Real universal rights

[Rational ethicist]

Hi, I have a very simple idea.
In traditional ethics, we start with for example a set of all important rights and then ask the question: which entities in the universe get all those rights? Then we see an expanding moral circle through history: from our family to our tribe to our fellow countrymen to all humans, and now expanding further to include some non-human animals. But this approach always ends up with an arbitrariness: why not expand the moral circle further, to all sentient beings, all living beings or all entities in the universe?
I propose to follow the reverse direction: start with the assumption that everyone and everything counts morally and is fully included in the moral circle. Everything, from humans to plants to computers to rocks to planets to molecules, deserves equal rights, without arbitrary exclusions. Then the question becomes: which rights should we grant to everyone and everything?
One such right could be the right to bodily autonomy, i.e. the right that your body should not be used as a means against your will for the ends of someone else. This right refers to 'body' and 'will', and hence is trivially satisfied for those entities (like rocks, plants, computers) who do not have a sense of their bodies and who do not have a subjective will. That right can only be violated if the entity is a sentient being. Whatever ways we use plants or computers, we do never use their bodies as a means against their will. But when we use sentient beings such as farm animals for food, we use their bodies against their will and hence we violate this right of farm animals. Hence, this moral theory results in veganism: we should abstain from eating animal products.
Question: which real universal rights would you propose? I.e. which rights should we grant to really everything in the universe?

[mickthinks]

I am disinclined to follow that path. I don't grant rights to everything in the universe. You have made no case for doing so.

[Rational ethicist]

I am disinclined to follow that path. I don't grant rights to everything in the universe. You have made no case for doing so.

What about the idea to avoid arbitrariness? If you don't grant rights to everything, you exclude some entities from getting rights, and that exclusion is likely arbitrary. Such arbitrary exclusion from the moral circle is discrimination.

[Harbal]

What about the idea to avoid arbitrariness? If you don't grant rights to everything, you exclude some entities from getting rights, and that exclusion is likely arbitrary. Such arbitrary exclusion from the moral circle is discrimination.

So would a worm have the right not to be eaten by a blackbird, and what steps would we take to protect the worm's rights?

[Lacewing]

Hi, I have a very simple idea...

I don't know if this might be straying too much from your intent, but I like the idea of starting out with respect for all, and then adjusting from there as needed -- rather than assigning respect based on arbitrary conditional factors.

As for assigning bodily rights for rocks, plants, and computers... I think having respect is enough. It is challenging to assign all the appropriate rights in an evolving world that is greatly out-of-balance. Ideally, I would like for everyone to be able to live their life however they want as long as it does not negatively impact another. However, pretty much everything we use and do has some kind of negative impact on others -- it's the world we find ourselves living in -- and maybe the best we can hope for in these circumstances is to do a lot of positive things too, to help balance it out.

I do not think anyone should be lorded over by another. I think all women, all over the world, should be free and have the same rights as men. I think all children should be protected from abuse, with the right to legal representation that severely punishes the abuser. I think animals, too, should be protected from abuse. (I am a carnivore, and I try to choose free-range animals as much as possible.)

If we have to assign rights, then we're already in a problematic headspace which would likely make the goal impossible. It should just be understood and natural without enforcement. Maybe we'll make a quantum leap to a new understanding at some point.

[Harbal]

It seems rather arrogant of us -human beings- to think that we are entitled to bestow rights on anything other than ourselves. I think it would be more appropriate to impose responsibilities on ourselves in respect of how we behave towards other living creatures.

[mickthinks]

What about the idea to avoid arbitrariness?

I don’t consider the distinction between humans and non-humans to be arbitrary. I don’t recognise the problem you have set yourself to solve.

[Rational ethicist]

What about the idea to avoid arbitrariness? If you don't grant rights to everything, you exclude some entities from getting rights, and that exclusion is likely arbitrary. Such arbitrary exclusion from the moral circle is discrimination.

So would a worm have the right not to be eaten by a blackbird, and what steps would we take to protect the worm's rights?

It is possible to grant a right not to be killed against one's will, and if a worm has a will and does not want to be killed (by a blackbird), than the blackbird should not eat the worm. Of course the blackbird might die from starvation, but then we can either refine the right of the worm, grant everyone a right to eat others for survival, or make sure that blackbirds no longer need worms to survive. We could for example herbivorize animals, such that the blackbird becomes like for example fruit and seed-eating birds. See for example herbivorize predators: https://www.herbivorizepredators.org/

[Rational ethicist]

It seems rather arrogant of us -human beings- to think that we are entitled to bestow rights on anything other than ourselves.

Why is it arrogant if the others (e.g. animals) can also consistently want their rights (e.g. the right not to be used against their will) to be respected? We can grant rights that are perfectly in line with the preferences of the right-holders (e.g. the animals).
It is also not clear why you explicitly refer to us as human beings. After all, we are also primates, and mammals, and vertebrates,... Would you say something like "It seems arrogant of us -dry-nosed primate beings- to think that..."? To me that seems to be a weird expression. And so replacing "dry-nosed primate" by "human" becomes equally weird.

I think it would be more appropriate to impose responsibilities on ourselves in respect of how we behave towards other living creatures.

Who do you consider as "ourselves"? Do you refer to humans? Primates? Mammals?

