Your assessment of animals as agents looks a bit circular.
After all, if humans are the only accepted acribers of rights (and that ascription is not undertaken by all people all the time), then it just goes to show that people are not necessarily particularly rational or consistant in ascribing rights.
Also of course, people are not necessarily assiduous about ascribing rights even to other people. For thousands of years it was considered perfectly obvious that slaves had only the rights ascribed to them by the non-enslaved. Reasons for this (such as enslaved people not being as capable of rational thought as non-enslaved people) were made up retroactively. So it seems circular to suggest that because only people acribe rights that these rights are invariably ascribed morally and appropriately and signify a completely correct assessment of those who get particular rights or not.
Hi Maxx,
Humans are the only ones who could grant rights to wolves. That's because, only moral agents can form them, so it's us or no-one. Wolves are incapable of forming their own reasoned, moral goals and lack the capacity to go beyond their sensory nature to exectue these goals. I gave an example before in regards to killing, but it could be anything. In wolf lingo,
"I'm angry, do I snarl at this other wolf? I could, but he might fight back, and he's bigger than me. I could just play along, do some subservient body language, and then when he turns his back jump him and go for his neck. But then again, he has two little pups. I think I'll do any way, and fool him by playing along."
The wolf will in fact behave instinctively. What's needed is proof of a consideration of moral alternatives, and a reflection on instinctive behaviour.
The problem of slavery isn't a problem, because I can say it's immoral and that people behaved immorally on this particular point for a thousand years. Kant's categorical imperative is a quick fix here, "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law." So then, I wouldn't want slavery to become a universal law. It would be illogical if everyone were out to enslave everyone else. Therefore, it's bad.
Of course, there are plenty of other arguments you could throw against it.
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