Our world today is becoming less and less conscious of the pain and suffering being inflicted on animals. As the outcome, animals are becoming even further tarred in society. Humans have and are continuing to handle animals as if they are some kind of material goods. This is considered as being immoral, as animals have their own lives, and they think, have feelings, can feel pain, require love, happiness, and everything else that humans have. As for human rights, it’s always uncertain. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations. The Declaration sets out “a common standard of achievement” for all people and all nations. Even so the nation have pledged to recognize this declaration, still many people throughout the world do not receive these basic human rights (James 5). Therefore, my question is then hence if human rights are difficult to enforce, what hope is there for animals? What rights should animals have? This paper will be showing two different worldviews - the dominant and the biocentric worldviews with respect to animal rights. It will explore the moral and ethical issues raised by human superiority over animals. I will argue for the biocentric worldview, in favour of animal rights as I will focus on two main ideas: equality and suffering.
This paragraph will be showing the dominant worldview toward animal rights. There are many philosophers who claim that animals have no such thing as rights since animals can’t suffer and have no equality like humans. First of all, a dominant worldview is human centered (anthropocentric), it focuses on the importance of human beings and states nature has instrumental value (Class notes Oct.16). A French philosopher René...
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Throughout history, societies have been faced with many social issues affecting their citizens. Martin Luther King Jr, a civil rights leader for African Americans, was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement, a movement that fought to undo the injustices African Americans endure by American society in the 1960s. Martin expressed his disgust with the social inequality among citizens when saying “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (PETA). Taking the prominent leader’s words into consideration, we should progress as a society by participating in the animal rights movement that strives to extend the same compassion, felt by Martin Luther King Jr, to all living things (PETA). Popular criticisms report that animals are inferior to humans because they are a source of food, but I will argue that they are victims of social injustice. Validity for my animal rights argument will come from individual and organizational expert accounts and by Bioethicist Peter Singer, Author Francis Fukuyama, New York Time’s Mark Bittman and also Animal Rights organizations, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and Animal Equality, to help prove my argument. Animals are silent victims who are loudly crying out for someone to stand up for their rights; rights that can no longer be disregarded by being overlooked. It is my belief that animals should be respected, and afforded ethical and human treatment by society instead of being looked at as a source of food. In a society where animals have no voice, it is everyone’s civic duty to participate in the animal rights movement and acknowledge animals as living beings, which...
The article mainly focuses on this issue, not mentioning the aspects of animal rights. The authors argue their points well but can have counter-arguments against some
... animal rights view, the animals, like humans have rights in the “utility- trumping sense”. The utility-trumping sense have vital interest that we must not override, even in an effort to maximize the utility for society. (Animal Rights, 20)
Hills, Alison. "Do animals have right?" In Chapter 13: Science and Suffering, by Alison Hills, 199-218. Cambridge: Icon, 2005.
As an advocate of animal rights, Tom Regan presents us with the idea that animals deserve to be treated with equal respect to humans. Commonly, we view our household pets and select exotic animals in different regard as oppose to the animals we perceive as merely a food source which, is a notion that animal rights activists
“The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.”(Arthur Schopenhauer)
The rights of Animals argument by John Feinberg is a very interesting argument as is pertains to the idea of if animals have rights or do not have rights. Feinberg argues his ultimate message which is that animals do have interests and we can’t prevent all harm, but we can take their interests into account and prevent willfully inflicted harm. He also asserts that principles of an enlightened conscience determine moral rights.
In conclusion, I agree with Tom Regan’s perspective of the rights view, as it explores the concept of equality, and the concept of rightful treatment of animals and humans. If a being is capable of living, and experiencing life, then they are more than likely capable of feeling pleasure and pain, except in a few instances. If humans are still treated in a respectable and right way even if some cannot vote, or think for themselves, then it is only fair that animals who also lack in some of these abilities be treated as equals. As Regan puts it, “pain is pain, wherever it occurs” (1989).
Tom Regan, “The Case for Animal Rights,” in In Defense of Animals, ed. Peter Singer (Oxford:
Singer, Peter. “All Animals Are Equal” in Environmental Ethics edited by David Schmidtz and Elizabeth Willott. Oxford University Press, New York. 2002. p. 17-27.
The biocentric worldview, which is life centered, focuses on the importance of all living things and considers all living things to have intrinsic value. I will be using Peter Singer’s ideas as the main focus explaining that animals share equal moral status with human beings and that therefore is unethical for people to kill and eat them. In “All Animals are Equal” by Peter Singer recognizes that there are differences between humans and other species. As he ...
Animals are so often forgotten when it comes to the many different levels of basic rights. No, they can’t talk, or get a job, nor can they contribute to society the way humans can. Yet they hold a special place in their owners’ hearts, they can without a doubt feel, show their different emotions, and they can most definitely love. In recent years there has been a massive increase in animal rights awareness, leading to a better understanding and knowledge in the subject of the humane treatment of animals. Where do humans draw the line between the concern of equality, and simple survival?
To conclude this paper then, after reviewing the reasons for being opposed to assigning rights to non-human animals I am still faithfully for the idea. There is no justification for the barbaric and insensitive ways to which we have been treating the non-human animals with over the decades. As I stated before, they are living creatures just as we are, they have families, emotions and struggles of their own without the ones we inflict on them. So then where does this leave us? Of course it is a complicated mater, but none the less non-human animals should be protected with rights against them being used as machines, for food, for their skins, their wool, and all cases in which they are being abused.
... the world. Whether we choose to accept it or not, animals should have rights just like we do because they deserve them. They should have a right to live until they die and not to be killed, they should have a right to be treated with care and respect, and they should have a right not to end up as some people’s dinner in a cruel way. Non human animals can feel happy, pain, sadness, fear, love and even anger and so just because we have the power to completely dominate them does not give us a right not to accord them their rights, they deserve them. We are all living things, we all have fear and love, we all breath and so all of us should have rights.