[Rational ethicist]

What about the idea to avoid arbitrariness?

I don’t consider the distinction between humans and non-humans to be arbitrary. I don’t recognise the problem you have set yourself to solve.

The distinction is arbitrary. Arbitrariness means selecting an element from a set without following a selection rule. So consider the set of all possible distinctions, containing the distinctions between humans and non-humans, between primates and non-primates, between mammals and non-mammals, between whites and non-whites, between males and non-males, between bald and non-bald individuals,... So there are many possible distinctions, as elements in that set. Now you select one of those distinctions, the one between humans and non-humans. What selection rule did you use to select that particular distinction, given there are so many other possible distinctions that you could pick? If you didn't follow a rule, your choice was arbitrary.

[Rational ethicist]

What about the idea to avoid arbitrariness?

I don’t consider the distinction between humans and non-humans to be arbitrary. I don’t recognise the problem you have set yourself to solve.

Another difficulty; who do you consider as human? Take your mother, grandmother, great grandmother and all other of your ancestors. In this group of ancestors, who do you consider human? You are human, so is your mother, you grandmother,...? But what about that ancestor who lived 10 million years ago, the one that lived 100 million years ago? Clearly they can't all be humans? So where do you draw the line? At your 10.000th ancestor? That line drawing is always arbitrary.

[Harbal]

We could for example herbivorize animals, such that the blackbird becomes like for example fruit and seed-eating birds. See for example herbivorize predators: https://www.herbivorizepredators.org/

That is one of the craziest things I've ever heard. Apart from the ethical issues of interfering in the genetics of wild animals, there is no way of predicting what catastrophic effects such a crackpot enterprise would have on the ecology of the planet. You talk about rights, but by what authority do you suppose we have the right to dabble with nature in such a reckless way?

And this is your idea of rational ethics, is it, Rational ethicist?

[Rational ethicist]

We could for example herbivorize animals, such that the blackbird becomes like for example fruit and seed-eating birds. See for example herbivorize predators: https://www.herbivorizepredators.org/

That is one of the craziest things I've ever heard. Apart from the ethical issues of interfering in the genetics of wild animals, there is no way of predicting what catastrophic effects such a crackpot enterprise would have on the ecology of the planet.

Of course, if catastrophes occur, we shouldn't herbivorize predators. But remember that nature itself, and predators themselves, have no clue at all about catastrophic effects. There are many catastrophic effects in nature; look at the effects of predation itself. And there are also many examples of herbivorized predators (the giant panda, kinkajou, spectacled bear, some lizards, many seed-eating birds, even many dinosaurs like the diplodocus and triceratops). So it already occurs in nature. Nature didn't think about the catastrophic effects, whereas we can. So we can do it better than nature.

You talk about rights, but by what authority do you suppose we have the right to dabble with nature in such a reckless way?

Well, can nature complain? No, nature has no capacity to care, it doesn't care about anything and hence doesn't care about predation and herbivorisation and whatever. It doesn't care about your values like naturalness, pristineness of ecosystem integrity. These are your own values, what right do you have to impose those values on other sentient beings, wild animals? Wild animals care about their own welfare, and they think their welfare is more important than your values of naturalness or pristineness.

[FlashDangerpants]

I propose to follow the reverse direction: start with the assumption that everyone and everything counts morally and is fully included in the moral circle. Everything, from humans to plants to computers to rocks to planets to molecules, deserves equal rights, without arbitrary exclusions. Then the question becomes: which rights should we grant to everyone and everything?

That's pretty close to what Bruno Latour's Parliament of Things concept in which we owe reperesentation and consideration to all sorts of stuff including distant galaxies, waterfalls and so on.
https://transversal.at/transversal/0107/lash/en

I'm not really sold either way on this sort of thing. It's called 'practical reasoning' for a reason, and some of these ambitions for it seem impractical to me. But historically somebody has to notice that human activity is having a non beneficial impact on X before moving to persuading other humans to even care about X, after which X may well be expired before humans decide on an ethical requirement of the thing. So perhaps there is a benefit for advancing the process a couple of steps on a universal basis without need for special recognition of any particular X.

Or maybe there would be no effect whatsoever.

[Harbal]

Of course, if catastrophes occur, we shouldn't herbivorize predators. But remember that nature itself, and predators themselves, have no clue at all about catastrophic effects. There are many catastrophic effects in nature; look at the effects of predation itself. And there are also many examples of herbivorized predators (the giant panda, kinkajou, spectacled bear, some lizards, many seed-eating birds, even many dinosaurs like the diplodocus and triceratops). So it already occurs in nature. Nature didn't think about the catastrophic effects, whereas we can. So we can do it better than nature.

I'm not even going to attempt to explain why this is simplistic, naive and worrying.

Well, can nature complain? No, nature has no capacity to care, it doesn't care about anything and hence doesn't care about predation and herbivorisation and whatever. It doesn't care about your values like naturalness, pristineness of ecosystem integrity. These are your own values, what right do you have to impose those values on other sentient beings, wild animals? Wild animals care about their own welfare, and they think their welfare is more important than your values of naturalness or pristineness.

I'm not imposing my values on other sentient beings, I'm leaving them alone to be what they are best suited to be.