humans, or that it is good for the environment. So saying that humans have rights other than what we give each other to make society function is saying that we value our existence over the existence of other forms of life. This would be the point of view of the killer virus, if it had the capacity of abstract thought and free will. The existence of our free will burdens us with breaking away from the natural course of the virus to unthinkingly reproduce, use up its finite resources, and kill its host body. What is natural for a virus cannot be in it self good or bad. Humans have the ability to choose to break away from the natural order. Some people argue that this gives us special rights, intrinsic rights. I hope that I have convinced my audience that this is not the case. I hope I have convinced you that, if anything, we have fewer or no rights and more if not all of the responsibilities as a result of our intelligence, knowledge, and free will. Animals that lack the capacity for free will can not poses responsibilities, but might have the right to be free from needless pain and suffering at the hands of beings that do poses the ability to choose freely.