Does the Animal Kingdom need a Bill of Rights? The question poised at a debate at the Royal institute (UK) in 1989. This is my last video of the debate and features remarks made by the opposition. Mary Warnock a philosopher from Cambridge University (yes Cambridge). Stephen Rose Professor of Biology Who works for the British medical and Science council and Germaine Greer writer, feminist. These people are all Phds, the best the anti Animal Rights brigade could muster. Watch and enjoy how the famous American Philosopher Dr Tom Regan destroys their arguments.
Duration : 0:9:46
Wow. I’m an animal …
Wow. I’m an animal rights guy, though I admit there are some challenging arguments against my position. They did not come from these people. Couldn’t they have held the debate against legitimate philosophers and not idiots like Germane Greer?
Seems to me that …
Seems to me that still, nobody is listening!
Animals deserve better in this world, who said ‘we’ are the superior anyway? If only people would realise just how much we as humans can learn from the Animal Kingdom by merely observing, instead of murdering, slaughtering, using and abusing, skinning and testing, eating and exploiting!!
I love TOM!!
well i just blew …
well i just blew deers head off this year
are you sure about …
are you sure about that?
Criticizing the …
Criticizing the animal rights movement for not advocating the rights of viruses? A virus isn’t even a living organism; that’s akin to asking why the animal rights movement doesn’t advocate the rights of rocks or tree stumps.
wow the britsh …
wow the britsh people there are horribly rude!!!! they could just shut the up and listen
I love Tom Regan’s …
I love Tom Regan’s response starting at 5:10. It’s been 20 years since this was filmed and we still have people like Tibor Machan speaking as if he has never read most of the literature on the argument from marginal advanced by Peter Singer 35 years ago.
philotymology,
…
philotymology,
Wasn’t that a totally ridiculous point?
As if we know nothing about how to protect children or take responsibility for them!
That lady was out of her mind.
We accord humans …
We accord humans natural rights because they are conscious and can suffer, and not for any other reason. Most other animals are conscious and can suffer, therefore they have also a natural right by the same reasoning. To say otherwise is to discriminate arbitrarily.
western non …
western non theologians will not understand animal rights.
animals don’t have …
animals don’t have rights heads
I somehow doubt …
I somehow doubt children would have asked for the right to have sex with adults.
Well I consider …
Well I consider myself one of the masses and I can understand them all ok. Perhaps you think all intellegent debate should be dumbed down. Hey why stop there, lets dumb down the Arts, Science etc. Everything to the level of the Sun ‘newspaper’ (or comic if you are from Liverpool)
People are all individuals, not sheep. If interested in something, they can learn and be rewarded by that learning.
this is typical …
this is typical higher education – pontification and competition of hubris with no practical application to speak to the masses responsible for change. bah!
Too many people …
Too many people would have you believe that they know the truth(s) of this and other matters. They may not exist.
I adopt the only philosophical approach to this – as to all else – that I think is sensible, ie an axiomatic one. In particular here, if one is not certain about something (eg whether certain animals are distressed by certain human actions), then always err on the side of caution, and don’t do it. I defy any – any – philosopher to come up with a good counter-argument.
tom regan is way …
tom regan is way better than the opposition.
Arrogance …….. …
Arrogance …….. what ever happened to just the plain old “right” to life. Give me a break species – speak for yourself … proud to be a save a child, kill a cat have an abortion species indeed …. bunch of mixed up people make up your mind. Put kids in daycare … our parents in old folk homes … animals have higher “morals” “instincts” … master species indeed … is abortion natural selection?
That aside it is a …
That aside it is a hard line to walk – I love my countrymen our wildlife and environment when I express this I get called a hypocrite I do not see this issue as black and white. All needs of the living must be considered I believe – no book told me this my heart tells me this. I cry for the fishermen and the pups slaughtered – call it what you will that is all it is – “cull” “harvest” whitewash terms for an outdoor slaughterhouse. But what of the men’s lives lost? Some say yeah – I say tears..
