No rights for animals! Ilana Mercer says critters have no capacity for moral distinctions

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Friday, October 10, 2003 | Ilana Mercer

[tet68]

What a human being does to an animal has no more moral significance than what a human being does to a rock.

The morality is not the animal's or the rock's. Who does that leave? And if not the human, then they are no different than the animal or rock.

[Savage Beast]

I do not agree with you that animals do not have rights. They have some legal rights; in some places cruelty to animals is a legal offense. But that is beside the point. They have the right not to be subjected unnecessarily to human cruelty. They have the right to be left alone as long as they do not bother humans.

[Savage Beast]

Yes, there is a dark side to human nature, and cruelty to animals is part of it.

[Scenic Sounds]

Why would anyone go to this much trouble to write a column against animals?

[Iconoclast2]

What if regulate cruelty to animals, because it is a moral wrong, because it is evil, but not because we are assigning "rights" to animals?

[Hank Kerchief]

The morality is not the animal's or the rock's.

That's right. They are equally incapable of morality, purpose, or meaning.

Who does that leave? And if not the human, then they are no different than the animal or rock.

Of course. That is why it does not matter, morally, how an animal or rock are treated, but it does matter profoundly how humans treat each other. To harm a single hair of a single human for the sake of the dead and the dumb (rocks and animals) is the gossest of evils.

Those who intentionally cause harm to animals are pathological. The desire to cause harm or destruction of any kind is essentially "irrational," and indicative of serious psychological problems, but not essentially a moral issue. Harm caused to any animal that is the possession of another human being is immoral, because it harms a human being.

(I recently spent $3000.00 dollars, for a succession of operations for my kitty that was run over by a truck. She's fine, I'm happy, but obviously a sucker for pretty furry face. I would have been devastated if my kitty did not make it. But I would, with my own hand, put her and twenty like her out of the way, before I would see any harm come to a single human being, no matter what they did to any animal that did not belong to someone else. Of course, if they hurt my kitty, or any other animal of mine, all their problems are over.)

Hank

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Great post. Occultists, all of them.

But watch out for Hatch trying to pass an amendment to give animals the vote.

[EGPWS]

They possess no free will, no capacity to tell right from wrong, and cannot reflect on their actions. While they often act quite wonderfully, their motions are merely a matter of conditioning.

Almost like a fetus.

The animals will achieve rights, while the "soon to be born" humans have lost them.