Why animal rights is nonsense

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(Don't take this too literally, and the article linked is better than my own phrasings)

The answer is simple:

1) A major reason why people continue to raise animals is for meat. (premise)
2) Therefore, if less meat is consumed, then less animals will be raised. (obvious conclusion from 1)
3) Animals do not commit suicide regularly, so they want to live. (premise)
4) If a creature wants to live then its life is worth living. (premise)
5) Reducing the number of lives worth living is not a moral good. (premise)
6) Promoting the right of animals to live will reduce meat consumption. (premise)
7) Reducing meat consumption will reduce the animals raised. (1 & 2)
8 ) Reducing the animals raised is not a moral good. (3, 4 & 5)
9) Therefore all else equal, animal rights is not morally good. (6, 7, & 8 )

Or just read this article.

http://hanson.gmu.edu/meat.html (it actually is better than my argument)

Take that animal lovers!!

(the title is a bit of a joke, btw)

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 28 Jan 2010, 3:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Catholics have the same arguments against contraception.

The first premise is wrong. People also raise animals for other reasons, and animals also "raise" themselves...
So I didn't bother reading the rest of the points.

Your premises are based on the belief that animal rights revolves around the belief that animals should not be raised for food and people should not consume meat, which is wrong.

These are significant components. I do recognize that other things such as treating animals humanely while they still live can be factors as well.

*sigh* It was a bit of a joke, as I basically wrote out the argument rather hastily. The first premise doesn't have to be taken in the most literal sense, and I could have substituted the reasoning to "One of the major reasons why people raise animals is for meat", and the same reasonings would have basically held.

Animals raise themselves in the wild, outside of that the breeding and the raising processes are highly controlled by people.

I know, it is a bit of a joke.

There is no more nonsense to it than human rights. Animals even more so because they are helpless. Ethical standards and practices need to be enforced and that should also be a human right that these standards are recognized and established by law to make sure they are adhered to and that fines and penalties will apply when they are not.

Sure there is more nonsense to it than human rights. The welfare of humans has been one of the foundations of all human societies, but the welfare of animals has never been so privileged before this issue. Now, it is correct that "human rights" is false on many levels, it is a post-hoc rationalization of basic impulses. But that means that animal rights has shakier foundations.

There is one error in the assumption that a failure by humans to raise animals results in fewer total animal lives worth living; often, the land used to raise animals for meat is utilized more efficiently by native communities with greater diversity, resulting in a greater total number of lives (especially if you count invertebrates).

There is also a false assumption that animals in feedlots and factory farms find their lives worth living. The rate of gastric ulcers in factory pigs would tend to contradict that.

In addition, 'more lives worth living' is a good, but unfortunately greater numbers eventually leads to less worth in living.

There are plenty of good arguments with the idea of animal rights, but I'm afraid that this one doesn't cut it.

^ If you know a superior argument, why don't you supply one. I guess that isn't your interest though.

For the love of animals topic

I believe animals should not be treated cruelly, even when they are raised for food. No animal should suffer. I believe people should eat less meat due to health reasons, as most of us do not need the calories and fat from consuming farmed meat. And pets, who are bred for compasionship, whould not be treated like garbage if no longer wanted or enjoyed.

But the concept of animal rights is a bit radical. Just one hundred years ago people were treating animals in more horried ways than anyone could ever imagine. Laws about property rights and sentient forms of life have changed, and have made us more humane in our treatment of non human species. As individual rights have increased, at least in Western democracy, this has had a spillover effect to other area.This is not to say all is well and fine, but ideas of animal cruelty have changed so that few of us would stand by while an animal is tortured. Temple Grandin has spent many years in the field of farm meat processing, and her ideas about animal behaviour have radically changed our concept of humane treatment towards animals raised for food.

So should animals have rights in the way humans do? This would mean that there is no difference between us and them, and who knows where that may lead if taken to its (il)logical conclusion.

People take things to such extremes but a basic principle should apply.

Perhaps, however, I actually do doubt that people would just let the land to the wild. They would sooner start tree farms or other project. Not only that, but invertibrates often aren't counted. The real issue is the higher animals, and farms are efficient at producing higher levels of higher animals.


I am not sure I find this to be evidence. Unless gastric ulcers constitute suicide attempts, I think that these animals will end up choosing life over death.


I think it is the beginning of one. Umm.... once again, I would recommend people read the link referenced. I do a rather crappy job of summarizing the evidence in the short paper there. I don't mind cutting and pasting the paper onto the board, but I would rather just link to it at first.

"If a creature wants to live then its life is worth living."

So were excatly lies the morality of killing a being against its own will to breed more beings to be killed? If a life its worth living its worth preserving it, if ending a life for possible new life would right any physician conducting an medical indicated abortion would be amoral.

If potentiall would have priority above existent, you couldnt build a house because you would destroy all possible houses that could be build at its place.

I take this as a kind of mind game not a mature comment about ethics....

Also, just because something is conceived for a particular reason, doesn't give the breeder a right to do whatever he/she wants with the offspring. Otherwise, we can use that argument to breed people to be slaves, or children could be forced to do what the parents want in every regard.

If you don't think animals have a right to be treated the way you would like to be treated, then fine. You must be true to your own conscience.