🚀 go-pugleaf

Warren Rudman writes:

>I would prefer a rational, ethical formulation, probably based on "rights"
>-- at least based on respect for the natural world.  Such a formulation
>could then be fitted into a person's individual belief structure -- whether
>J-C "stewardship" or Bhuddist "dharma".
>

As crazy as I'm sure they sound at first, my remarks about "fairness and
justice" were aimed at just such a "rational, ethical formulation": they
are a germinal attempt to extend some of the ideas presented in John Rawls'
book _A Theory of Justice_ to a nonanthropocentric ethic.

The problem with simple declarations of rights for other species -- or even
for humans -- is that they have no force unless they are adopted, and they
will not be adopted unless there are other, non-rights-based arguments
which convince people that there are such rights. To argue for any right,
human or non-, you have to fall back on other deeper principles, such as
equity, or whether the right is beneficial for society (as e.g. freedom of
speech is), etc. Most of the argumentation is then about those other
principles and whether they apply. A simple assertion that there is such
and such a right just leads to an "is too" -- "isn't" category of argument.


Alan McGowen