Posts
"A life is a process that involves both goal directed activities and projects that may succeed or fail and memories of what one has done in the past and what has befallen one." (98). This is the definition that James Rachels gives to help me understand what a life is. To relate this to non-humans is quite interesting, in my opinion. For a non-human to have a life it has to be able to be goal oriented and memories of the past. How can humans decide if a non-human is goal oriented or has memories of its past? There is no way to be able to tell if a non-human has goals or has memories of its past, to my knowledge. Therefore, to me this definition is not valid to say that non-humans have a right to life because they cannot communicate with humans about these experiences. I understand that the definition doesn't say you have to be able to communicate these things, but there is no other way to know if they are capable of these without being able to communicate them.
As I read chapter 5, it seemed that many of the moral rights were in favor of non-humans having rights. On the other hand, the legal rights were not very much in favor. Which of these two rights holds more power over the final decision as to whether non-humans have rights at all? Just because non-humans have a moral right to life, does that mean also that they do have a legal right to life also? Or is it that they don't have a legal right to something therefore they don't have a moral right to it either? Which is more standing in society: moral rights or legal rights? I would say legal rights because they are written down and they can be understood and seen by all. Moral rights aren't written down because morals are always changing; they change with the times.
Mental Models of Purpose of College
2 years ago
Rachel, I agree that legal rights have a greater standing in society because they are written down and have certain enforcement measures in place, whereas moral rights seem as these abstract ideas that are appealing to many, but yet are difficult to enforce because there is not one definition of moral rights, as Ernie pointed out. On the other hand, as Mike argues, there are many reasons why moral rights are appealing, as well. What I find interesting, and what Wellman argues, is that moral rights seem to be the foundation of many of our legal rights. Would it be possible to attain certain legal rights without envoking the language of moral rights? Furthermore, is that the only function of moral rights, then? As something to refer to in the discourse of legal rights? It seems that moral rights do have a great standing, as well, if they are used as points of authority by those who claim legal rights based on moral theories. These questions will be interesting to explore, and I am curious to see if Wellman will refer to this in his concluding chapter.
ReplyDelete