Utilitarianism Of 'All Animals Are Equal'

“All Animals are Equal”

“The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been witholden from them but by the hand of tyranny,” said by Bentham (“All Animals Are Equal”) We as a human race have always craved superiority over different groups as a way to claim power. During slavery, we thought it was acceptable to treat blacks as if they had no vital characteristics and no meaning to live. They were pets to their owners, like animals are to us now. What is to say that during that time period, it was acceptable to have disregarded equality among one another? We neglected to see that the color of ones skin and sex does not matter yet we felt the need to put others below us in our great chain

Equality is a moral ideal, not a simple assertion of fact,” (“All Animals Are Equal”) Utilitarianism is a theory in normative ethics holding the best moral action is the one that maximizes utility, in which, utility being related to the well-being of sentient entities (“Utilitarianism”) In the readings, an example is used to explain how we use animals to test products that might hurt us and we use them as our Guinea pigs. It has been observed that while torturing them, they feel pain. Although they may not speak it, they cry out as if they wish it to stop. There is this perception that sacrificing animals to save the larger human population is acceptable, and there is nothing immoral about it. What about those humans that do not feel pain? Why not use them? Infant babies and humans who do not have the mental capacity to feel pain could potentially be experimented on. Although they could be used, we feel it is morally wrong to do so even if that one person could save ten others. Since they are of the same race we do not wish them harm. We would rather wound animals because we have generated this idea that they are not as important, they are not one of us. Simply putting this, I feel that we all play a vital role, animals, and humans, because essentially we are also animals. We just do not know how yet to acknowledge them as equals because that will mean we have to

The human population has created this blindness to the idea of them having any similarity to us, which can be better put as anthropodenial (“What I Learned From Tickling Apes) We have seen that an ape reacts just like a child when tickled; we have seen a crow achieve tool fabrication yet we cannot see them as our own. By choosing to give animal equality that means we have to give up using them as a food source. We have to accept that our ancestor’s analogy of us being the hunters is incorrect. This changes all we have believed over many years. Some have already conformed to the circumstance that our pets are important to us. We take care of them; we make sure they have food to eat and when they cry we try making them feel better. There is already this idea that animals are equal to an extent. Many of us are not able to accept this belief, but rather deny the possibility of animals having the same basic brain structure and instincts. By giving up speciesism we are no longer able to use them in mass production for food or experiment on them for our goods and services. But is this really a bad thing? Coming back to a previous point, why not use those humans that do not feel worse than animals that do? Yes, it sounds wicked, but that one person can help much more than