“it is undeniable that, collectively, human beings possess
    the unique ability to bear legal responsibility.”

That's somewhat modern thinking... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_trial

Also, did you know you can put a corpse on trial? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod

Surely not a convincing rebuttal, though? Collectively, adults with severe mental disabilities can't bear legal responsibility.

It's basically the speciecist argument, that we have rights because we're human, not because of anything that goes along with being human.

You have to be careful, though, because the train of thought that makes rights contingent on actual ability to perform leads inexorably to a justification of eugenics. Once you agree that even humans may not really have rights unless they meet a certain bar, you create all sorts of incentives to start screwing with the bar. And we shy away from eugenics not because of the idea itself, but because of what fruit it bore, and there's little reason to believe it would go any better a second time.

Plus you're a distressingly short trip from the bar being "having right and proper political beliefs".

"Speciesism" at least has the virtue of being fairly unambiguous. It may still be the better policy even if it isn't perfect.

The ambiguity fear is born from self interest, of course no one wants the possibility of being legally allowed to be killed. The thing is that the other species don't want that neither, they just cant express it with words nor communal violence.

Meaning ethically we have no ground, if cows could start having rational thoughts /talking all we could answer them is "sorry for killing millions of you all, you have tasty meat, it has nutrients... And stuff... and you didn't complain before".

Of course, it's "speceisist" to swat mosquitoes, as well, if you take it far enough and I'm not a big fan of labelism in general.

Personally, in that case, I'd have ruled that they have no standing to represent the animal as they are neither related nor has the animal agreed to their representation.

Is it speciesist to swat mosquitoes? I'd swat a person if they tried to suck my blood...

You wouldn't kill them for it, though... probably. And you'd be in trouble if you did.

Well, to be fair, I think you could claim self-defence against someone attempting to practise vampirism on you. ;)

I see your point though; if a person were doing as little harm as a mosquito does, most people wouldn't kill them in retaliation.

I don't think that's what they mean. My interpretation of that statement would be that rights are conferred to species as a whole, not individuals, and it matters whether the species as a whole can bear legal responsibility. Just as you can't take rights away from individual members of a species that can do that, you can't give rights to individuals of a species that can't. How you define what species can and what can't is of course the clincher in that case.

In a way, it's a pretty decent way to look at it. It means all that is required for an entire species to be given personal rights is to prove that they can fulfill the obligations that come with them. It decouples the rights from the good or bad inviduals, and reduces it to "what is this genetic grouping capable of".

Hm, that's a perspective I hadn't considered.

I still orangutans should have rights, though.

I definitely do too, they are capable of too much for them not to have it. But it should be granted to the entire species, not just to any single orangutan.