Animals Have Rights

In October I went on an outing was to hear Tom Beauchamp, Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University, Washington D.C. give a paper called “Rights Theory and Animal Rights”. The poster promised that there is a firm correlativity between rights and obligations: all rights entail obligations and all obligations entail rights.

I came home and wrote up what I had heard from my blog. And then I put it out on another blog that I write for my journal class -- so I am taking it out of there, and transferring it here. No use in confusing the professor as I have just confused you.

So back to my "Animals Have Rights" lecture. I love philosophers. While it might be easy to trivialize the yesterday’s subject matter, it is not long before I began to worry, as they do, about the need to discuss bio-ethical issue and have other minds help them hone their arguments.

Now obligations and rights seems more like it belongs with the transfer of shares in business / company law to me, than that it would be part of an argument that would prohibit most of the ways humans use animals (ie in cockfights, cosmetic research, etc). So I read the fine print in the poster. ”If we have any obligations at all to animals (e.g., an obligation to feed a farm animal, an obligation to proved exercise opportunities for zoo animals, etc), they have correlative rights.

I couldn’t think of a right any animal had, but the Leona Helmsley case where she gave her animals $10 million dollars after she died, helped me to see ... yikes ... by law, hose animals had rights.

Now, I am trying to be open to all kinds of ideas from my film clatss, so I listened up in the philosophy lecture as well. I noticed that I pulled out my notepad when the presenter used his theory to generate “A Catalogue of the Rights of Animals”. Even as a person who doesn’t have a pet, I thought to myself, this is too good to be true for pet lovers.

Dr. Beauchamp has been in the U.S. for so long that the professor who introduced him told all of the “French types” in the audience to Americanize his name – no French accent on it. That was the first hard word to get used to. Just try to anglicize the word Beauchamps. The second hard word that he used was non-malevolence in connection with the way to treat animals. I began to say the word over and over in my mind, wondering if I it will ever slip out of my mouth sometimes and me be surprised and wonder where that word came from. My guess is that I will have the word with me, long after I have forgotten the content of the lecture.

Makmiller has a new office on the 12th floor of the Social Sciences building. He showed it off to Burley and me after the talk. He said that it was beautiful today when the first snow in our area covered the rolling foothills of Nose Hill. From the window I could can London Drugs, Senator Patrick Burns Junior High, Aberheart High School, and John Laurie Boulevard as it rims the bottom of Nose Hill. The road was empty but for two semi’s one behind each other, drawing an imaginary circle around the hill. I sat in Mak’s chair, checking to see how perfect his view was if he should cast his eyes a little to the right and out the window. The view is perfect.

Between what was in my fridge and what was in Mak’s fridge we made a nice meal, though Burley had to couldn’t linger after the meal. The lecture was ringing in her ears. She was afraid her dog, Tilley, wasn’t getting all of his rights. I don’t have such an obligation.
Posted by Arta Johnson at 9:56 AM 0 comments