In the articles of Jeremy Rifkin, Victoria Braithwaite, and Ed Yong, there's a deep research and debate whether animals should be given the right to have human rights or not. All authors include their perspective on the issue and provide scientific evidence. However, I believe that there should be a separation of rights between animals and humans because there is no biological basis for drawing the line. Giving the right to apes, what factors exclude other mammals like dogs, cats, and birds.
Animals who are able to surpass these barriers are able to receive our empathy and their rights, but in Jeremy Rifkin’s, “A Change of Heart About Animals,” he talks ideas about all animals should receive our empathy for great acts of the few. The individual animal receive its equal rights, not by a single entity achieving it for the mass, but by the individual must showing intelligences, emotions and feelings, and most importantly, the ability to co-exist with others; including human and other animals alike. An animal must show intelligences, the ability to communicate, solve problems, and follow simple instructions. In “A Change of Heart About Animals,” Rifkin refers to a gorilla, named Koko, who learned sign language.
A11602683 In 1975, Peter Singer published his work, Animal Liberation, which is, as some animal activists have argued, the catalyst for the modern animal rights movement in the United States. In his work, Singer argues that the principle of equality requires that we not only take into consideration the interests of our fellow human beings, but also the interests of all beings with the capacity for suffering. Singer’s argument revolutionized the way many people thought about the treatment of animals – given that animals can suffer, there can be no moral justification for continuing the current practice of exploiting animals for our own interests and as such, activities like eating and experimenting on animals are morally unjustifiable and violate
A career that I would like to pursue is becoming a veterinarian and taking care of the animals. I love animals! What better way to spend time with them and take care with them?! Becoming veterinarian would make animal nature better one by one, I get that animals are misunderstood and abused, I would like to become someone who prevents that’s, that makes all their pain go away. If becoming a veterinarian is what I need to do that is what I’ll do, I will not stand by while innocent creatures suffer.
Therefore, rather than basing rights off of those traits make it a vulnerability discourse. There are two main animal equality arguments, Peter Singer’s Utilitarian theory, and Tom Regan’s moral recognition theory. Singer argues, “human preference for humans rests on an unsupportable biological distinction vis-a`-vis all other animals”. While Tom Regan states, “that all beings who are ‘‘subjects-of-a-life” should receive the moral recognition and legal protection that rights afford”. The problem with the
This is a lie the scientists have to treat the animals humanely so that the test are reliable . The research animals are cared for by veterinarians, husbandry specialists, and animal health technicians to ensure their well-being and more accurate test. Also the scientists can not treat animals in a inhuman or cruel manner or will be fined or arrested for animal abuse. The scientists have to treat all the test subject humanely because if not and someone gets hurt or dies the scientists will be responsible for the accident. Testing upon animals saves humans from having To volunteer to be tested on and possibly die from the drugs.
In the article All Animals Are Equal, written by Peter Singer addresses the inadequacies surrounding the rights of animals in the societies of today. Singer opens the article by presenting a scholarly parallels between the fight for gender equality, banishment of racism and the establishment of rights for “nonhumans.” In order to explain this constant set of inequalities that seem to riddle our society, Singer readily uses the term “speciesism”, which he acquired from a fellow animals rights advocator, Richard Ryder. Essentially, this term is defined by Singer as a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one's own species and against those of members of other species. Singer claims that if this idea of speciesism
However, the way in which Steinbeck implements this “colorful language” is key to understanding why he used it at all. Ordinarily, an author would describe a character by their physical human traits rather than accentuating animal-like characteristics, which is how Steinbeck depicts Lennie. As a result of the utilization of Lennie’s animal-like depiction, Steinbeck subliminally dehumanizes Lennie in the reader's mind and justifies the death of animals at the hands of their masters. Ultimately, in Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck dehumanizes Lennie to the reader through the use of animal imagery, in order to allow the reader to justify Lennie’s death at the hands of his best friend, George as a warranted act of
In the essay “The Moral Status of Animals”, published in 2006, Martha C. Nussbaum reflects the aspect of dignity and comments on the dignified existence of both human and nonhuman beings. Throughout her essay, Nussbaum draws parallels between classical doctrines and the treatment of nonhuman beings among other things on the example of a trial in India, which examined the “undignified” treatment and living conditions of circus animals. Although scientists still puzzle over the extent of a nonhuman beings ' morality, Nussbaum argues in her essay that animals should be entitled to a dignified existence as well as humans, because every living being has specific forms of “flourishing” and deserves to unfold its opportunities in life. Under consideration of Kantian’s, Rachels’s and Bentham’s theories, which differentiate in several points, Nussbaum examines the animals’ moral capabilities. She disagrees with Kant’s statement about the
Animal abuse is highly illegal. Scientists classify humans as animals because we, humans, share similar qualities and traits to a type of animal like mammals. However when scientists talk in the sense of intelligence, humans are not classified as animals. To define animals is: any
In An Animal’s Place, Michael Pollan describes the growing acknowledgement of animal rights, particularly America’s decision between vegetarianism and meat-eating. However, this growing sense of sentiment towards animals is coupled with a growing sense of brutality in farms and science labs. According to Pollan, the lacking respect for specific species of animals lies in the fact that they are absent from human’s everyday lives; enabling them to avoid acknowledgment of what they are doing when partaking in brutality towards animals. He presents arguments for why vegetarianism would make sense in certain instances and why it would not and ultimately lead to the decision of eating-meat while treating the animals fairly in the process. Pollan
They are more like us than we imagined…” these words written by Jeremy Rifkin in his article “A Change of Heart about Animals,” emphasize that like us humans, animals feel pain as well. Equivalently, Rifkin insists on the point that we need to change our ways in which we treat animals or in other words limit ourselves to a certain level of fair treatment with them. Alike us, they feel pain and suffer in many ways in cause of our actions towards them and it is not fair for an animal to be attacked this way by us humans when they as well are living their own lives and are already trying to survive themselves. In support of this, I am with Jeremy Rifkin and agree that our actions towards animals need either a change or limit. Researchers have found that animals feel pain, suffer, experience stress, affection, excitement and even love.
“The Zookeeper’s Wife” by Diane Ackerman reveals the true story of Jan and Antonia Żabiński, two authentic zookeeper’s who risked their lives by being a part of an underground resistance towards Hitler. When all the animals were taken away from the zoo, Jan and Antonia used their free space to hide refugees until safe passage to a new home was discovered. Throughout the book Ackerman relates many experiences to freedom and confinement. Some people believe that animals should not be kept in zoos. Others believe that as long as animals feel like they are in their natural habitat that being in a zoo is acceptable.
My objective is to address this question working within a utilitarian perspective. I believe that there are two main reasons why is important to address this problem within the utilitarian approach. First, utilitarianism has proven to be a great tool in the animal rights movement. The 'equal consideration of interest for all who can experience pleasure and pain' is a simple and powerful maxim to defend the need to transform the way we treat non-human animals. Even if Peter Singer did not start the animal rights movement, he was the one who popularised it.