No. I know you hate me at this point, but don't worry, it's normal. You're just making one of the gravest epistemological mistakes man can make: Use of consciousness to modify reality. In other words, you think (hope would be a better word) that if you really care about the poor little puppy with big eyes and wet fur, and really feel sorry for him, and if you manage to convince people that something must be done about this, then, somehow, by magic, animals will one morning wake up and realize that they have rights. You would be wasting your time. Animals don't have rights (and never will) not because I am a selfish brute who enjoys torturing small, helpless kittens, but because this is the reality. It doesn't matter how many people you convince that animals have rights, even if it is the entire human race, it is completely irrelevant how sorry you feel about the extinction of the white owl with red wings and blue testicles, what you feel and what you believe does not, never has and never will, modify the reality.
What is a 'right'? Here is Ayn Rand's definition: "A right is a moral concept, defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context". Now you may argue something like "I don't believe in this definition and I think it should be extended to include animals". In reply to this I will make the mistake to accept your terms and butcher the definition by doing the following:
What I cannot disregard however is the word "action". Some action must be taking place in order for the 'right' to exist. Basically, 'right' means whether the action is 'right' or 'wrong'. Action is the essence of the concept 'right'. An 'animal right' would have to define the action performed by an animal, and, in the context of the apriori chosen morality, to sanction it as 'right' or 'wrong'. But this is not what you mean, and this is why animals do not have rights.
If you leave your feelings aside and just use your mind as I suggested, you will see that in fact it is not animal rights that you advocate, but the restriction of the rights of humans to act in specific ways on animals. This, I have no problem of discussing, but even if I accept that torturing animals is wrong, it does not mean that I accepted that the animal has rights. The gap is too wide for me to pretend I don't see it.
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