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The ethics of animal rights
Issue of ethical treatment of animals
Animal rights philosophy
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Westley Cooper’s inadequate care of his chickens has led them to suffer. Evidence shows that dozens of chickens were found dead or emaciated because of lack of food and health care. Cooper argues that the law does not allow farm animals (his chickens) to be victims, since they are regarded as property under state law. In the defense of Cooper’s chickens, I will refute the idea that his chickens should be viewed as property and should be given equal consideration because they are sentience beings that do not wish to feel pain or suffering. It is apparent that Westley Cooper views his chickens as a means to an end. Cooper puts his own interests first before his chickens and uses their meat or eggs to make some profit. In addition, Cooper does …show more content…
We can start with human beings, it is known that humans have the desire not to feel pain because we can express the feeling of pain through our physical or vocal reactions. Animals can also express pain through physical reactions or expressing it vocally, for example, in Earthlings chickens would stubble and limp around the barn because their legs cannot carry their heavy bodies. Pigs would squeal in pain when they are hit and pushed around by farm workers (Manson, 2007). “Emotional responses show that the body is responding to certain external stimuli… [E]vidence of emotions in any creature is also an important step in determining sentience and self- awareness” (Bekoff, 2007, p. 6- 9). All these animals were conscious of pain, even when starving or dying of an illness. In Cooper’s case, the chickens are full aware that they are hungry and are not feeling well. Francione, also describes that even though animals and humans may not have the same physiological characteristics on the outside, their nervous system looks and work very similar to ours (2007, p. 6). “ 'Mirror neurons '… is the name given to a part of the brain that seems to allow us to understand another individual 's behavior by imagining ourselves performing the same behavior and then mentally projecting ourselves into the other individual 's shoes” (Bekoff, 2007, pg. 128- 129). Francione, explains how Descartes would nail a dogs foot on to a table and open it up without caring if the dog was in pain (2007, p. 2). Putting myself in the dog’s position, I can already feel the pain and suffering it’s going through. I can also put myself in Cooper’s chicken’s position, I can parallel their suffering on to mine because I know how it feels to be hungry and dying of
One issue the documentary highlights is the abuse of animals and workers by the food companies, in order to reveal how the companies hide the dark side of the food world from the public. In several instances, we see animals being treated cruelly. The workers have little regard for the lives of the animals since they are going to die anyways. Chickens are grabbed and thrown into truck beds like objects, regulation chicken coups allow for no light the entire lives of the chickens, and cows are pushed around with fork lifts to take to slaughter. Many chickens are even bred to have such large breasts that their bones and organs cannot support their bodies. These chickens cannot walk and they even wheeze in pain for the cameras. The film is clearly using the unacceptable premise fallacy of appeal to emotion in this instance, because the viewer is meant to feel pity at the sight of the abused animals. This supports their conclusion, because many American’s imagine their food coming from a happy, country farm and would be horrified to know the truth.
Chickens have to endure suffering that no living thing should have to go through. The egg laying chickens have to be forced into tiny cages without enough room to stretch their wings. Up to 8 hens are crammed in to a cage that is the size of a folded newspaper, about 11"-14". Stress from the confinement leads to severe feather loss so the chicken will be almost completely bald in the cold cages. When the chickens are of egg-laying age, there beaks are cut off without any pain killers to ease the pain, they do this so the chickens don’t break their own eggs and eat them because the chickens are hungry.
