12: EQUALITY

 1)Question/attack: "One cannot say that humans and non humans are equal and also say that humans and non humans are not bound by the same rules and code of moral conduct. If humans have to respect the rights of deer then so should lions."   

Response: a) This is assumed to be a fallacy in Definition: Conflicting Conditions--that they cannot be equal and unequal at the same time. This confuses two different definitions of "equality." The first definition is that non humans and humans are equal regardless of their differences(the "Martin Luther King jr." sense of the word: "All men are created equal." ). The second definition is not a value judgement, but an observation of the fact that everyone has different attributes. The animal rights proponent stresses equality in value while acknowledging inequality in attribute. There is no conflicting conditions. Other species are equal to humans in value, but they do not possess the attributes to think and behave the way humans do--just as the mentally retarded or children do not have the same attributes but are afforded equal moral protection and ethical regard.

 Response: b) We say a man with arms and a man without arms are equal in worth, but we don’t say because they have different abilities that the one with arms deserves more "rights" than the other.  By the logic of this attack, in order for all humans to be granted equal rights and respect, they would have to possess the same attributes (mentally, physically etc).