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Given that we domesticated these animals, doesn’t that give us the right to use them?
This question harkens back to one even more basic: whether or not anyone has the "right" to use or own anyone else, and if we think so, what the basis of this right might be. It may be helpful to ask ourselves if we think parents have the right to use their children because they brought them into the world. Or if, during the era of human slavery in the US, we think slave owners had the right to use those they had enslaved because they had captured them and forcibly brought them to America, or the right to use the children born in America to those individuals originally taken by force from their own land.Does having the power to control or dominate other sentient beings, even at the level of causing them to be brought into existence, somehow convey the right to use those individuals for whatever purpose against their will? "Might makes right" is a principle most people reject and recognize as being the cause of injustice and misery throughout human history. How is claiming that domestication conveys the right to use another any different than "might makes right?" Domestication always involves control, which might include everything from breeding in captivity, artificial insemination, confinement and genetic manipulation, to the "breaking" of the independent will of an individual. Consider what has taken place over the course of human history when cultures possessing more powerful technology have used that power to dominate and even destroy indigenous cultures. How do we feel when learning the truth of what happened when these tragedies took place? For those who live in countries that possess powerful technology and weaponry, it may be hard to imagine the sense of vulnerability and helplessness experienced by those from cultures that have been dominated in the past or are being dominated now. One interesting thought experiment is to consider the following scenario: Imagine if a race of extra-terrestrial beings who possess more powerful technology than our own were to visit earth, their capabilities such that even the most powerful countries were essentially helpless before them. What kind of ethics would we hope they would employ in relating to us? Were they to use their technology to force our species to fulfill their wants, would we believe that their ability to control us also conveyed the right to do so?
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