1997年考研翻译英译汉试题
Do animals have rights? This is how the question is usually put. It sounds like a useful, ground-clearing way to start. (71)Actually, it isn't, because it assumes that there is an agreed account of human rights, which is something the world does not have.
On one view of rights, to be sure, it necessarily follows that animals have none. (72)Some philosophers argue that rights exist only within a social contract, as part of an exchange of duties and entitlements. Therefore, animals cannot have rights. The idea of punishing a tiger that kills somebody is absurd; for exactly the same reason, so is the idea that tigers have rights. However, this is only one account, and by no means an uncontested one. It denies rights not only to animals but also to some people—for instance, to infants, the mentally incapable and future generations. In addition, it is unclear what force a contract can have for people who never consented to it: how do you reply to somebody who says “I don't like this contract”?
The point is this: without agreement on the rights of people, arguing about the rights of animals is fruitless. (73)It leads the discussion to extremes at the outset:it invites you to think that animals should be treated either with the consideration humans extend to other humans, or with no consideration at all. This is a false choice. Better to start with another, more fundamental, question: is the way we treat animals a moral issue at all?
Many deny it. (74)Arguing from the view that humans are different from animals in every relevant respect, extremists of this kind think that animals lie outside the area of moral choice. Any regard for the suffering of animals is seen as a mistake—a sentimental displacement of feeling that should properly be directed to other humans.
This view, which holds that torturing a monkey is morally equivalent to chopping wood, may seem bravely “logical”. In fact it is simply shallow: the confused centre is right to reject it. The most elementary form of moral reasoning—the ethical equivalent of learning to crawl—is to weigh others' interests against one's own. This in turn requires sympathy and imagination: without which there is no capacity for moral thought. To see an animal in pain is enough, for most, to engage sympathy. (75)When that happens, it is not a mistake: it is mankind's instinct for moral reasoning in action, an instinct that should be encouraged rather than laughed at.
1997年考研翻译英译汉语参考译文（全文翻译）
动物有权利吗？这个问题经常就是这样问的，这种提问听起来像是一个有用的、能够把问题讲清楚的开场白。71）事实并非如此，因为这种问法是以人们对人的权利有共同的认识为基础的，而这种共同认识并不存在。
当然，根据一种权利观，动物现所当然是没有权利的。72）一些哲学家论证说，权利只存在社会契约中，是责任与利益相交换的一部分。因此，动物不能有权利。惩罚一只吃人的老虎，这种相法是荒谬的。正是由于同样的原因，认为老虎拥有权利的想法也是荒谬的。然而，这只是一种观点，而且这种观点决不是毫无争议，因为它不仅否定了动物的支利，而且也否定了某些的人权利——比方说婴儿、没有思维能力的人和未来出生的人。此外，还有一处问题没弄清楚：对于那些从来就不同意契约的人来说，契约究竟能有多大的约束力？如果有人说“我不喜欢这个契约”，你该如何作答？
