Animal cruelty.?

Question

I am tired of animal cruelty. I am going to devote my life to helping animals. They have just as many rights as us. I wanna start a business. I will personally go out save animals get them all fixed up and kinda sell em to make a living. is this wrong to sell em? I wanna make a difference and at the same time make a living. How can i do this? And if i do do this how cna i get funding for the buidling? supplies,etc. I even heard of people going ahead and getting a "guard" dog to help them find and rescue these animals. how can i do any of this.

Answer 1

it is NOT cruel: fix your broken vocab

since the primary purpose of animal testing is to benefit people, and NOT to harm the animal for the sake of harm, it DOES NOT meet the definition of 'cruel'

as animals do NOT have rights it's not rational for you to campaign thusly on their behalf

WHY ANIMALS HAVE NO RIGHTS

"A right, properly understood, is a claim, or potential claim,

that one party may exercise against another. The target against

whom such a claim may be registered can be a single person, a

group, a community, or (perhaps) all humankind. The content of

rights claims also varies greatly: repayment of loans,

nondiscrimination by employers, noninterference by the state, and

so on. To comprehend any genuine right fully, therefore, we must

know who holds the right, against whom it is held, and to what it

is a right.

Alternative sources of rights add complexity. Some rights are

grounded in constitution and law (e.g., the right of an accused

to trial by jury); some rights are moral but give no legal claims

(e.g., my right to your keeping the promise you gave me); and

some rights (e.g., against theft or assault) are rooted both in

morals and in law.

The differing targets, contents, and sources of rights, and their

inevitable conflict, together weave a tangled web. Notwithstanding all

such complications, this much is clear about rights in general: they

are in every case claims, or potential claims, within a community of

moral agents.  Rights arise, and can be intelligibly defended, only

among beings who actually do, or can, make moral claims against one

another. Whatever else rights may be, therefore, they are necessarily

human; their possessors are persons, human beings. [p.865]

The attributes of human beings from which this moral capability

arises have been described variously by philosophers, both

ancient and modern: the inner consciousness of a free will (Saint

Augustine); the grasp, by human reason, of the binding character

of moral law (Saint Thomas); the self-conscious participation of

human beings in an objective ethical order (Hegel); human

membership in an organic moral community (Bradley); the

development of the human self through the consciousness of other

moral selves (Mead); and the underivative, intuitive cognition of

the rightness of an action (Prichard). Most influential has been

Immanuel Kant's emphasis on the universal human possession of a

uniquely moral will and the autonomy its use entails. Humans

confront choices that are purely moral; humans -- but certainly

not dogs or mice -- lay down moral laws, for others and for

themselves. Human beings are self-legislative, morally

auto-nomous [sic]. [p.865-866]

Animals (that is, nonhuman animals, the ordinary sense of that

word) lack this capacity for free moral judgment. They are not

beings of a kind capable of exercising or responding to moral

claims. Animals therefore have no rights, and they can have

none. This is the core of the argument about the alleged rights

of animals. The holders of rights must have the capacity to

comprehend rules of duty, governing all including themselves. In

applying such rules, the holders of rights must recognize

possible conflicts between what is in their own interest and what

is just. Only in a community of beings capable of

self-restricting moral judgments can the concept of a right be

correctly invoked.

Humans have such moral capabilities. They are in this sense

self-legislative, are members of communities governed by moral

rules, and do possess rights. Animals do not have such moral

capacities. They are not morally self-legislative, cannot

possibly be members of a truly moral community, and therefore

cannot possess rights. In conducting research on animal subjects,

therefore, we do not violate their rights, because they have none

to violate.

To animate life, even in its simplest forms, we give a certain

natural reverence. But the possession of rights presupposes a

moral status not attained by the vast majority of living

things. We must not infer, therefore, that a live being has,

simply in being alive, a "right" to its life. The assertion that

all animals, only because they are alive and have interests, also

possess the "right to life" is an abuse of that phrase, and

wholly without warrant.

It does not follow from this, however, that we are morally free

to do anything we please to animals. Certainly not. In our

dealings with animals, as in our dealings with other human

beings, we have obligations that do not arise from claims against

us based on rights. Rights entail obligations, but many of the

things one ought to do are in no way tied to another's

entitlement. Rights and obligations are not reciprocals of one

another, and it is a serious mistake to suppose that they are.

.... Plainly, the grounds of our obligations to humans and to

animals are manifold and cannot be formulated simply. Some hold

that there is a general obligation to do no gratuitous harm to

sentient creatures (the principle of nonmaleficence); some hold

that there is a general obligation to do good to sentient

creatures when that is reasonably within one's power (the

principle of beneficence). In our dealings with animals, few will

deny that we are at least obliged to act humanely -- that is, to

treat them with the decency and concern that we owe, as sensitive

human beings, to other sentient creatures. To treat animals

humanely, however, is not to treat them as humans or as the

holders of rights.

