Category: Rights

Word of the Week 09/05/16 - Animal Rights

13/5/2016

the rights of animals to live with special consideration, For example being free from human exploitation and abuse

peta.org.uk

Those who argue for Animal rights such as the charity PETA, make the case that certain things are wrong as a matter of principle, that there are some things that it is morally wrong to do to animals. Human beings must not do those things, no matter what the cost to humanity of not doing them and human beings must not do those things, even if they do them in a humane way. Many people have no concern with granting such rights to humans, so what is the case for also granting them to animals and what are the counter-arguments?

The Argument For

The argument for animal right might look like this in a syllogism:

Human animals have rights
There is no morally relevant difference between human animals and adult mammals
Therefore adult mammals must have rights too

The weakest premise in this sequence is the second one but might be justified on these grounds:

They have similar levels of biological complexity
They are conscious and aware that they exist
They know what is happening to them
They prefer some things and dislike others
They make conscious choices
They live in such a way as to give themselves the best quality of life
They plan their lives to some extent
The quality and length of their life matters to them

Because of all these things animals are said to have 'inherent value'. Beings with inherent value are equally valuable and entitled to the same rights. Their inherent value doesn't depend on how useful they are to the world, and it doesn't diminish if they are a burden to others. Thus adult mammals have rights in just the same way, for the same reasons, and to the same extent that human beings have rights.

The Argument Against

A number of arguments are put forward against the idea that animals have rights.

Animals don't Reason
Animals were put on earth to serve human beings by the creator (see Genesis 1)
Animals don't have souls and so are metaphysically distinct from Humans
Animals don't behave morally and therefore do not merit moral treatment
Animals lack the capacity for free moral judgment - the do not have agency or autonomy in the samne way that humans do.
Animals are not members of the 'moral community' - this was put well by Mary Warnock: "May they [animals] be hunted? To this the answer is no, not by humans; but presumably their rights are not infringed if they are hunted by animals other than human beings. And here the real difficulties start. If all animals had a right to freedom to live their lives without molestation, then someone would have to protect them from one another. But this is absurd... (M Warnock, An Intelligent Person's Guide to Ethics, 1998)

All of these arguments make the case that Humans and Animals are fundamentally different to one another and therefore the same inherent value we give to human life cannot simply be transferred to animals.

Ultimately it comes down to whether, philosophically speaking, you can make a better case for commonality (humans and animals being on a continuum of development that means one is no "better" than another) or dominance (that humans are morally allowed to dominate animal species.

What do you think?

Word of the Week: W/C 28/09/15 - Equality

26/9/2015

The state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities.

Image: ja.wikipedia.org

Equality is an important concept in the modern era; the rise of Human Rights since the end of WW2 and the enactment of various laws and conventions on Human Rights has brought it to the attention of the majority. To many in the West it is difficult to imagine a time when people were not seen as equal - thankfully many of the world’s major regimes that discriminated against minorities (or even majorities) have come to an end; Apartheid in South Africa, Genocide in Rwanda and Segregation in the USA. Of course there are many situations across the world where Human Rights abuses are still being committed and many charities are working hard to highlight these abuses.

Whilst there may be laws in place to ensure equality in the UK we should not be complacent. There is still a great deal of inequality in the UK. Here I want to focus on two areas where many are still not given equality through unconscious bias - this is where people, without being aware, discriminate against people who are different to them.

Sexism (Gender bias) is the act of discriminating against someone because of their Gender. It can affect any gender but it is particularly documented against women. Whilst many men are keen to argue that they are in favour of equal rights for women this is not, for reasons that are highly complex, bourne out when we look at the statistics. The website Feminista gives the following facts about women at work:

The full time gender pay gap is 10%, and the average part-time pay gap is 34.5%.
It is estimated that for each year a mother is absent from the workplace her future wages will reduce by 5%.
Approximately 70% of people in national minimum wage jobs are women.
Women make up only 17% board directors of FTSE 100 companies.
Up to 30,000 women are sacked each year simply for being pregnant and each year an estimated 440,000 women lose out on pay or promotion as a result of pregnancy.

