I'd forgotten about this thread. I still haven't really come to any conclusion about this. It seems the main argument is just that if an organism is sentient, we owe it a duty of care not to use it or hurt it or own it or exploit it etc. But I haven't found any compelling reasons why that's the case. It just seems to be something some people think. And most people don't. Which suggests, I suppose, that veganism is always going to be a minority viewpoint.
My own uncertaintly stems from my belief that animals (sentient beings) aren't anything particularly special. They really are just biological machines and the "what it is like" thing is just how it is for those machines to do the things they do. They come and they go and that's the way it is. I can understand why welfare is important, but I'm torn on this idea of rights. I suppose a rights-based approach to welfare might work as a way to generalise duties to animals in this regard, but the idea that sentience demands something more seems problematic to me. Gary Francioni once said to me that sentience is what it's all about and we do not owe any duty to the non-sentient. I agree, it's just that I don't think duties emerging from sentience necessarily extend to the kinds of rights we confer to other humans.
In the end it just comes down to what one thinks about other animals, not any kind of empirical reasoning.
Is anyone aware of a treatise that addresses why sentience demands rights that include such notions as a right to bodily autonomy, a right to not be commodified, wtc?
My own uncertaintly stems from my belief that animals (sentient beings) aren't anything particularly special. They really are just biological machines and the "what it is like" thing is just how it is for those machines to do the things they do. They come and they go and that's the way it is. I can understand why welfare is important, but I'm torn on this idea of rights. I suppose a rights-based approach to welfare might work as a way to generalise duties to animals in this regard, but the idea that sentience demands something more seems problematic to me. Gary Francioni once said to me that sentience is what it's all about and we do not owe any duty to the non-sentient. I agree, it's just that I don't think duties emerging from sentience necessarily extend to the kinds of rights we confer to other humans.
In the end it just comes down to what one thinks about other animals, not any kind of empirical reasoning.
Is anyone aware of a treatise that addresses why sentience demands rights that include such notions as a right to bodily autonomy, a right to not be commodified, wtc?
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