If we do not stop …
If we do not stop polarizing issues I do not believe there will ever be a resolve – you can not beat a man into “true” submission. He will only act in kind out of fear or condition – we must negotiate. Like feminists in the West – some are borderline terrorists – inciting hate crimes against their own species – the war has essentially been won – we must stop kicking our oppenent – the cold war has gone on long enough – peace talks, conflict resolution talks are ling overdue – children suffer.
Yes 50%. These …
Yes 50%. These people have families and they themselves are an integral part of there comunities – just as the closing of the coal mines devestated mining comunities. In his book the case for Animal rights Tom Regan touches on this subject claiming that these people have themselves Rights that cannot be ignored. Think about all the people in the world whose living is made from Animal exploitation – and some of them cannot claim welfare if thrown out of work. We must take them into consideration.
Now this is …
Now this is interesting! The first person who has mentioned concern for all the people who work in the Animal industry is an Animal Rights supporter. Does this not tell you something about the negative arguments from thoes against Animal rights. This would have been my main argument if I were them. In Britain the labour goverment has declared war on the farmers with the result that since they came to power 50% of all farms has gone out of existance.
This year some of …
This year some of these poor men have perished and one is still missing – those that say they deserve are nasty as can be to even wish harm like that.
I did want to …
I did want to qualify something here as most people for whatever reason seem to think if you care for animals too much you must not like humans – not so. The money our Fed’s spend on promoting their lies and that “hunt” (how can you hunt something that is a baby and barely moves) they should be investing the money in our Fine Canadian Fishermen – they have families to feed and are the straw men here being vilified while the world buys the fur.
This I can not keep …
This I can not keep my mouth shut on – MAN the arrogant beast he can be!!!!! Right now our on our Atlantic Coast 270,000 baby harp seal are being slaughtered as I type. Last year $105 a pelt this year $33 yet the bloodbath continues. I spent on and off two years collecting data off our own Fed’s Website and with their own information could prove the lies they tell to us the World and the EU. I wrote letters demanding answers and got a response from the rhetoric robot – spit is al I say to that.
conn6m it was no …
conn6m it was no view. My son did call 911 – nothing to do with being any less or more liberal – once the 911 button has been hit – they must respond. They talked to me on the phone and while apologizing for the misunderstanding advised it is their inherent duty to come anyhow. My son did not mention the birthday present until they showed up. As for guns I thank our governments provincial and federal that guns are not part of Canadian “culture”. You need a permit for a pea shooter in Canada.
I bet I have read a whole lot more in defense of animal “rights” than advocates have read my book Putting Humans First, Why We Are Nature’s Favorites (2004) in which I address all the points Regan and Singer make. Have they ever bothered to answer this book‘s arguments? No. QED
By the way, if animals really had the rights people do, then all of them that devour fellow animals would be rights violators–murderers–and vegans and such would have to be out there resisting all this rights violation. But that’s absurd. People may be implored not to abuse non-human animals, naturally, but non-human animals have no moral nature to appeal to vis-a-vis their treatment of other animals (human or not). Big difference between us and them, just the sort that animal “rights” advocates deny. But then, if this difference doesn’t exist or is not significant for the determination of who or what has rights, why not convict non-human animals of rights violation when they attack other animals? Why does the difference matter in the one case but not in the other?
I see so many going around and around in this argument and missing the point entirely. To me, the concept of animal rights has nothing to do with what an animal would do in the natural order of things – such as a lion eating a zebra. It has to do with how we as humans treat animals. Animals have the right to not be put in deplorable living conditions. Animals have the right to not be tortured even if humans are going to end up eating them later. We as humans have the moral obligation to take care of our planet and that means fellow creatures as well. There is no doubt that animals have feelings although they are probably different than ours, but why should they be less important?
On another point about private property and having the right to do what you want on it, there is a great story told by a friend Yehuda Berg in his book Green. One late night on a magnificent cruise ship, a guest wakes up by a loud noise coming from the room next to him. He bangs on the door until the occupant opens it and in the room, he can see that the man has been busy drilling a hole through the floor at the bottom of the boat. When the neighbor begged him to stop, the man simply replied that it is his room and he has the right to do what he wants with it. To me, that is such a simple and brilliant description of us on our planet. We are all connected and the negative actions of one can badly affect others and perhaps even all.