Animal Rights: Fact or Fiction?

I was a parliamentary debater at Pepperdine University. Unfortunately, this was only for three semesters. I joined late in my career, due to my dabbling in too many other trades. I was scatterbrained, and this leads to starting a lot of projects without seeing their completion. Fortunately, I am a changed man. Here I will finish, via incineration, illusory talk of animal rights. Rights are obligations not to trespass against the order of voluntary exchange. Rights are duties to uphold social cooperation, and anathematize social disintegration. Peaceful exchange is society. The planet we live on has only one race that can uphold these rights, the human race. Thus, any violator of rights is a racist. Since no other member of Earth's animal kingdom can participate in upholding social cooperation, no other member of Earth's animal kingdom has rights.

My arguments can come from scripture or from a secular property rights perspective. I doubt the former would have sway in discussions with vegetarians/vegans who abstain from the flesh for moral reasons. However, I would be remiss in not quoting the word.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Genesis 1:26

If you are a Jew or a Christian, this is the end of the debate. People were bestowed with dominion over nature, as nature's God has dominion over people and nature. When one has dominion, others have no claim to invade upon their affairs.

Do not fret, I did not forget my secular, or other religious affiliates in my audience. The dark illusion of animal rights is exposed by the spotlight of property. The last knight of liberalism, Ludwig von Mises, claims

The program of liberalism, therefore, if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is private ownership of the means of production... All the other demands of liberalism result from this fundamental demand.

The idea that animals other than humans, henceforth beasts, have rights numbs the cerebellum. If humans were not able to homestead unused scarce resources, there would be no property. Property rights are there to stave off the social disintegration that would occur in a propertyless world. Without designations of dominion over scarce resources, those resources are subject to the tragedy of the commons. Property allows people to preserve scarce resources, if they so choose. Butler Shaffer, of lewrockwell.com, once inundated a Greenpeace worker with examples of peaceful environmentalism

I went on to point out the many privately owned forests that operate as preserves, which members of the public can voluntarily support and visit. Private groups have purchased 'conservation easements' from landowners, for the purpose of preserving wetlands. I told them of the late actor, William Holden, who devoted most of his wealth to creating and maintaing a preserve in Africa wherein wild elephants could live. I also know of a man with no family who plans to leave his entire estate to the care of wild gorillas in Africa. If individuals and private groups can do such things- without putting themselves in conflict with others- do you think you- or Greenpeace- could figure out non-political, non-violent ways of accomplishing ends that you value?

The world without property rights is doomed, what is next? The world of property rights can only exist where there is the possibility of voluntary exchange, or as Mises puts it, social cooperation. Humans do not have to exchange with one another, but they do. Ricardo's Law is apodeictic. The division of labor benefits even those producers who are more effective than others. Even the most talented of humans gains from voluntarily exchanging goods and services. Beasts cannot partake in voluntary exchange. Human action is guided by time preferences of wants that humans attempt to satisfy. Beasts are guided by instinct alone, and cannot peacefully trade with humans. Beasts have no possible addition to social cooperation. Beasts can only engage in involuntary exchange, or social disintegration. This disability bars them rights.

Let us propose that I am a sophist who utilizes rhetorical flourish to distract the lay reader. Let us pretend that my arguments are a wash, and my goal is to hornswoggle. Let us pretend that beasts have rights. If beasts have the right not to be eaten, it is because their status as "sentient" beings morally bars them from being items of consumption. If they are worthy of rights, they cannot be morally owned. This morality dictates the closing of all public and private zoos. What happens when dangerous beasts are not allowed to be owned by humans? What happens when lions, bears, rhinoceroses, tigers, ligers, hippopotamuses and elephants roam free, and encounter humans? The law of self-defense, and Darwinian analysis enter the scene. Beasts cannot be reasoned with. Beasts will not restrict their movements to arbitrary borders drawn by States, or to not invading the property of humans. If you want to exterminate beasts, abolish the right to dominion over them. Abolish the right to consume, hunt for sport or preserve that which humans have dominion over. If you want beasts to thrive, develop a robust natural rights theory of human rights grounded in property rights. The survival of beasts is contingent upon human dominion of beasts.

Choose Liberalism, save the beasts.

Post Scriptum: Here is a 60 minutes case of Texas hunters preserving species that are now extinct in Africa. Butler Shaffer's full post. Blame or praise for this tirade should be directed at one Professor Leeson-Schatz and his post at CEDA. He is not the progenitor of my arguments, but the embodiment of my arguments' antithesis. I appreciate his adjudication philosophy for the debate community, along with his frankness on the subject. It is a fun read, join me on this journey.