A Question On Rights

[NIJamesHughes]

When exactly does a species earn rights? To answer the question you would have to define at what point an animal becomes a rational animal. What exactly qualifies an animal to such a definition?

Will it be correct to call, for example, dolphins, "human" (since human means rational animal) if they were to develop a rational faculty?

[Shearer]

'When exactly does a species earn rights? To answer the question you would have to define at what point an animal becomes a rational animal. What exactly qualifies an animal to such a definition?'

Rights are not earned and they only belong to man, they are a recognition of the requirements of man's nature for survival, that in order to survive man must be free to choose his values, discover what is right and what is wrong etc and only apply in a social context.

A rational animal is an animal that operates at the conceptual level of awareness, and as such cannot operate automatically like animals at the sensory and perceptual level.

For animals at the sensory and perceptual level, their values are automatic and they cannot purposefuly act against their nature, their values are given by nature and they act to gain those values.

A rational animal does not have automatic values, it does not know automatically what is right for its life or what is bad for it, what is good or what is bad, what is true or what is false. A rational animal uses its rational faculty to discover the answer to these questions for the purpose of survival.

'Will it be correct to call, for example, dolphins, "human" (since human means rational animal) if they were to develop a rational faculty?'

No becuase it hasn't got any legs.....the essential distinguishing characteristic of a human being is its rational faculty, which is used voluntarily by choice, so any animal that developed this would be human, but since dolphins haven't then they are not human beings.

A rational animal doesn't mean an animal that is rational all of the time, since there exists religious human beings who are irrational. A rational animal is an animal with the potential to be rational, a faculty that is excercised by choice.

[y_feldblum]

Will it be correct to call, for example, dolphins, "human" (since human means rational animal) if they were to develop a rational faculty?

Of course not. That's not how definitions work. If both people and dolphins were rational, we would simply have to modify our definition of human accordingly.

[TetrisGod]

Will it be correct to call, for example, dolphins, "human" (since human means rational animal) if they were to develop a rational faculty?

The definitition of a concept is not directly interchangeable with that concept. In other words, yes - a human IS a rational animal but "rational animal" does not equal human. The concept human includes everything that makes a human a human... not just being rational. We define human as a rational animal because that is what is essential to being human; ie. the attribute that explains most of the other attributes. We wouldn't define a human as something with teeth.

[NIJamesHughes]

The main question of this post was supposed to be

Since animals evolve, at what point do we as humans recognize the rights of a animal that has become rational? when they develop complex language? when they use tools? When they use fire, invent the wheel? when they have complex social structures? when the build sky-scrapers?

At what point does a species develop to the point to earn the status of "rational animal?"

[ex_banana-eater]

When they achieve conscious volition rather than acting automatically without values.

[stephen_speicher]

At what point does a species develop to the point to earn the status of "rational animal?"

That is a bit of a strange way of putting it. A rational animal means a volitional consciousness with the capacity of reason; don't you think such a rational animal would directly communicate that fact? I mean, afterall, let's pretend that I do not know that you are a rational animal. What would you do to communicate your rationality to me?

[NIJamesHughes]

That is a bit of a strange way of putting it. A rational animal means a volitional consciousness with the capacity of reason; don't you think such a rational animal would directly communicate that fact? I mean, afterall, let's pretend that I do not know that you are a rational animal. What would you do to communicate your rationality to me?

So language is one of the defining criteria of a rational faculty? That is really what I am looking for: what are the objective hallmarks of a rational faculty? What is the evidence of the ability to reason in existential terms?

[Som Guy]

So language is one of the defining criteria of a rational faculty? That is really what I am looking for: what are the objective hallmarks of a rational faculty? What is the evidence of the ability to reason in existential terms?

Producing. Production cannot happen without rationality, so therefore if an animal produced that should be adequate proof of it's reason.

[stephen_speicher]

So language is one of the defining criteria of a rational faculty? That is really what I am looking for: what are the objective hallmarks of a rational faculty? What is the evidence of the ability to reason in existential terms?

Many people think of language as a form of communication -- and, indeed, it certainly is -- but the primary function of language is as a conceptual tool. As Ayn Rand notes at the beginning of ITOE (p. 9),

"In order to be used as a single unit, the enormous sum integrated by a concept has to be given the form of a single, specific, perceptual concrete, which will differentiate it from all other concretes and from all other concepts. This is the function performed by language. Language is a code of visual-auditory symbols that serves the psycho-epistemological function of convening concepts into the mental equivalent of concretes. Language is the exclusive domain and tool of concepts."

The process of abstraction, peculiar to a conceptual consciousness, manifests itself in the form of language, and is itself a reflection of a rational faculty.

[DavidOdden]

Producing.  Production cannot happen without rationality, so therefore if an animal produced that should be adequate proof of it's reason.

Well, I have a couple of hounds who produce a lot of stuff. Bees produce lots of honey, and cows produce milk. So I don't know what sense of "produce" you have in mind. Since some animals use (extremely crude) tools to do things, you can't be speaking of tool use as the evidence of rationality. If you have a conceptual being (test 1) who can integrate and differentiate percepts to create new knowledge (test 2) then you have a rational faculty.