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Heroes Community > Other Side of the Monitor > Thread: Germany moving to ban bestiality
Thread: Germany moving to ban bestiality This thread is 16 pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 · «PREV / NEXT»
Tsar-Ivor
Tsar-Ivor


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posted November 27, 2012 11:01 PM
Edited by Tsar-Ivor at 23:02, 27 Nov 2012.

Yeah, at the same time you could ask why pets don't earn their own keep, damn free loaders, or pay taxes. Trying to personify animals is hardly a worthy stance.

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Adrius
Adrius


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posted November 27, 2012 11:07 PM
Edited by Adrius at 23:08, 27 Nov 2012.

I don't get why one would defend some sorta right to have sex with animals in the first place to be honest.

You can't exactly figure out if an animal is giving its consent or not, even if it seems eh... willing... it may still just be out of respect/fear/whatever for you as an owner, those kinda things play in a lot especially when it comes to animals such as dogs.

There's just too many uncertainties to allow it imo.
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Tsar-Ivor
Tsar-Ivor


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posted November 27, 2012 11:08 PM
Edited by Tsar-Ivor at 23:09, 27 Nov 2012.

Yeah when my dog forces itself unto another dog it totally gave consent, I have verbal and written verification, animals give each other consent ALL the time, right, right? Erm, right?

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Adrius
Adrius


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posted November 27, 2012 11:09 PM

Are you arguing or just messing with us when you compare dog-to-dog sex with human-dog sex? ^^
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Tsar-Ivor
Tsar-Ivor


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posted November 27, 2012 11:11 PM
Edited by Tsar-Ivor at 23:13, 27 Nov 2012.

Consent is not required, that is all I was trying to say, ^_^

I mean surely a man trying to screw a sheep is hardly any different to another sheep/ram. (incase it's a lesbian)

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Adrius
Adrius


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posted November 27, 2012 11:14 PM

Well as a species of higher intelligence and power I believe we have obligations to take care of lower ones, that involves not abusing our position of power for our sexual pleasure.

That is even if the animal in question "wants it" (I need to use citation marks or I eww myself out).
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blizzardboy
blizzardboy


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posted November 27, 2012 11:18 PM
Edited by blizzardboy at 23:20, 27 Nov 2012.

Quote:

There's just too many uncertainties to allow it imo.


That's pretty much what it boils down to. It's hard to find a legislature, let alone a judge, that wants to put up with the ****ty task of trying to determine when the hell you're sexually abusing an animal or not. You'll have dogs that will literally just start lapping at a girl's vagina; this is sometimes the reason why a woman can become a zoophile to begin with. They'll have a first time experience where they let their dog lick them, and then they get hooked on it. She might even be able to spread her legs and the dog will mount her like he would a *****.

But even that isn't an absolute guarantee of genuine consent. Domestic dogs usually aren't around other dogs much, so they might learn to take whatever they can; you might roughly analogize it to the temporary, circumstantial homosexuality that people can experience in prison or when in isolation in the wilderness.
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mvassilev
mvassilev


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posted November 27, 2012 11:42 PM

Quote:
most civilized people would probably agree that we don't have the right to torture or physically (including sexually) abuse animals
One can have the moral right to be able to do something while it would still be the case for it to be wrong to do that thing. Drug use is one prime example - people should be not be legally prevented from ruining their lives with heroin, but that doesn't mean they should do it. As far as animal rights goes, it's popular to support them to a certain extent, but that doesn't mean they're right. The "civilized public" supports a lot of incorrect policies, such as current US foreign policy. What is the rational justification for animal rights?
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Fauch
Fauch


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posted November 28, 2012 12:15 AM

I have a hard time figuring out if this discussion is actually serious

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Minion
Minion


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posted November 28, 2012 12:38 AM

Mvassilev - do you think it should be legal to torture animals?
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"These friends probably started using condoms after having produced the most optimum amount of offsprings. Kudos to them for showing at least some restraint" - Tsar-ivor

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Corribus
Corribus

Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
posted November 28, 2012 12:48 AM

Quote:
people should be not be legally prevented from ruining their lives with heroin

In your opinion.

Quote:
What is the rational justification for animal rights?

