Should Animals Have Rights? October 29, 2009

For our second meeting in October, Phoenix Objectivists will dicuss the topic of animal rights. We will start by watching a pre-recorded lecture on DVD by Prof. Tibor Machan titled: "The Myth of Animal Rights."

In the concern about how human beings treat animals, whether as pets, as prospective nourishment, or for medical research or experimentation, one school of philosophical thought has proposed the idea that animals should have the same rights as human beings.

In his lecture given at a 2007 conference in Germany, Prof. Machan will argue that the concept of rights has not be shown to apply to animals in anything like the way it applies to human beings.

Professor Tibor Machan is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is professor emeritus of philosophy at Auburn University, and holds the R. C. Hoiles Endowed Chair in Business Ethics and Free Enterprise at the Argyros School of Business & Economics, Chapman University.

He is the author of several books and lectures regularly, on political philosophy and business ethics, in Europe, Latin America, South Africa, and New Zealand and throughout the United States.

Running time for the lecture will be about 45 minutes and we will discuss the issues Prof. Machan brings up in his lecture afterward.

Please join us for an informative and intelectually provocative evening!

Official Website: http://phoenixobjectivists.blogspot.com