“We take care of animals, and the animals take care of us.” (Rollin 212). The preceding phrase is a policy that American farmers in the old west lived their lives by. Modern farmers live do not live their lives anywhere near to this phrase because they own factory farms, and the whole reason for having a factory farm is to fit as many animals in a small space as possible in order to maximize profit. Factory Farms, or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) first appeared in the 1920s, right after Vitamins A and D, because if animals are given these vitamins in their diets, exercise and sunlight are not necessities for the animals to grow anymore (In Defense of Animals 1). The growing number of factory farms is coupled with the decreasing population of rural areas, which means that many people are beginning to factory farm because it yields a higher profit (“Agricultural Sciences” 170). In the 1950s, the average number of chickens on a given egg farm in the United States was 100, but now the average number is a shocking 10,000 chickens (“Factory Farms” 4). The reason for the increase of chickens has to do with new and cheaper technology developed just after World War II. The new technology increased the number of chickens, while it had the opposite effect on dairy and meat cows, their numbers went in the other direction. The number of cows used for milk was cut by more than half between 1950 and 2000, because farmers discovered new and more efficient methods for milking cows (Weeks 4). Many activists for animals’ rights are concerned about the methods used by factory farmers because they confine their animals into tight spaces and since there are so many of them in a small ...
In Alastair Norcross’ paper, “Puppies, Pigs, and People: Eating Meat and Marginal Cases” he describes a situation in which a man, Fred, has lost his ability to enjoy the gustatory pleasure of chocolate due to a car accident. However, it is known that puppies under duress produce cocoamone, the hormone Fred needs in order to enjoy chocolate again. Since no one is in the cocoamone business, Fred sets up twenty six puppy cages, and mutilates them resulting in cocoamone production in the puppy’s brains. Each week he slaughters a dog and consumes the cocoamone. When he is caught, he explains to the judge and jury that his actions are no different from factory farming because he is torturing and killing puppies for gustatory pleasure similar to how factory farms torture and kill cows, chickens, etc. for other people’s gustatory pleasure. You, the reader are meant to think that this is unacceptable, and therefore, denounce factory farming. Although there are many valid objections to this argument, I am in agreement with Norcross and shall be supporting him in this paper. I think the two most practical objections are that (1) most consumers don’t know how the animals are treated whereas Fred clearly does, and (2) if Fred stops enjoying chocolate, no puppies will be tortured, but if a person becomes a vegetarian, no animals will be saved due to the small impact of one consumer. I shall explain the reasoning behind these objections and then present sound responses in line with Norcross’ thinking, thereby refuting the objections.
In “Crimes Unseen” Dena Jones illustrates farm animal suffering through many sources. She suggests Americans are not conscious of terrible acts and circumstances before slaughter occurs, but should be concerned. Society removes the reality that meat was living and capable of being scared and hurt. Laws for less painful death have been in place and had modifications; however, previous improvements from changes are speculatory due to lack of available information gathered. There are many examples of disregard for living beings and the laws protecting them. Workers, desensitized over time, show minimal concern for contaminants and none for animal well-being. Ultimately, increasing quantity and speed of animals killed leads to unwarranted suffering by improper stunning, skinning, gassing, and electrocuting. While seemingly improvements have been made, enforcing loose laws with limited support proves difficult. Furthermore, if cattle standards have been rais...
Hirsch, Veronica. "Legal Protections of the Domestic Chicken in the United States and Europe." . N.p., 1 Jan. 2003. Web. 13 May 2014. .
Williams, Joy. “Do Creatures Have The Same Rights That We Do?” Harper’s Magazine. 1997. 6 May 2002.
Each year, 10 billion animals, not including fish, are raised and killed each year for food, but did you know that an overwhelming 99% of them are raised and killed on factory farms? A factory farm is a place where animals are packed into spaces so tight that they can hardly move. They are forced into cages so small that the animals can’t even turn around. Many of these animals have no access to the outdoors and they spend most of their lives in cages or pens. This type of treatment can cause severe and mental distress. Many would agree that this type of treatment is animal cruelty, but why are there so few laws to protect these animals? Every year, animals raised for meat, dairy and egg industries are among the most abused in the United States. Many of the abusive tactics used on farm animals would be illegal to do to dogs or cats. These farm animals are inhumanly slaughtered, tortured and killed. In some cases before these animals get to the slaughter house they suffer brutally cruel treatment that has been legal for the most part. One of these practices is of shoving a pipe down the throat of a duck or goose to force feed the animal several times a day. One example of the abuse that goes on inside these factory farms is a practice called 'debeaking'. It is a process that involves cutting or burning through bone, cartilage and soft tissue to remove the upper beak of chickens, turkeys, and ducks. These animals are not even given anesthetics. These farm animals are also deprived of exercise so that all their bodies’ energy goes toward producing flesh, eggs, or milk for human consumption, fed drugs to fatten them and keep them alive in conditions that w...
