1. Granted animals are not the same as humans. But to suggest that animals have no rights whatsoever seems a bit extreme, since this suggests there is no limit at all to what people should be able to do to animals. Should people be able to torture dogs just for fun, for example? I would think the answer to such questions, as some have suggested above, depends on whether animals are capable of real suffering and on whether this suffering is comparable to how a human suffers. This is an important philosophical question which is often ignored, both by animal rights activists (they simply take it for granted animals feel pain just as humans do) and by animal rights cynics (such as the post above which is only interested in animals' ideas and not in the question of whether animals can suffer).

2.To claim that laws against murder exist to protect the free development of ideas is not only very rare, but also, it seems to me, very odd. Surely, humans have some kind of intrinsic value and right to life (or at least so we assume) apart from the use of humans as a means to something else (i.e. the creation of ideas useful for other people). So, even if it can be proven that some person can never have any useful ideas, surely that in no way diminishes his right not to be killed.

3.What in fact is the argument for the assumption that ideas and knowledge play such a prime role in morality and existence? What about other factors, such as hapiness? For example, is not a culture with decent happy people who do not make any advancement for hundreds of years better off than a culture with unhappy people who create a lot of technological inventions? Is creation really the only or main object of human life? Why?

4.David's argument that if animal's suffering is bad, and if an animal suffers when it dies, it would be bad to breed animals, seems incorrect. It would seem more logical to balance an animal's suffering against it's experience of pleasure. If an animal enjoys more pleasure than pain during his life, then one might argue that animal's life is a good thing, and if the pain is more than the pleasure it's life would be a bad thing. (This is ignoring any value animals might have for humans, but that's a different issue.)

5.I think the main reason it's ok to kill an animal (at least painlessly) is that an animal does not forsee it's own death. So for an animal it's not really a terrible experience to be killed. For humans it is, because they suffer by the knowledge that they will die. Also, a human's life has continuity. For a human it is important to finish certain projects, such as learning as much as possible, seeing his kids and grandkids grow up, etc. For an animal it doesn't work that way. Also, when a human is killed his friends and family suffer, whereas for animals I would think that is not (or much less) the case. As for the question of causing unnecessary pain to animals, I think the extent to which that should be legal depends, as said above, on the question to what extent different kinds of animals can genuinely suffer. And I think we do not yet know the answer to that question, but it is important to think about that. In any case, I do think that even if animals can suffer that is of less intensity and importance than humans suffering. And animal suffering can be justified at least partially to the extent that it helps humans (i.e. cure disease, provide food and fur, etc.).

6.The notion that one can "prove" that animals just have no rights is scientism. We have to argue about what is the best way to treat animals legally and otherwise, and one can't evade that question by some pseudologic reasoning. Rights is are not objective natural "things", but rather are a human invention, a tool used to discuss and describe moral reasoning and moral conclusions.

Henry Sturman