What are the moral standings of animals? Animals are all around us, domestic and feral; they play a part within everyone’s lives, a food source for some and companions for others. Some animals are used for work purposes, horses for instance have been used within the military for hundreds of years, dogs on the other hand can be used to herd sheep, and other related purposes could be the use of animals for competitions such as racing or in worse cases even fighting. So how does this fit them within society alongside us humans? A long asked question has always been the ability for animals to be rational, to have morals and if so as human beings do we have moral obligations towards them. In this essay the main aim will be to discuss these theories surrounding animals with the ultimate goal of answering the theories discussed. To start the essay will look at persons as a moral being compared with animals and how the treatment of animals and the reasons for which may raise ethical questions.
As a species on Earth we are animals just like any other, but unlike other animals as humans we ...
Both in and out of philosophical circle, animals have traditionally been seen as significantly different from, and inferior to, humans because they lacked a certain intangible quality – reason, moral agency, or consciousness – that made them moral agents. Recently however, society has patently begun to move beyond this strong anthropocentric notion and has begun to reach for a more adequate set of moral categories for guiding, assessing and constraining our treatment of other animals. As a growing proportion of the populations in western countries adopts the general position of animal liberation, more and more philosophers are beginning to agree that sentient creatures are of a direct moral concern to humans, though the degree of this concern is still subject to much disagreement. The political, cultural and philosophical animal liberation movement demands for a fundamental transformation of humans’ present relations to all sentient animals. They reject the idea that animals are merely human resources, and instead claim that they have value and worth in themselves. Animals are used, among other things, in basic biomedical research whose purpose is to increase knowledge about the basic processes of human anatomy. The fundamental wrong with this type of research is that it allows humans to see animals as here for them, to be surgically manipulated and exploited for money. The use of animals as subjects in biomedical research brings forth two main underlying ethical issues: firstly, the imposition of avoidable suffering on creatures capable of both sensation and consciousness, and secondly the uncertainty pertaining to the notion of animal rights.
...nimal rights yet I do question myself where to draw the line. I do not condone violence or harm against animals, yet I shudder at the thought of a mice plague and feel saddened by the extinction of our native animals by ‘feral’ or pest species. Is it right to kill one species to save another? I am appalled by the idea of ‘circus’ animals yet I will attend the horse races every summer for my entertainment. I think Tom Regan’s argument and reasoning for animal rights was extremely effective at making whoever is reading the essay question his or her own moral standards. Reading the essay made me delve into my own beliefs, morals and values which I think is incredibly important. To form new attitudes as a society it is important we start questioning how we view the lives of others, do we see animals as a resource to be exploited or as equals with rights just like we do?
As I have progressed through this class, my already strong interest in animal ethics has grown substantially. The animal narratives that we have read for this course and their discussion have prompted me to think more deeply about mankind’s treatment of our fellow animals, including how my actions impact Earth’s countless other creatures. It is all too easy to separate one’s ethical perspective and personal philosophy from one’s actions, and so after coming to the conclusion that meat was not something that was worth killing for to me, I became a vegetarian. The trigger for this change (one that I had attempted before, I might add) was in the many stories of animal narratives and their inseparable discussion of the morality in how we treat animals. I will discuss the messages and lessons that the readings have presented on animal ethics, particularly in The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Dead Body and the Living Brain, Rachel in Love, My Friend the Pig, and It Was a Different Day When They Killed the Pig. These stories are particularly relevant to the topic of animal ethics and what constitutes moral treatment of animals, each carrying important lessons on different facets the vast subject of animal ethics.
Do animals have rights and moral standing? I believe that they do. Peter Carruthers does not. He is completely against the moral standing of animals. I will be explaining his views, and arguing against them showing why animals should have moral standing.
In the article, “An Animals Place” by Michael Pollan, he debates many controversial topics concerning humans and animal relationships towards cruelty and rights. Pollan begins with the discussion on whether or not animals have feelings or rights, even though the author agreed others had
To ascribe an entity with moral status ― whether an adult human, infant, foetus, or non-human animal ― is to declare that its treatment by other moral agents is mo...
For many years, people assumed that humans are significantly different from other species, which made them somewhat superior. However, research on animal behavior, especially our closest relatives, the apes has led to new discoveries that show many similarities between human and animals. Some of these similarities have questioned the uniqueness of humans and have led to debates not only among scientists but in the public as well. Frans de Waal, a renowned primatologist and the author of The Ape and the Sushi Master, is among the scientists that claim animals and humans are quite similar. The main focus of his book is to show that culture is not exclusive to humans. De Waal was not the first scientist to propose the theory that animals have culture nonetheless; it was received with a lot of enmity. He attributes this to the fear of losing the qualities that make humans special. Claims of language in apes became so threating that animal research was almost banned. According to de Waal, “attempts of censorship do reveal just how much insecurity surrounds human uniqueness”. (32) In an attempt to support his argument, he addresses the controversial issue of morality in animals. Morality is considered a cultural aspect and therefore people often use cultural biases in decision making. Dan Kahan, a psychologist, referred to this as cultural cognition, which “refers to the tendency of individuals to conform their beliefs about disputed matters of fact to values that define their cultural identities”. Subsequently, theories on morality depend on the perspective of the scientists who carry out the research. De Waal supports his theory by analyzing aspects of morality in humans and comparing them to animal behavior.
Humans and animals are a lot alike and it not fair to them that we think of them as a creature of some sort, we should think and treat them just the same as we would like to be treated. We are all mammals are are all intelligent and compassionate like other mammals. Just like Anthony Douglas once said, “There are many great minds on Earth but not all are
Billions of animals are being slaughtered, abused, and harmed every year; causing enormous amounts of pain, suffering and distress upon them. It is wrong for humans to cause extended harm to animals for no compelling reason, for the fact that they have moral statuses. We have obligations to animals, and these are not simply grounded in human interests. However, the issues of moral status and equal consideration are far more fundamental and far-reaching in practical impact as DeGrazia have stated. (38) Animals have as much moral status and rights as humans do, and are most definitely worthy of our consideration in their lives.
“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)
... concept. An animal cannot follow our rules of morality, “Perhaps most crucially, what other species can be held morally accontable” (Scully 44). As a race humans must be humane to those that cannot grasp the concept. Animals do not posess human rights but they posess the right to welfare and proper treatment by their handlers.
I will first look at the views of Peter Singer, who is a utilitarian. A
Nussbaum, MC 2006, ‘The moral status of animals’, The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 3, pp. 1-6.
“Man is the highest rated animal, at least among all the animals who returned the questionnaire (Brault, 2009).” For years humans have been using animals for experimentation, food, clothing, sport and entertainment, manual labor, and let us not forget man’s best friend. The unethical treatment of animals can best be resolved by deontology contrasted with ethical egoism.
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.