“Right to life” doesn’t mean “right to have as many individuals of some group brought into existence as physically possible”. It usually means more like “a living individual has a right to not be killed”. If you’re interpreting it as the former, then it seems to me that you’re grossly misinformed about what people actually mean by the term.
In theory some position of total utilitarianism might lead to something along the lines you imply, but even that would have to be traded off against other possible ways of increasing whatever total utility function is being proposed. Most such theories are incompatible with “right to life” in either sense.
I do agree with part of your argument, but think it would have been better stated alone, and not following from and in conjunction with a complete strawman.
OK it looks like I didn’t understand what people mean by ‘right to life’ - probably because I’m inclined towards consequentialism, so don’t understand or believe in rights-talk.
However I think an analogous argument could be made along the lines of a ‘right to reproduce’ (which I suspect many might reckon exists). Non-existent animals don’t have the right to exist per se, but their parents have a right to reproduce, which would make them exist.
Cf in the human sphere, mass forced sterilization (of an ethnic group, say) would no doubt be deemed a form of genocide—i.e. infringing something similar to a right to life.
Yes, there is an idea of “right to reproduce”, but hardly anyone believes that it should hold for animals in the sense of your article. The exceptions seem mainly to apply to critically endangered species.
Rather a lot of people don’t hold “right to reproduce” in unrestricted form for humans either. It certainly doesn’t have the same near-universality as human right to life.
While mass forced sterilization of particular ethnic groups is absolutely a form of genocide, this again goes way beyond any analogous beliefs that animal rights people hold. Nobody is saying that all chickens and cows should be sterilized so that their species becomes extinct. The closest it gets is “stop force-breeding them”.
I didn’t mean make them extinct. I meant not let them reproduce freely, and control their numbers by sterilisation and culling. If done to a severe extent (which may not be necessary in the case of food animals) I can see an analogy with genocide.
(Cf though I’m not an animal rights activist in any way, even as a child I thought there was something odd about the mass extermination of coypu in the UK merely because they ate crops.)
I’m not sure what position you’re taking here.
“Right to life” doesn’t mean “right to have as many individuals of some group brought into existence as physically possible”. It usually means more like “a living individual has a right to not be killed”. If you’re interpreting it as the former, then it seems to me that you’re grossly misinformed about what people actually mean by the term.
In theory some position of total utilitarianism might lead to something along the lines you imply, but even that would have to be traded off against other possible ways of increasing whatever total utility function is being proposed. Most such theories are incompatible with “right to life” in either sense.
I do agree with part of your argument, but think it would have been better stated alone, and not following from and in conjunction with a complete strawman.
My position is in the penultimate paragraph.
OK it looks like I didn’t understand what people mean by ‘right to life’ - probably because I’m inclined towards consequentialism, so don’t understand or believe in rights-talk.
However I think an analogous argument could be made along the lines of a ‘right to reproduce’ (which I suspect many might reckon exists). Non-existent animals don’t have the right to exist per se, but their parents have a right to reproduce, which would make them exist.
Cf in the human sphere, mass forced sterilization (of an ethnic group, say) would no doubt be deemed a form of genocide—i.e. infringing something similar to a right to life.
Cf ‘right to family life’
Yes, there is an idea of “right to reproduce”, but hardly anyone believes that it should hold for animals in the sense of your article. The exceptions seem mainly to apply to critically endangered species.
Rather a lot of people don’t hold “right to reproduce” in unrestricted form for humans either. It certainly doesn’t have the same near-universality as human right to life.
While mass forced sterilization of particular ethnic groups is absolutely a form of genocide, this again goes way beyond any analogous beliefs that animal rights people hold. Nobody is saying that all chickens and cows should be sterilized so that their species becomes extinct. The closest it gets is “stop force-breeding them”.
I didn’t mean make them extinct. I meant not let them reproduce freely, and control their numbers by sterilisation and culling. If done to a severe extent (which may not be necessary in the case of food animals) I can see an analogy with genocide.
(Cf though I’m not an animal rights activist in any way, even as a child I thought there was something odd about the mass extermination of coypu in the UK merely because they ate crops.)