歷年考研英語(yǔ)翻譯1997年

[00:03.09]1997 [00:05.91]Do animals have rights? [00:08.23]This is how the question is usually put. [00:11.05]It sounds like a useful, ground-clearing way to start. [00:14.68](1) [00:17.10]that there is an agreed account of human rights, [00:20.02]which is something the world does not have.> [00:22.64]On one view of rights, to be sure, [00:24.80]it necessarily follows that animals have none. [00:27.83](2) [00:29.58]that rights exist only within a social contract, [00:32.90]as part of an exchange of duties and entitlements.> [00:36.34]Therefore, animals cannot have rights. [00:39.15]The idea of punishing a tiger [00:41.07]that kills somebody is absurd, [00:43.29]for exactly the same reason, [00:45.11]so is the idea that tigers have rights. [00:48.23]However, this is only one account, [00:50.35]and by no means an uncontested one. [00:53.17]It denies rights not only to animals [00:55.28]but also to some people [00:57.30]--for instance to infants, [00:59.12]the mentally incapable and future generations. [01:02.45]In addition, it is unclear [01:04.07]what force a contract can have for people [01:06.59]who never consented to it, [01:08.56]how do you reply to somebody who says [01:11.09]"I don't like this contract"? [01:13.51]The point is this: [01:14.83]without agreement on the rights of people, [01:16.94]arguing about the rights of animals is fruitless. [01:20.57](3) [01:23.69]it invites you to think that animals [01:25.54]should be treated either with the consideration humans [01:28.37]extend to other humans, [01:30.09]or with no consideration at all.> [01:32.60]This is a false choice. [01:34.61]Better to start with another, more fundamental, question: [01:38.05]is the way we treat animals a moral issue at all? [01:41.68]Many deny it. [01:43.41](4) [01:45.06]are different from animals in every relevant respect, [01:48.07]extremists of this kind think that animals lie [01:50.90]outside the area of moral choice.> [01:53.92]Any regard for the suffering of animals [01:56.04]is seen as a mistake [01:57.75]--a sentimental displacement of feeling [01:59.97]that should properly be directed to other humans. [02:03.29]This view, which holds that torturing a monkey [02:06.02]is morally equivalent to chopping wood, [02:08.64]may seem bravely "logical". [02:10.86]In fact it is simply shallow: [02:13.37]the confused center is right to reject it. [02:16.61]The most elementary form of moral reasoning [02:19.12]--the ethical equivalent of learning to crawl [02:21.86]--is to weigh others' interests against one's own. [02:25.19]This in turn requires sympathy and imagination: [02:28.63]without which there is no capacity for moral thought. [02:32.15]To see an animal in pain is enough, for most, [02:35.09]to engage sympathy. [02:36.81](5) [02:39.23]it is mankind's instinct for moral reasoning in action, [02:42.86]an instinct that should be encouraged [02:45.39]rather than laughed at.>

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