Jeremy Bentham 的动物利权理论理由
wanghx
力，而是是否给它们造成痛苦。如果按照理性能力的原则来界定利权属主，
那么婴儿和智力残疾，精神病人则很容易被当作物品对待而遭受人权侵犯。
这其实降低了利权属主的标准，从属主有潜在的利权主张能力，降低到生理上的感
受能力。婴儿的例子可以用潜在能力来解释；但是这一理论无法解释永久的智力残疾人
是否还是利权所有人。另一方面，可以从智力残疾人的关系人的利权来考虑智力残
疾人，但这里遇到一个道德上相关性前提，即对待智力残疾的亲人是否应该人道。
另一方面，边沁的痛苦感知论也有缺陷。比如脑昏迷植物人，被麻醉的病人，都没
有痛苦感受能力，可能偷他一个器官他也不知道，也不会感受到痛苦。所以这里还
是遇到一个利权主张能力的问题。不具有利权主张能力的残疾人，重病人和儿童，
还是需要法定的监护人，利权委托人来确立并行使其利权。而这一监护人和委托
人，不一定对当事人的痛苦
有感受能力，但是却有理性思维能力来推知其感受。
因此，动物利权问题直接和人权相关，可能需要把利权的生理感受力，和利权主张
的理性思维能力结合起来，才能完整解决。动物利权和动物保护是不同的概念。
如果探讨动物利权的确立，可以从动物利权监护人这一角度来研究。而动物保护的
原则，则只要对人有利，让人精神和物质上感到快乐，避免痛苦就行了。动物是否
痛苦不是问题的本质。
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham
Animal rights
Bentham is widely recognized as one of the earliest proponents of animal
rights. He argued that animal pain is very similar to human pain, and
that "[t]he day may come when the rest of the animal creation may
acquire those rights which never could have been witholden from them but
by the hand of tyranny."[20] Bentham argued that the ability to suffer,
not the ability to reason, must be the benchmark of how we treat other
beings. If the ability to reason were the criterion, many human beings,
including babies and disabled people, would also have to be treated as
though they were things. He wrote:
“It may one day come to be recognised that the number of the legs, the
villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons
equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate.
What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the
faculty of reason or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown
horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as more
conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month
old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? the question
is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?[20]
”
Feminism
Bentham said that it was the placing of women in a legally inferior
position that made him choose the career of a reformist, at the age of
eleven. [21] Bentham spoke for a complete equality between sexes.