The Law of the Earth
Title 2: Animal Rights
Rights come from the capacity to feel.
The Storybook of the Law
Title 2: Animal Rights
The Origin of Animal Rights
Rights come from consciousness,
also known as awareness, and life;
being alive means having rights.
Animals are living beings
with a capacity to sense and feel.
They are conscious, and thus, have rights.
All such rights derive from one,
the basic right of all consciousness:
the right to freedom from
deliberate and unnecessary
infliction of suffering
by other beings.
Deliberate – acting with will and intent.
Unnecessary – not required for biological health.
All specific rights of animals
can be logically extrapolated from this right.
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Title 2: Animal Rights
Specific Rights
A being has as many rights
as types of suffering its species can experience.
Every dimension of perception
a being is capable of experiencing
entitles it to a corresponding right
to protection from suffering in that dimension.
As with human rights,
the enumeration of specifics
is not intrinsically necessary,
but is useful to prevent ambiguity.
The List of Animal Rights
Each right applies to every kind of animal
that would suffer by its violation:
Access to normal food;
access to normal habitat;
freedom to roam, fly, or swim;
the ability to socialize with its own species;
continual access to pair-bonded individuals;
the ability to engage in courtship and mating;
the ability to form the social structure normal to its species;
and freedom from any suffering that would not occur in the wild.
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Commentary
SPECIFIC RIGHTS
Rights scale with feeling. A creature that can feel lonely has a right not to be isolated. A creature that migrates has a right to move. A creature that mates for life has a right not to be separated from its mate. An oyster and an elephant do not have the same list of rights, because they do not have the same capacity for suffering, but each has every right its nature calls for.
The last item gathers all the others into one test: would this animal suffer this way in the wild? Hunger, predators, and winter are part of wild life, and the Law does not ask us to abolish nature. But the battery cage, the gestation crate, and the solitary tank are not part of any wild life. They are suffering that humans invented, and the Law forbids it.
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Title 2: Animal Rights
The Compassionate Imperative
The Law requires us to refrain
from intentionally harming any animal,
unless survival, safety, or health
genuinely necessitate it.
Genuine necessity means:
1. the action is necessary for meeting a real need; and
2. no less harmful way of meeting that need is available; and
3. information concerning the truth of the first two
flows freely.
Non-Needs
Fun, habit, taste,
fashion, prestige,
pleasure, curiosity,
tradition, preference,
social status, and entertainment
do not constitute genuine necessity.
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Commentary
THE COMPASSIONATE IMPERATIVE
This is the heart of Title 2. It is short, and it is demanding.
Notice the third condition. It is not enough to believe that harming an animal is necessary. The question has to stay open: the evidence must be allowed to flow, and the arguments against your belief must be allowed to reach you. A necessity that survives only by silencing its critics is not a necessity. It is a habit defending itself.
The list of non-needs is worth reading slowly, because nearly every large-scale harm humans do to animals falls somewhere on it. "It tastes good" is taste. "We've always done it" is tradition. "Everyone does it" is habit. None of them is a reason the Law recognizes.
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Title 2: Animal Rights
The Three Criteria
For the Compassionate Imperative to be satisfied,
three criteria must be met:
1. Honest Evaluation
Anyone exploiting an animal from necessity
must, to the best of their ability, know:
A. the experience of the animals involved.
One who harms an animal
may not willingly shield themself
from knowledge of the suffering they cause,
and must make a good-faith effort, on an ongoing basis,
to witness and learn about that suffering,
for as long as they continue to take part in it;
B. the authenticity of the claimed necessity.
One who harms an animal
may not willingly shield themself
from the arguments calling that necessity into question.
2. Choice of Least Harm
If exploitation is genuinely necessary,
one must choose the option with the highest ratio
of need fulfilled to suffering caused.
This involves:
A. using the least neurologically advanced species;
B. choosing the least painful and restrictive conditions;
C. consuming only the amount truly necessary;
D. searching, all the while, for ways to meet the need
with less suffering, or none.
These may at times pull against each other,
but a good-faith effort must be made
to find the combination that causes the least suffering.
3. Transparency to Investigation
While engaged in any activity
that causes, incentivizes, or benefits from
the harmful exploitation of living creatures,
a person's right to privacy concerning that activity
is suspended, and they must answer questions
about their Honest Evaluation
and their Choice of Least Harm,
adhering to the protocols of Rationality.
Such questioning may be performed by anyone
who follows the protocols of Title 4: Upholdment.
All exploitation of animals
is automatic grounds for Investigative Reminding.
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Commentary
THE THREE CRITERIA
Each criterion closes a familiar escape route.
Honest Evaluation closes the slaughterhouse wall. Most people who eat meat have never watched an animal die for it, and the industry is built to keep it that way. The Law turns that around: if you take part in an animal's suffering, you may not look away from it. If you could not bear to see what your choice costs, that is something worth knowing about your choice.
Choice of Least Harm closes the door on cruelty-by-default. Even where some harm is truly needed, the Law asks for the gentlest path: a less sentient species, better conditions, a smaller amount, and a continuing search for something better.
Transparency closes the door marked "private." A person's life is their own business, until it involves the suffering of another being. At that point, the animal cannot ask you why. So the Law lets anyone ask on its behalf. You don't have to stop what you're doing, but you do have to explain it, honestly and rationally. Asking is the gentlest form of upholding the Law. It is Degree 2 of Title 4: Upholdment, and it uses no force at all.
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Title 2: Animal Rights
On Eating Animals
One simple rule:
you may if you need to,
but you have to try not to.
The natural diet of humanity is plants,
unless there is a nutrient that cannot be acquired
sufficiently from the plant sources available.
This determination may be made by you, the individual,
but only with open information,
and without censorship of ideas
that call the determination into question.
If you believe you need animal products
for adequate nutrition, you may use them,
but must also, at the same time:
1. remain open to information that disputes that belief;
2. choose sources that involve the least suffering;
3. search for plant-based ways to obtain what you need.
Overconsumption
It is unlawful to consume more meat
than is genuinely useful for nutrition.
Whenever you want to eat meat, ask yourself:
does this desire come from my body (need)
or from my mind (want)?
If it is only a want, eating it is unlawful.
If it is a need, eating it is lawful, provided
you consume no more than you need,
and choose the least neurologically evolved species
whose meat can fulfill that need.
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Commentary
ON EATING ANIMALS
The Law of the Earth does not appoint a dietary authority. It trusts the individual to make the call about their own body, and it asks only that the call be made honestly.
That honesty has three parts. Keep listening to the evidence, even when it is unwelcome. If you do eat animals, choose the ones that suffered least. And keep looking for another way.
The question "body or mind?" is one that anyone can ask, at any meal. Real hunger for a nutrient you're missing is the body speaking. A craving for a flavor, a habit at holiday meals, the smell from a grill: those come from the mind. The first can justify an animal's death. The second cannot.
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Title 2: Animal Rights
Unlawful Uses of Animals
Whereas it is unlawful
to inflict harm or pain
voluntarily and deliberately,
except from utmost necessity:
Animal Fighting
Fighting animals for sport is unlawful.
Racing and Performing
It is unlawful to race animals or use them for entertainment,
if the discipline required for their performance
involves the infliction of pain, physical or emotional.
Zoos and Aquariums
Zoos, aviaries, fishtanks, and aquariums are unlawful,
except where the species is endangered,
and confinement is necessary to protect it
and to breed and replenish its population.
Sport Hunting
The purpose of hunting and fishing
is to fulfill nutritional needs
that cannot otherwise be fulfilled.
Any other reason is motivated by sadism,
and so hunting for sport or trophies is unlawful.
Driving hooks through the mouths of fish
as a pastime, with no intention to eat them,
is unlawful.
Skins and Furs
It is unlawful to incentivize
the taking of animal skins or furs
where other affordable materials
are available and adequate to the same function.
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Commentary
UNLAWFUL USES OF ANIMALS
Every activity on this list harms an animal for one of the non-needs: entertainment, pleasure, fashion, or prestige.
The zoo exception is an honest one. A species on the edge of extinction may need protection that only confinement can give. But a lion pacing a concrete enclosure so that children can look at it serves no need of the lion's, and none of the children's that a book, a film, or a wild preserve could not meet better.
"Catch and release" is named specifically because it is so often defended as harmless. It isn't. The fish feels the hook. The only purpose of the hook is the angler's enjoyment, and that is exactly what the Law does not accept as necessity.
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Title 2: Animal Rights
Raising and Keeping Animals
For whatever purpose an animal is raised or kept,
it must be treated with respect and honor.
Whether for eggs, dairy, labor, or any other purpose,
the animal must be treated as a family member,
its comfort taken into serious account.
Uncomfortable living quarters must be avoided,
and the animal must be able to engage
in all behaviors natural to its species.
Cages
Long-term confinement in a cage is unlawful.
Cages may only be used for short-term needs,
such as carrying an animal on public transportation,
and the animal must be accompanied by its caretaker,
never left alone.
Chains and Rope
A chain or rope earns the same status as a cage
the moment it restricts a living being.
Any rope tied to a living being nonconsensually
warrants being cut.
Fences and Pens
A pen must hold a full social unit,
at a density low enough to keep its grass cover.
Social Integrity
It is unlawful to forcibly separate and keep apart
a mammal or bird from its bonded social unit,
be it flock, herd, pack, pride, family, or tribe.
Animal-Based Food Production
All animal-based food production
is managed at the village level,
one herd per species per village.
It is done by personal care, never by automation;
on public land, never in secret,
open at all times to public visitors.
Every animal product is labeled
with how much of the animal's life
each serving represents.
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Commentary
RAISING AND KEEPING ANIMALS
The standard is simple: treat the animal as a member of the family. A family member is not kept in a box, chained in a yard, or taken from their children.
The pen rule shows how concrete the Law can be. A pen full of animals where grass can no longer grow is a pen with too many animals in it. The ground itself testifies to the crowding.
The food-production rules are the Compassionate Imperative turned into practice. Animals raised by a village, in the open, cared for by hand, and visible to anyone who walks by can't be quietly subjected to the cruelties of industrial farming, because those cruelties survive only out of sight. And a label that tells you how much of an animal's life is on your plate is Honest Evaluation, printed where you can't miss it.
There is a simple test for whether an animal is being treated well. If it would rather run than stay near you, even with free food on offer, then being near you costs it more pain or fear than the food is worth. That is the animal's own verdict, and it is abuse.
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Title 2: Animal Rights
Research on Animals
Vivisection
Human vivisection is universally recognized as torture.
Animal vivisection is therefore also torture,
and is unlawful.
The quality that makes animals valued as test subjects
is their likeness to us,
but that likeness means they share our rights.
The argument for testing is: "They are similar."
The argument for ignoring their pain is: "They are different."
To the extent that they are useful subjects,
they are possessors of rights;
to the extent that they are not possessors of rights,
they are not useful subjects.
The logic of vivisection contradicts itself.
Corrosivity Experiments
If a substance is corrosive,
we already know that contact with it should be avoided.
No useful knowledge comes from such experiments,
and they are unlawful.
Drug Experimentation
The biochemistry and anatomy of animals
differ from those of humans in unpredictable ways,
so information from testing drugs on animals
is not reliable.
Research by Observation
Observation is lawful, when done in the animal's natural habitat.
Taken out of its habitat, an animal's behavior becomes unnatural,
and no longer useful for research.
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Commentary
RESEARCH ON ANIMALS
The argument against vivisection is one of the cleanest in the whole Law, because it uses the researcher's own reasoning against itself.
Why test a drug on a monkey instead of a rock? Because the monkey is like us: it has a nervous system, organs, and blood like ours. Then why may we do to the monkey what we would never do to a person? Because the monkey is different from us. Both claims can't be fully true at once. Whatever likeness makes the experiment useful also makes the suffering real.
Observation in the wild, by contrast, asks nothing of the animal but patience from the observer. It is lawful, and it is better science.
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Title 2: Animal Rights
Companion Animals
Not Property
Living beings are not property,
so it is unlawful to consider oneself the owner of an animal.
It is lawful to consider oneself
its friend, guardian, caretaker, steward, or custodian,
in service to the animal's wellbeing.
As only property can be sold,
it is unlawful to sell an animal.
Shelters for lost or abandoned animals
may charge adoption fees to cover their costs.
Voluntary Relationship
Do not keep a companion animal imprisoned in a cage or pen.
Keep its nearness through mutual affection only.
If this does not work, the animal does not belong with you.
Adoption
When adopting, do not separate families by force;
there is a difference between adoption and abduction.
Treat adoption as an offer to the animal.
First, befriend it, and see whether it likes you,
before planning the rest of its life.
Next, lead it to your home on foot,
so that it knows the way back to its home and family,
and can return there whenever it wishes.
Finally, keep your home open for the animal to leave.
If an animal in a shelter or store has no family,
you may take it directly home,
but must still leave it free to go.
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Commentary
COMPANION ANIMALS
You can't own a friend. You can only be one.
The adoption protocol may sound unusual, but it is how dogs and cats came to live with humans in the first place. No one captured the first wolves who became dogs. They chose to stay near human fires, because staying was good for them. The Law simply asks that every relationship with an animal be like that one.
The closing line of the old text says it best: if you have to imprison an animal to keep it near you, it doesn't belong with you. And if it does belong with you, you won't need to imprison it.
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Commentary
THE ORIGIN OF ANIMAL RIGHTS
Human rights rest on sovereignty: no one owns anyone. Animal rights rest on something even simpler, the fact that an animal can suffer.
Anyone who has watched a dog cower, or heard a calf cry for its mother, already knows this. Animals feel pain and fear, and in their own way they feel grief and joy. The Law does not ask whether an animal can reason, or speak, or vote. It asks the only question that matters to a being who is being hurt: can it feel?
The two key words are deliberate and unnecessary. The Law does not forbid every harm to every animal, which would be impossible for a living creature. Walking kills insects. Farming disturbs the creatures of the soil. What it forbids is choosing to cause suffering that your own biological health does not require.
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