A common objection, which deserves a response, may be paraphrased

as follows:

"If having rights requires being able to make moral claims, to

grasp and apply moral laws, then many humans -- the

brain-damaged, the comatose, the senile -- who plainly lack those

capacities must be without rights. But that is absurd. This

proves [the critic concludes] that rights do not depend on the

presence of moral capacities."

This objection fails; it mistakenly treats an essential feature of

humanity as though it were a screen for sorting humans. The capacity

for moral judgment that distinguishes humans from animals is not a

test to be administered to human beings one by one. Persons who are

unable, because of some disability, to perform the full moral

functions natural to human beings are certainly not for that reason

ejected from the moral community.  The issue is one of kind. Humans

are of such a kind that they may be the subject of experiments only

with their voluntary consent. The choices they make freely must be

respected. Animals are of such a kind that it is impossible for them,

in principle, to give or withhold voluntary consent or to make a moral

choice. What humans retain when disabled, animals have never

had. [p.866]

A second objection, also often made, may be paraphrased as

follows:

"Capacities will not succeed in distinguishing humans from the

other animals. Animals also reason; animals also communicate with

one another; animals also care passionately for their young;

animals also exhibit desires and preferences. Features of moral

relevance - rationality, interdependence, and love -- are not

exhibited uniquely by human beings.  Therefore [this critic

concludes], there can be no solid moral distinction between

humans and other animals."

This criticism misses the central point. lt is not the ability to

communicate or to reason, or dependence on one another, or care

for the young, or the exhibition of preference, or any such

behavior that marks the critical divide. Analogies between human

families and those of monkeys, or between human communities and

those of wolves, and the like, are entirely beside the

point. Patterns of conduct are not at issue. Animals do indeed

exhibit remarkable behavior at times. Conditioning, fear,

instinct, and intelligence all contribute to species

survival. Membership in a community of moral agents nevertheless

remains impossible for them. Actors subject to moral judgment

must be capable of grasping the generality of an ethical premise

in a practical syllogism. Humans act immorally often enough, but

only they -- never wolves or monkeys -- can discern, by applying

some moral rule to the facts of a case, that a given act ought or

ought not to be performed. The moral restraints imposed by humans

on themselves are thus highly abstract and are often in conflict

with the self-interest of the agent. Communal behavior among

animals, even when most intelligent and most endearing, does not

approach autonomous morality in this fundamental sense. [p.866-867]

Genuinely moral acts have an internal as well as an external

dimension.  Thus, in law, an act can be criminal only when the

guilty deed, the actus reus, is done with a guilty mind, mens

rea. No animal can ever commit a crime; bringing animals to

criminal trial is the mark of primitive ignorance. The claims of

moral right are similarly inapplicable to them.  Does a lion have

a right to eat a baby zebra?  Does a baby zebra have a right not

to be eaten? Such questions, mistakenly invoking the concept of

right where it does not belong, do not make good sense. Those who

condemn biomedical research because it violates "animal rights"

commit the same blunder." [p. 867]

-------------

Carl Cohen. "The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical

Research" The New England Journal of Medicine 315, no. 14

(October 2,1986): 865-69.

Answer 2

I love the idea!  But where to start?  Is it going to be an animal shelter?  Will it be a no-kill shelter?  Or will it just be like a website where people can get matched up with pets?

In my opinion, the best place to start would be to talk to people who have made a success of this kind of venture.  Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah comes to mind.  Out of all the no-kill shelters, these guys have it down to an art!  

At first, I'm sure you'll be depending on donations.  People donating time and money to help your cause.   While I don't think it's "wrong" to sell the rescued pets, I think it would be a better idea to offer them free to good homes (after LOTS of screening) and just let the people donate.  With the dog I adopted from Best Friends the adoption fee would have been about $100.  That would have covered his neutering surgery, microchip, etc.  As it was, after seeing the facility and all the wonderful people and pets, I donated a little more than the fee would have been.  That was four years ago.  I still send donations in my "little man's" name every month.  On the other hand, just because someone can't afford a large donation doesn't mean that they couldn't provide a wonderful, loving home to some poor abused animal.

As far as a dog to help you find and rescue these animals, I think one will present himself.  I also think it will be one YOU rescued!

This will be a huge job.  Good luck and bless you for wanting to get into this line of work!

Additional:

How great that you know what you want to do in life at such a young age!  I'd definately start with contacting some of the no kill shelters and seeing how they got their start.  I already mentioned Best Friends.  Another good one is North Shore Animal League.  I think both of those places have people who live right there in the facilities.  As far as your own home town goes, have you offered to volunteer at the Humane Society or in a nearby vet's office?  Until you can realize your dream of your own shelter, you can do sooooo much good in your spare time.  And gain the experience you're going to need.

Again, Good Luck!!!  I admire you so much for having this goal!

Answer 3

animals do not have as many rights as us. can they vote? can they buy and sell goods? can they own property? i can go on but i won't. about the other stuff, as long as you are alright with not making much money then i don't see why you couldn't make a living doing this. you'd have to get a veterinarians degree though, i would think.