More about animal rights

Alfred E. Zammit (March 1) is once again correct in saying that "Animal Rights is clearly against any human use of animals". This is because according to the animal rights philosophy, non-human animals are not human property. Of course, the philosophical arguments leading to this conclusion are too lengthy to be written down in a letter to the editor but for people who are interested in learning more I would suggest Gary Francione's book entitled Introduction To Animal Rights.

Mr Zammit is also correct in saying that according to AR, "whatever improvements governments might make to the abattoir for the animals' benefit, AR will ultimately be satisfied only if the abattoir were closed down for good". This is analogous to human slavery abolitionists' claim that it is not enough to treat human slaves better. What should be demanded is the abolition of human slavery and not just improvement in the treatment of slaves. AR just moves one step forward, and demands the abolition of all kinds of slavery, including non-human animal slavery.

So, Mr Zammit is once again correct when he says that AR would "insist" that the Constitution should be amended to include the right to life and liberty of all animals. Mr Zammit is only wrong in saying that we would insist on non-human animals' "right" to free speech and freedom of worship. This is because these two "rights" are not applicable in the case of non-human animals. Rights, in essence, are means of protecting interests. Since non-human animals have no interests in free speech or freedom of religion, talking of non-humans having such rights is nonsense. But all animals have an interest in life and liberty.

Regarding Adam and Eve, I was expecting Mr Zammit to tell us they had more children apart from Cain and Abel, and that these children could have been female. But still, if we take a literal interpretation of the Genesis and believe that we are all descended from Adam and Eve (who were the only human inhabitants of the Garden of Eden and were the only humans banished from the garden to a place where there existed no other contemporary humans) this would still leave the problem of incest for the continuation of the species. I wonder how Mr Zammit could reply to this. My take on it is that the Genesis should not be taken as a literal and a historical fact.

Finally, regarding Mr Zammit's criticism and "correction" of my "Prime Minister at a Labour Party club" analogy, this makes no difference to my main point, which was that being in someone else's property does not necessarily mean that you share his beliefs or politics. So my analogy stands. Jesus holding a last supper at an Essene quarters does not necessarily make him an Essene. To be fair, Mr Zammit should at least concede me this, more so since this simple conclusion does not require any "scholarly annotations" which Mr Zammit presumes (wrongly) that I find distasteful.