Analysis Of Animal Liberation By Peter Singer

In this paper, I am going to argue that Peter Singer is right to claim that human suffering and animal suffering should be given equal consideration. Even though animals are not intellectually or physically at the same level as us humans, they can still feel pain when hurt. (48) Peter Singer, an Australian moral philosopher, wrote his book Animal Liberation in 1975. This book practically started the animal rights movement. In his book, Singer says that animal liberation today is somewhat comparable to racial and gender justice back in the days when blacks were not free men and as treated as below the system and women did not get the luxury of equal rights as a white man. In his book, Singer discusses speciesism, a term made up by Richard Ryder,

He persistently try to persuade us into thinking carefully about our principal states of mind from the perspective of those most distraught by our mentalities, and the practices that take after from these attitudes. Singer is against speciesism. By concentrating on what a person wants or needs and not contemplating the overwhelming impacts that that restricted way may have on nonhuman, sentient creatures, we are not just coming up short ourselves, in that we are not maximizing the potential purity of our moral status, additionally significantly influencing, in a negative way, the world to which we live in. On these basis, Singer believes that we as a race, can come together to see scope for a new liberation; the animal rights liberation. According to Singer, all people are not equal, seeing that the reality is concerned – profound quality in any case. Singer believes that when we inquire as to whether all people are equivalent in a cognizant domain, the very way of it is pretty much rendered insignificant. He strongly accepts and suggests others as well the idea that the main rule for equality is distributing equality of equal

I agree with his idea that equality does not require equal rights. It is based on equal consideration. For example, I say animals must have the same right as a human, if a human can vote, so should the animal. Giving a nonhuman the right to vote for someone is as absurd as it can be. I can give a dog the right to vote and elect the next President of America. But it would not understand the moral importance of such responsibility. It lacks the required intellect. This would show that equality does not require equal rights. Another example would be that since every human being has the right to education and should go to college, that does not mean a dog or any other sentient species for that matter should be sent to college. But that does not mean we can treat a non-human creature any way we want. People might object that animals for so different from a human in so many different fields, the major one being that humans are much smarter than ant animal. To that argument, any sane person would say that if a person is weak physically or intellectually, it would be wrong to treat that person in a disrespectful way or to abuse them. If we are not going to do something like this to a weak human being, why shall we treat a non-human, sentient, living thing that way? It has the ability to suffer when hurt. An animal deserves the same respect when it comes to cases like this. Thus, factual identity is not essential for moral