What is the rational justification for ANY rights?
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Fauch
Fauch


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posted November 28, 2012 12:57 AM

Quote:
Mvassilev - do you think it should be legal to torture animals?


isn't it the kind of question that normally starts with "Elodin" ?

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mvassilev
mvassilev


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posted November 28, 2012 05:14 AM

Minion:
I think it's immoral to have the goal of torturing animals, and that anyone who enjoys it has something wrong with them. That said, torturing animals doesn't hurt people, so it should be legal, yes. There are many things that are legal (and should be legal) that are still wrong to do.

Corribus:
Quote:
What is the rational justification for ANY rights?
The classical example is the right to not be killed. Suppose I am a sociopath who cares about his own life and derives no direct enjoyment from others. It is conceivable that I could derive some benefit from killing you and taking your stuff. But I have a real reason not to: I want to live in a society in which others cannot do the same to me. The costs and benefits to me are not symmetric - I may gain some enjoyment from your stuff, but if someone else kills me, it's all over, and that's much worse. Thus, I want to live in a world in which murder is not permitted. Thus, the right to not be killed is recognized - a right that benefits everyone who doesn't want to be murdered.

Something similar is true for slavery/legal discrimination. Slaves were inefficient and occasionally rebellious. I could gain much more from dealing with them as legal equals. Racial discrimination in education and other areas have led to the creation of ghettos - and I definitely don't benefit from the existence of ghettos.

But how does it benefit most people if animals received rights? I don't see any positive effects for us. Thus, animals should not have rights - animal rights don't comply with the standard established by other rights.
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OhforfSake
OhforfSake


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posted November 28, 2012 05:24 AM
Edited by OhforfSake at 05:27, 28 Nov 2012.

Don't do to others what you don't want done to you, ought to have been, don't do to others what they don't want you to do to them.

Is a being which is not mentally capable of recognizing a social contract still a subset of the group named 'people'?

Quote:
as a species of higher intelligence and power

By our own standards, that is.
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Minion
Minion


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posted November 28, 2012 05:49 AM

Quote:

But how does it benefit most people if animals received rights? I don't see any positive effects for us.


Mental health of humans perhaps? People can relate to animals and pain quite well, and I assure you many would be traumatized if their neighbour had a torture chamber next door.  
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artu
artu


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My BS sensor is tingling again
posted November 28, 2012 06:12 AM

Quote:
But how does it benefit most people if animals received rights? I don't see any positive effects for us.


Laws aren't based purely on pragmatism, they are also based on values. Of course there is a line between moral codes and legal prohibition but that line is not absolute. That is one of the reasons why so many countries in different periods of history has very different and sometimes opposing laws.

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friendofgunnar
friendofgunnar


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posted November 28, 2012 06:31 AM

Quote:
Creating laws for the explicit purpose of (maybe) placating vigilantism is kind of like negotiating with terrorists. You need to be extremely careful about doing it because of the precedent it sets in the minds of the perpetrators ("if we do this, we'll get what we want").


Not at all.  One of the prime functions of laws is to suppress the violence that could arise from a natural expression of emotion.  This goes back to the very beginning of civilization when the laws were designed to stop tribal and clan rivalries from getting out of hand.  If somebody was hurt, the person that perpetrated the pain needed to have some hurt put on them otherwise the victim's kin would make sure to do the job.

Inflicting pain on animals might not appear to fit in this category but there isn't anybody that can deny that inflicting pain on animals also distresses humans who happen to be witnessing it.  A cold logical person might say "It's none of their business" but that cold logical person would be super naive about the way that emotions rule a person's behaviour.

I'm going to interject a personal anecdote here: My sister loves animals.  She is also a Christian.  One day (many years ago) we were sitting in a Christian youth discussion group and a topic came up "If you could break one of the ten commandments without consequences which would it be?".  Most of the teens present naturally answered "fornication oh yeah".  My sister however wanted to be able to murder people that abused animals.  

In your post you mention terrorism but it proves my point in an excellent way.  Before 2010 what did all these countries have in common?

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Qatar

The answer is that in each and every country  the government could imprison anybody they pleased for whatever reason and then keep them there for as long as they wanted.  You can draw a direct line between this lack of law and the vast undulating undergrowth of terrorism that has been afflicting the middle east and beyond for the past two generations.

