{"id":556,"date":"2009-06-18T10:46:04","date_gmt":"2009-06-18T17:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bhagwad.com\/blog\/?p=556"},"modified":"2009-06-18T10:46:04","modified_gmt":"2009-06-18T17:46:04","slug":"animal-rights-refuting-roger-scruton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bhagwad.com\/blog\/2009\/rights-and-freedoms\/animal-rights-refuting-roger-scruton.html\/","title":{"rendered":"Animal Rights &#8211; Refuting Roger Scruton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Reading an article on Animal rights the other day, I was introduced to some of the  arguments that have been put forward by those who claim that animals have no inherent rights. Some of them dwell on the theory that animals are meant for humans to use for their pleasure or that cruelty to animals is bad because it makes <em>humans<\/em> cruel \u2013 not because animals have rights of their own independent from humans.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Image Credit: <a title=\"Link to meganpru's photostream\" onclick=\"pageTracker._trackPageview('\/outgoing\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/meganpru\/?referer=');\" rel=\"dc:creator cc:attributionURL\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/meganpru\/\"><strong>meganpru<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><strong> <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_573\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 385px;\"><em><strong><em><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-573\" title=\"Animal Rights\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bhagwad.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/Animal-Rights.jpg\" alt=\"Animal Rights\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bhagwad.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/Animal-Rights.jpg 375w, https:\/\/www.bhagwad.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/Animal-Rights-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 375px) 100vw, 375px\" \/><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Animal Rights<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em><strong> <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Needless to say I disagree with these views. However, one particular argument was rather interesting. It was put forward by <a onclick=\"pageTracker._trackPageview('\/outgoing\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Roger_Scruton?referer=');\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Roger_Scruton\">Roger Scruton<\/a> \u2013 a philosopher who enjoys discussing this issue. His point is that Animals don\u2019t have rights of their own since rights and duties go together, and since only humans have duties, he says that \u201cthe corollary is inescapable: we alone have rights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">While this is an interesting angle, I don\u2019t believe it\u2019s a valid objection. While it is true that humans need duties to balance their rights, I\u2019m not sure that the concept of duties needs to be applied to animals for the following reason:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Humans need the concept of \u201cduties\u201d and \u201cresponsibilities\u201d because without them, there is no check on human behavior. Humans can use their rights to behave irresponsibly. However, there is no such thing as an irresponsible animal inasmuch as they are incapable of overstepping the limits that nature has placed on them. There is no such thing as an irresponsible tiger for example.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">While the concept of \u201cduties\u201d applies to humans due to the nature of humans, there is no requirement for the concept of rights to be limited to animals alone. While it is true that the concept of rights only applies in the context of humanity, we are not talking about any creature other than humans allowing the animals to have their rights. We\u2019re not asking tigers to respect the rights of deer since tigers aren\u2019t going to abuse their power. Only humans can do that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reading an article on Animal rights the other day, I was introduced to some of the arguments that have been put forward by those who claim that animals have no inherent rights. Some of them dwell on the theory that animals are meant for humans to use for their pleasure or that cruelty to animals &#8230; <a title=\"Animal Rights &#8211; Refuting Roger Scruton\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bhagwad.com\/blog\/2009\/rights-and-freedoms\/animal-rights-refuting-roger-scruton.html\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Animal Rights &#8211; Refuting Roger Scruton\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rights-and-freedoms"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Animal Rights - Refuting Roger Scruton<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Explains why Roger Scruton&#039;s argument on Animal&#039;s Rights is invalid\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bhagwad.com\/blog\/2009\/rights-and-freedoms\/animal-rights-refuting-roger-scruton.html\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Animal Rights - Refuting Roger Scruton\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Explains why Roger Scruton&#039;s argument on Animal&#039;s Rights is invalid\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.bhagwad.com\/blog\/2009\/rights-and-freedoms\/animal-rights-refuting-roger-scruton.html\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Expressions - Bhagwad Jal Park\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-18T17:46:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.bhagwad.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/Animal-Rights.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"bhagwad\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@bhagwad\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@bhagwad\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"bhagwad\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.bhagwad.com\\\/blog\\\/2009\\\/rights-and-freedoms\\\/animal-rights-refuting-roger-scruton.html\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.bhagwad.com\\\/blog\\\/2009\\\/rights-and-freedoms\\\/animal-rights-refuting-roger-scruton.html\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"bhagwad\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.bhagwad.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/06c9c710885b810f1dfe3779fc346b23\"},\"headline\":\"Animal Rights &#8211; 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