Animal rights is a completely illogical concept. It tries to invest a creature that's incapable of holding responsibility into a deontological system. There are instances where we grant individuals rights regardless of their ability to claim the according responsibilities, but these instances are always vestigial i.e. an individual will be granted rights, but someone else needs to take their responsibilities, for instance:
1) Children are incapable of taking according responsibilities, so their guardians are held responsible for their actions - if your child murders someone, then you go to prison (in the UK anyway)
2) Mentally diminished people are incapable of holding certain responsibilities, so their carers take responsibility - if your ward steals something, then you are held accountable
To grant animals rights in a deontological system, we would have to have them take responsibility, or to have their carers take responsibility, for their actions. It also gets even more insane when two animals violate one another's rights. If one dog kills another dog (as they are wont to do), then the owner has to pay for the other dog, but, if animals are accorded equal rights to humans, then the owner would have to go to jail for murder because their dog killed another dog. You can already see how batshit this is... But animal rights activists have never been strong on the whole "logical arguments" thing.
Basically, the only way to justify animal rights is to utterly ignore philosophy and logic, and to just say "I like animals cuz they're all fluffy n stuff". The only workable system is to partially extend the rights of an animal's owner to the animal and have the owner take partial responsibility for the animal - but PETA is against animal ownership, and against distinctions between human and non-human animals.
Why am I even posting this flame bait? I know I'll just get some retarded reply from someone who barely understands logic, but knows that they're so unfulfilled that they really wish their dog were a little human, with human feelings and wants (rather than a being with little to no human emotion, who's been selectively bred to mimic human emotion - as Frans de Waal proved).
1) Children are incapable of taking according responsibilities, so their guardians are held responsible for their actions - if your child murders someone, then you go to prison (in the UK anyway)
2) Mentally diminished people are incapable of holding certain responsibilities, so their carers take responsibility - if your ward steals something, then you are held accountable
To grant animals rights in a deontological system, we would have to have them take responsibility, or to have their carers take responsibility, for their actions. It also gets even more insane when two animals violate one another's rights. If one dog kills another dog (as they are wont to do), then the owner has to pay for the other dog, but, if animals are accorded equal rights to humans, then the owner would have to go to jail for murder because their dog killed another dog. You can already see how batshit this is... But animal rights activists have never been strong on the whole "logical arguments" thing.
Basically, the only way to justify animal rights is to utterly ignore philosophy and logic, and to just say "I like animals cuz they're all fluffy n stuff". The only workable system is to partially extend the rights of an animal's owner to the animal and have the owner take partial responsibility for the animal - but PETA is against animal ownership, and against distinctions between human and non-human animals.
Why am I even posting this flame bait? I know I'll just get some retarded reply from someone who barely understands logic, but knows that they're so unfulfilled that they really wish their dog were a little human, with human feelings and wants (rather than a being with little to no human emotion, who's been selectively bred to mimic human emotion - as Frans de Waal proved).