There is a very interesting debate to be had about why these statistics are the case; some argue that the fact that women have children means that some inequality is inevitable. Many others however argue that the level of difference is not acceptable and evidence of a much more malevolent sexism in society.

Disability Bias is the act of discriminating against a person because they are disabled. Some charities suggest that around 10% of the world’s population live with a disablity (http://www.disabled-world.com/disability/statistics/ accessed: 25/09/15). Discrimination that this group face could be a lack of access to transport, goods and services; difficulty in securing a job and promotion; or simply the way they are treated by others. A fantastic short film to gain a sense of what it must be like to experience disability bias is “Talk” produced by the Disability Rights Commission (This version has Audio Description in order to make it accessible to the visually impaired):

Word of The Week: 26/01/15 - Rights

25/1/2015

The basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are considered to be entitled, often held to include the rights to life, liberty, equality, and fair trial, freedom from slavery and torture and freedom of thought and expression.

The history of Human Rights could be argued to go back as far as Cyrus the Great when he freed all the slaves in Persia and declared that people had the right to practice whatever religion they chose. One can track their history and development in documents asserting individual rights such as the Magna Carta, the Petition of Rights, the US Constitution, The French Declaration on the Rights of Man, The US Bill of Rights, the UN Declaration on Human Rights and the European equivalent.

The founding principle of these documents seems to be that humanity has intrinsic value – either due to a religious reason such the existence of a soul or for logical reasons such as the fact that we all have the same DNA and are all members of the species Homo Sapiens.

On Thursday 22nd January, Martin Chamberlain QC came to address our Philosophy Society on the need to continue to have human rights enshrined in law. He first set out the arguments used by those who would remove human rights in the belief that civilised societies automatically protect the rights and liberties of their citizens. This was summed up in the words of Thomas Jefferson: “Our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves”. Mr Chamberlain suggested that although on the surface this sounds honorable in reality this is “tyranny by the majority”.

Mr Chamberlain then went on to outline why this was the case based on the thinking of scholars such as John Adams, Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill; that in a democracy, if an individual is wronged, who can he appeal to other than the majority? If the individual is not supported by the majority they risk being victimized or subjected to violations of their rights. This is why there must be an independent judiciary and intrinsic human rights to protect citizens.

Now the discussion moved onto a number of cases where there has been an appeal to the Convention on Human Rights to ensure that justice is done – some of these were cases where Mr Chamberlain was the acting barrister. These included prisoners arguing for the vote, the death of Baha Mousa, the deportation Abu Quatda and the issue of Free Speech. The talk concluded with a discussion of the Charlie Hebdo case and how selective governments can be about the right to free-speech – the Human Rights Convention is needed to ensure that justice remains blind and that all are treated with equality and impartiality.

The talk was extremely well received by our pupils and this was demonstrated in high quality of questions that they asked in response. These included whether there are any situations when human rights can be legitimately be ignored, if the British government should develop an independent Bill of Rights and Responsibilities and whether verbal abuse should be treated in the same way by the Law as physical abuse.

For Berkhamsted students, a video of the talk will be available on the learning platform.

Do you think we don't need to have a Convention on Human Rights? Or are they essential for justice to be done?

Word of the Week 09/05/16 - Animal Rights

the rights of animals to live with special consideration, For example being free from human exploitation and abuse

Word of the Week: W/C 28/09/15 - Equality

The state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities.

Word of The Week: 26/01/15 - Rights

Archives

Categories

Word of the Week 09/05/16 - Animal Rights

the rights of animals to live with special consideration, For example being free from human exploitation and abuse

Word of the Week: W/C 28/09/15 - Equality

​The state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities.

Word of The Week: 26/01/15 - Rights

Archives

Categories

The state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities.