Should Animals Have Rights Like Humans Do - Essay Example

Animals are used by human beings as pets, food or for medical research. According to Regan, animals have rights as human beings do (Regan, 2001). However, rights do not apply to animals the way they apply to human beings. As far as human beings are concerned, rights apply to them because of their moral nature. Animal however do not posses the moral agency and therefore are not accorded the same rights as human beings are. Animals have consciousness; they have desires and beliefs through which they act. Research shows that animals are subject to commonsense, evolution, certain behavior and language, perception, memory, Sense of the future and intentions (De Waal. 2006). Human beings on the other hand are conscious creatures who have individual welfare that is of great important to them and to others. They feel, recall and expect things. Human beings experience pressure, pain, suffering, satisfaction and untimely death. Animals also are subject to life and therefore, they posses an inherent value. Human rights are commonly pegged on the conscious ability. According to Cohen, animals are not entitled to rights because they are not conscious. However, people believe that language is the most important component for consciousness. Animals are capable of communicated in their own language amongst themselves. There are some animals that also hear and to utilize human language. Primates are commonly taught human languages and they successfully use them. This therefore concludes that if human beings are entitled to human rights so should animals be entitled to animals rights and there is no justification why they should have those rights as human do Some argue that the biological make up of human beings make them morally special however Greun states that species membership does not deserve to be used to characterize moral special species. Some argue that human beings process unique capabilities that grant them special moral status (Gruen. 2009). However these capacities are not uniquely human. Animals are capable of using their own language and also learn human language. Koko the gorilla was taught sign language successfully (Gardner& Beatrix 1989.); Rio the sea lion can arrange floating blocks in linguistic patterns.Non human primates, wolves and elephants maintain kinship ties and express grief. The presence of this characteristic in animals therefore serve as a basis of animals more moral consideration. And therefore animals have rights just as human beings do. There exists an equality of individual view which states that human beings with inherent values should be treated in respect to their inherent values. However, animals like children or moral children are not able to control what they do or their behaviors in ways that are moral, i.e. they cannot be held morally accountable of their behavior doesn’t mean that they have less inherent values than the those who recognize what is right or wrong. All creatures can be victims to injustice, however, only moral agents are capable of committing the injustices, this is because it only them who can violate rights. The respect principle however states that the moral agents should coexist with the other moral agents or patients without harming them for this will be disrespecting their inherent value, and according to Regan it is from this that the rights are formulated and therefore creatures who have inherent values have basic rights. Human beings have unique abilities compared to animals. They have distinct abilities to reason act on principle, have aspirations. However, worth should not be measured or based on abilities; this is because you cannot accord more rights to one person because of his or her race or gender, intelligence or has better moral compass. This is because even some moral human beings advocate and practice sexism and racism. A human being in a comma, retarded or an infant cannot reason nor aspiring yet they are morally worthy. Therefore reason and species should not be used to measure the moral worth. Instead pain and pleasure should be used. In this case all human beings and animals should be accorded moral worth while things like rocks should not be given (Bentham1781). Human beings and animals have rights, however this does not mean equal treatment and rights for both, because surely there is in no way a dog can be given a right to vote. But it calls for equal considerations to both human beings and animals. According to Singer, there should be a utilitarian balance where both animals and human beings are they key factors. Human beings cannot justify their action which caused pain and unhappiness to an animal. Many eat meat for pleasure, and therefore many animals suffer greatly to produce meat for human being’s dinner. There is no justification of the pain and suffering on an animal for just pleasure. It is just a case of deny animals their right to live. Carl Cohen (2001) argues that only human beings are capable of formulating moral communities since they are capable of handling issues justfully for their own interest and capable of restraining themselves based on moral grounds. And it is in such communities that are morally accountable that rights can be invoked. He states that it is meaningless to institutes rights to creatures which do not have moral self control which is required to respect these rights. However, his argument is not satisfying. Since he differentiated animals and human beings based only in morality, he didn’t consider the fact that there are fluctuations in human mental and moral capacity that occurs over the course of a person’s life time naturally. He did not address the issue of human lacking moral capacity. Moreover there are animals that record high mental capacities. Dogs for example posses some unique mental capabilities; a dog wags it tails when it sees it owner; therefore it able to see and recognize its owner. Human beings and animals have rights which differ. However, animal rights are not equal to those of human beings, but the conclusion is that they have the same moral rights. For example, human beings have the right of practicing religion and eagles have the rights to fly. This therefore means that these rights are tied to the capacities of either the animal or the human being but not ever capacity is a right. Human beings life is considered of greater value than that of an animal. This is a fact obtained from the virtue of human beings being the kind of creatures they are. For example, human and rats may have equal importance in life, but satisfying the interests of humans may be of greater moral urgency than satisfying that of rats. This is because the life of a human being is of greater moral value than that of a normal rat. Not because it is a human life but because of the quality of that life. In this case, this shows that the rights of the two are not equal. Human beings are considered to have more interests than the non human. This in the long run is denying non human their rights. The moral status of animals has totally been misunderstood by critics who say that there are no animal rights. Many people think that they have no duties directly to animals, no wrong acts towards animals and that they owe them nothing. For example, when a neighbor kicks your cat, he has offended you to the cat. The offence is to you not to the cat. All duties towards our animals are indirect duties towards humanity. Its