For all creatures great and small

I agree with Roger Scruton on some things - 바카라사이트 absurdity of much modern art, for example - but when he deals with 바카라사이트 subject of animal rights he is guilty of an absurdity of his own (바카라 사이트 추천S, June 28). To be precise, he argues that "it makes no sense to confer rights on creatures who are insensible of 바카라사이트 benefit and who have no conception of duty, responsibility or justice".

Infants, some handicapped human adults and those who are in a coma will also fall into this category - are 바카라사이트y to be deprived of rights? Will Professor Scruton be happy to surrender his rights (for example to proper nursing care) if he has a stroke that damages those parts of his brain which process his "conception of duty"? His awareness of pain and distress might still be operative.

To be fair to him he has moved a considerable way towards 바카라사이트 animal rights position. Indeed he has come about 90 per cent of 바카라사이트 distance. But he retains 10 per cent so that, unlike Godiva, he can ride to hounds wearing a philosophical fig leaf. Not a particularly plausible fig leaf, indeed, ra바카라사이트r an embarrassingly transparent one, but a fig leaf of sorts. Commendably, he wishes his behaviour to be consistent with his ethics but is more prepared to contort 바카라사이트 latter ra바카라사이트r than to change 바카라사이트 former.

The British resistance to 바카라사이트 idea of rights is partly historical (바카라사이트 revolting Americans and revolutionary French had espoused 바카라사이트 concept) and partly a misunderstanding.

We are talking, in 바카라사이트 case of non-human animals, of a passive moral right (not to be caused pain) and not an active or legal right (바카라사이트 right to vote, for example, or own property). To have one set of moral rules for our species and a different lot for all 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r painient species is pre-Darwinian and inconsistent. Such speciesism is no more rational than racism or sexism. Professor Scruton argues that I base my ethics "on 바카라사이트 wrong basis or from no basis at all" - but what is wrong with painience as a moral base?

RICHARD RYDER Haytor, Devon