BTW please note that I said "suppress" not "eliminate".  As Timothy McVeigh and Hans Breivik have shown there will always exist the possibility that the right corrupted genes will meet the right corrupted cultural values to create a monster.

BTW #2 Did I say "not at all"  at the beginning?  That's not really true, I agree that you need to be very careful about creating any type of law such that it has the effect that you intend.

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Corribus
Corribus

Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
posted November 28, 2012 06:47 AM
Edited by Corribus at 06:48, 28 Nov 2012.

Mvass, you've missed my point:
Quote:
But how does it benefit most people if animals received rights?

Why is what benefits humans all that matters?  If human rights are rationally justified by the fact that they benefit humans, animal rights - to animals, anyway - are rationally justified by the fact that they benefit animals.

In other words, your standard of justification of rights is whether or not said rights benefit humans.  It's implicit in this definition that you are speaking of human rights.  Having human rights benefit humans, therefore they are justified.*  This is of course based on the assumption that self-interest on a monolithic species level is what determines which human actions are "justified".  The biggest problem with this is that humanity is not monolithic and even if it was, I'm not sure everyone would agree with the idea that self-interest is what determines what is right and wrong.  Consider: if we found another planet inhabited by a nonhuman but intelligent alien race, it would potentially benefit humanity to exterminate all the aliens and take over the planet for ourselves.  It therefore might be considered our right to do so since you could link it to a benefit for humanity.  Aliens, thus, wouldn't have a right to life or property protection because such rights wouldn't benefit us.**  Would it be justified to slaughter an entire race of nonhuman beings if the benefit of doing so was indisputable?  Do thinking aliens have rights as well, or is it only humans?  Maybe rights only apply to rational thinking beings, and you'd then treat "all thinking beings" as a monolith, even though that'd certainly be even more absurd than treating all humans as a monolith.  But we have animals on this very planet that are rational thinking beings.  Perhaps they lack the abstract reasoning skills we have, but we know they think, solve problems, have emotions, feel pain, etc., just as we do.  So if aliens have rights just as humans do, what then could be the rational reason humans have rights and aliens have rights but "animals" in all their variations do not?  And if thinking aliens do NOT have the same rights that humans do, why not?  Beyond even that, suppose that it was the aliens that subjugated our planet and enslaved all of us - humans everywhere would be howling about their rights, but would aliens be justified in saying we have no rights because granting us rights in no way benefits THEM?  In which case, maybe it's strength and power that determines whose rights are more important.  Might makes right... right?  

The point being this: animal rights aren't justified since, according to you, they don't benefit humans. (I'm not sure sure that's the case.  I can think of reasons why basic ethical treatment of animals is important and benefits humans, and of course there's the moral issue, which can't really be disregarded as so easily as you'd ignore it, but all that's beside the point I'm arguing.)  Yet from an animal's perspective, human rights aren't really that important.  Animal rights benefit animals, so to animals they are justified.  What makes human rights, beneficial to humans, justified but animal rights, beneficial to animals, not justified?  Humans are somehow more important to the universe, therefore human rights are fundamentally more important?  Animals would probably disagree that animal rights aren't justified, just as aliens would disagree that alien rights aren't justified.  In the end you're left with the problem of proving that human rights are more important than other rights, or that maximizing benefits determines what rights are, well, right. And you certainly haven't done that, at least to my satisfaction.

*By the way, all this presumes that rights are things that are granted or bestowed by one party to another.  Who exactly is granting these rights you speak of and who isn't?  Governments, society?  The US Founding Fathers called rights self-evident, or something that merely are, not something that's given to certain people and, presumably, can be taken away if the whim arrives.  You speak of things being justified and not justified, which implies actions being taken, which implies you believe humans grant rights to other humans.  Is this something humanity grants to itself?  Or what?  Frankly, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me to speak of certain rights being "justified".  As any matter of ethics, they either are or aren't, and that usually just boils down to collective opinion.

