I agree with Peterson in that animals do not have “innate” rights. Neither do humans.
Rights are a social construction, with specific rules of what is allowed and what’s not. It can change through times as institutions evolve. In that sense, Peterson is right.
However, if we live in a socio-economic context where humans have “natural” rights, it is possible animals can have “natural rights.” In fact, our institutions are evolving towards “nature rights” in which we create the framework for “non-thinking” animals or things to have rights and be defended.
Given that, and also taken for granted that we humans are also animals. I still got some questions about our rights, our role on the planet and, our interaction with others.
I’m going to give an example. I hope we all should agree that it is wrong to force humans to be sterile, but we admit to making dogs and cats infertile, and we present that as “animalism.” But, is it not a violation of animals’ rights to reproduce? Are we not imposing our views and needs on animals when we do that we wouldn’t admit it for humans in such a way?
I agree with jp’s comment in the sense that the true value of Thinking Fast & Slow may not be the specific examples but the cautionary message it gives about relying too much on our decisions and overcoming the “homo-economicus
However, I’m also interested now to see the replicability of those studies quoted by the book..”