“... the right question for animals is not ‘Can they reason?’ ‘Can they talk?’, but ‘Can they suffer?’ ”
Almost all humans want to have possession and control over their own life, they want the ability to live independently without being considered someone’s property. Many people argue that animals should live in the same way as humans because animals don’t have possession of their lives as they are considered the property of humans. An article that argues for animal rights is “The case against pets” (2016) by Francione and Charlton. Gary L Francione and Anna E Charlton are married and wrote a book together, “Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach (2015). Francione is a law professor at Rutgers University and an honorary professor at University of East Anglia. Charlton is also a law professor at Rutgers University and she is the co-founder of the Rutgers Animal Rights Law Clinic. In this article Francione and Charlton mainly focus on persuading people to believe in animal rights but only focus on one right, the right of animals not to be property. The article is written in a well-supported manner with a lot of details and examples backing it up, but a few counter-arguments can be made against some of their arguments.
Industrial farmers see chicken and other animals such as: cow, pigs, and goat as egg and dairy production and not as an intellectual individuals. From the birth of a baby chick to their death on the production line, chicken endure pain and suffer through out their entire short lives. Baby chicks are de-beak then they are move to battery cages that are wired up high in warehouses that are filled with artificial lighten. The cages are so confined that the ...
Tom Regan, “The Case for Animal Rights,” in In Defense of Animals, ed. Peter Singer (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), 21. U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistical Services, Livestock Slaughter. 2005 Summary, March 2006: USDA, NASS, Poultry Slaughter: 2005
As a human, we possess certain rights that protect us in society, however the animals we raise for food live under a much more complicated system that constantly changes. Americans have recently begun to protest animal treatment, especially in the meat industry. Many animal rights groups claim that animal farming is an inhuman practice that violates the rights of all living creatures. Farmers believe that animal right shouldn't change as any changes could cost them millions in new technology to safely care for the animals. The American farming industry poses several moral issues about animal rights which possess no easy solution, however new alternatives appear to have answers for this growing dilemma.
middle of paper ... ... Being free of pain is something that we feel within us to be intrinsically joyful, and no reason can be used to explain further why we wish to be joyful, or in good health. These things we just sense, and even a murderer, who rejects morality on the social level, will do whatever he can to avoid the displeasures of his inner being. His sentiments, if only for himself, remain within him. “One thing can always be a reason, why another is desired.
Morally, one may feel obligated to exercise Vegetarianism due to the inhumane treatment of animals throughout the farming process. The issue is that roughly ten billion animals are raised for United States food consumption alone. Animals such as cows, fish, chickens, pigs, and turkeys are subjected to entrapment and confinement, less than sanitary living conditions and mutilation for the purposes of efficiency. Cows and pigs, from birth, are placed in narrow stalls where there is no room to turn around or even lay down. These animals’ daily lives consist eating and overeating until it is time to be slaughtered. Thousands and thousands of egg-laying hens are packed in cages, chicken crates, and coops. These animals are so densely packed that it is hard to distinguish between those that are living and dead. This often times leads to the spread of diseases among these animals and is one of the more prominent factors that contribute to unsanitary living conditions. The discomfort experienced by these animals leads to them being mutilated. The chickens that try to peck have their beaks cut; the chickens that try to fly have their wings clipped; the livestock that lose mobility, as a result of limb atrophy due to the stationary lifestyle experienced in stall confinement, are beaten. Animal mutilation, ...