** Or would they?  Another problem we have is that it's hard to objectively quantify benefits gained by certain parties having rights.  It may benefit humans to evict aliens from their homes to get their resources, but at the cost of war with aliens, or lost technology, or whatever.  So your contention would be that whether or not aliens are entitled to rights is based soley on a cost-benefit analysis, which of course could go either way depending on whose doing the analysis and who is a better salesperson to the person with his button on the nukes.  Not exactly a compelling argument for the universality of rights, if they are so heavily dependent on rather subjective analyses of extremely complex systems.  Maybe in the case of housecats it's easily say that there aren't many benefits to be gleaned by granting them rights - but then again maybe housecat genes in the future hold the secret to curing some strange flu epidemic that wipes out 95% of humanity in the year 2157.  Hard to say, but if that's the case, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to protect housecats from the predations of German zoophiles today...

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mvassilev
mvassilev


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posted November 28, 2012 07:24 AM

Minion:
Many people (at least in the US) would feel discomfort if a homosexual polyamorous couple moved in next door. Does that mean homosexuality and/or polyamory should be illegal?
"Knowing that it's happening could make someone feel uncomfortable" isn't a good argument for something being illegal.

artu:
Values that don't have a basis in pragmatism have no place in law.

Corribus:
Yes, animal rights are certainly justified to animals (if they're capable of thinking on that level). We aren't animals (in the sense in which we're using the word "animal"), so I don't see how that's relevant.
To clarify about "human rights", of course they're not really human rights but rights that extend to rationally-thinking beings. Cooperation with rational beings is better for us than enslaving or exterminating them. (I don't see what's absurd about treating "all thinking beings" as a monolith.) The reason I talk about "human rights" is because humans are the only known thinking beings. These rights would extend to aliens or robots that have those capabilities as well. Animals are not rational thinking beings. Some (few) display recognizable emotions and have some problem-solving skills, but that doesn't mean they're rational thinking beings in any meaningful sense. Even a 3-year-old human is better than a gorilla by that standard.
I would argue for animal rights if we (humans) had anything to gain from granting them rights. If we could consistently make deals with animals, cooperate with them as equals, etc, they'd certainly be deserving of rights. But we can't.

Quote:
And if thinking aliens do NOT have the same rights that humans do, why not?  Beyond even that, suppose that it was the aliens that subjugated our planet and enslaved all of us - humans everywhere would be howling about their rights, but would aliens be justified in saying we have no rights because granting us rights in no way benefits THEM?
Certainly. Human rights are rights that humans recognize humans to have. Aliens may have a different (or no) conception of rights. If these aliens are correct to think they can't cooperate with us and we are incapable of acting in a way that fits with their conception of rights, then they can enslave us. Of course, humans can and should resist in that case.
Two humans can recognize each other's rights. A human can say a lion has rights, but a lion can't do the same for a human. It would be better if it could, but that's not the world we live in.

Quote:
In the end you're left with the problem of proving that human rights are more important than other rights, or that maximizing benefits determines what rights are, well, right.
Maximizing benefits is what ethics should be about. That's axiomatic. You can disagree, but if your foundational axiom is different, there's not much to talk about.

Quote:
all this presumes that rights are things that are granted or bestowed by one party to another
They're not granted or bestowed, but exist as an optimum. Given human nature, there is an optimal set of ethical rules that maximize well-being. That set of rules is called "rights". Whether or not the currently recognized set of rules is optimal does not change that there is such a set. It does not have to be granted or bestowed to exist as a concept.

Quote:
your contention would be that whether or not aliens are entitled to rights is based soley on a cost-benefit analysis
If the aliens are rational thinking beings, we obviously have more to gain from recognizing their rights than we do from ignoring them. It's the same reason why people don't steal from their neighbors even when they can.
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artu
artu


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Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted November 28, 2012 08:18 AM

Quote:
Values that don't have a basis in pragmatism have no place in law.


So, in the beginning of 20th century, interracial marriages were outlawed in many countries, where's the benefit? This was cultural. Today, a mob boss can talk about killing dozens of men to her wife but if the two are legally married she cant testify against him in court, if they're only living together however, all is well. Where is the pragmatic difference? If you're not talking about pragmatism on the level of "it's selfish even to give away your money to the poor  because in the end you feel good" than saying all law have a basis in pragmatism is oversimplifying the issue. In that sense all moral codes, emotions has a basis in pragmatism too. That's why most of us love dogs and are disgusted by rats. But if you expand the extent of the meaning of benefit like that there's not much to argue.

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