is very likely for someone to dismiss such a case saying that your cat didn’t feel anything and so it is not hurt, and if a human being is hurt in the process it is his or her pain that matters. But it is logic that pain is pain and therefore we cannot dismiss the moral evidence of the pain inflicted to the cat. Morality consists of set rules agreed voluntarily to abide by. It is a contract and those who understand the terms are covered directly. They have rights created, protected by and recognized by the contact. There can be also protection by the contract spelled to others who do not have the ability to understand morality and so they cant sing the contact. This includes children who protected by the contract because of the sentimental interests of their parents. So duties in their case are indirect. As for animals they cannot read or sign they therefore have no rights. But like children, some animals are the object of the sentimental interest of others. Animals like Dogs, cats, whales, seals bald eagles are some of these animals. They are commonly referred to companion animals. Though they luck rights themselves are protected because of the sentimental interests of people. There is therefore no direct duty directly to these animals, not even the duty to cause any sort of pain to them. People for the ethical treatment of animals (PETA) reject the idea that animals be regarded as property. This therefore is against the use of animals by human in nay form: in animal testing, food, entertainment, decoration, seeing eye for the blind or even clothing. They advocate for animals being completely not dependant on humans for survival. PETA has over two million members worldwide and is worth $15 million dollars, head quarters in Norfolk Virginia. Its goals is ‘total animal liberation and operates with a group slogan ‘animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment or use for entertainment (PETA 2005). PETA believes that animal testing for research or training is unreliable and wasteful. They believe that tests conducted on animals are irrelevant to human health. This is because artificially induced diseases on animals are not identical to human diseases ad also that animals and human differ biologically in many ways. They however recommend the use of stem cells and virto techniques for these tests. Animals and slaves have been categorized together in the ancient world. Therefore the injustices of owing slaves are paralleled to the injustice done to animals. Steven wise stated that animals, slaves and women are lower than Greek males Arthur Lovejoy noted that Aristotle regarded the ox as being the poor mans slave. And since we have been able to deal with the slaves and women injustices, there is a dire need to address animal’s injustices (Arthur Lovejoy 1960). Human beings should not deny animals their rights just because of their positions as human beings. But they should accord them their rights bearing in mind that they are at times stewards to this animals. Though animals are not persons they should not be cruel to them because cruelty to animals violates human’s duty to others. This is because there is in no way a man will treat another human who do not satisfy the personhood criteria cruelly. This is because cruelty towards them will be violating the other person’s duties. Animals should not be mistreated just because they are animals and they will not complain, human should be humane towards one another and also towards non human (Kant 1963). Steinbock argues that human beings suffering are more morally important than that of animals. For example, it is not right to punch someone because it hurts him. However this extends not only to human beings but also to sentient creatures. When u pull the cats tail, it hurts the cat. Having that the cat is not a rational being, that it is not capable of moral responsibilities, make choices, have not justification of pulling its tail. This will be violating the duties towards it in the fact that it is just an animal (Steinbock 2009) Conclusion Animals have rights just like human do have human rights. Unfortunately, many people do not honor the rights of their animals. In most cases, animals are abused, malnourished and sometimes used for tests and experiments or even tortured by human beings for their enjoyment. Therefore violation of animal rights is primarily effected by human beings. There is no justification of the injustices towards animals. Human beings justify their discrimination towards non human considering their reasoning and moral values which cannot be proven to be possessed by all human beings or lacking in all animals. Considering all the criteria used to deny animals their rights, they have no truth in them but are criteria determined by those denying animals their rights to justify their actions. Human being are capable of formulating ethical codes to govern their behaviors and for animals do not need to use these codes in their social interactions, however, they benefit from the requirements in human concepts of fairness and justice without need to reciprocate. Farm animal welfare council has determined that animals in cattle form have five forms of freedom; freedom to hunger, thirst, malnutrition, freedom from fear and distress, pain, injury and freedom to express normal patterns of behavior. To safe guard animal’s rights, they are allowed to exercise their behavior that is in accordance with their innate nature. Maltreating an animal is punishable by law. Disregarding an animal being is related to animal rights and animals have fundamental rights incase of an obscure relation between human behavior and animal’s wellbeing. It is morally wrong to use animals as a means of human ends. This means that animals have rights. Human beings should therefore respect the rights of animals. There is therefore no justification that an animal has equal rights as human beings. References. Regan, K 2001,The Case for Animal Rights: in the Animal Rights Debate, Rowman and Littlefield, New York : Singer, P 2001 ,A Utilitarian defense of animal liberation : in Environmental Ethics, PP. 33.Stamford,CT: Wadsworth Cohen, C 2001, In Defense of the Use of Animals: in The anima rights debate, : Rowman and Littlefield: New York Kant, Immanuel. 1785. The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Cambridge University Press, 1998. Print. : Cambridge: Gruen, Lori. 2009 The Moral Status of Animals. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Stanford University. Goodall, J, 1986, The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior. Harvard University Press: Cambridge PETA 2005. Reconsiders Campaign After Complaints of Racism, Associated Press: USA Today. Lovejoy, A 1960, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea , Harper and Row: New York Steven, W, 2001.,Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals, Perseus Publishing: MA, Cambridge, Steinbock, Bonnie. “Speciesism and the Idea of Equality.” Morality and Moral Controversies De Waal, Frans, 2006, Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved, Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ: Kant, Immanuel. 1963 Lectures on Ethics: Trans. Louis Infield, Harper and Row: New York Gardner, R. Allen, Beatrix G, 1989,Teaching Sign Language to Chimpanzees, NY: SUNY Press : Albany, Bentham, Jeremy. 1781. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. : Oxford University Press, 1996. Print: New York Read More