Animal Rights

One of the most famous quotes that have been utilized to govern our society was said by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. He stated that “The right to swing my arms in any direction ends where your nose begins” in other words a person’s rights end where someone else’s rights begins. It has been clearly stated that people have rights, but what of Animals? The issue of animal rights has been one of the most volatile contemporary issues of our time due to the new methods that has been developed which violates animals. Animal rights is a very difficult topic for many because animals are used for many items that we consider to be essential therefore if rights are given to animals these items would not be available anymore and that is the major issue.   

Before the discussion in class about Animal rights, I thought about animal rights more so in the context of the abuse of domesticated animals and animals living in the wild.  I am not sure if it was because I was conditioned to not think about the animals that I actually ate as being violated or abused but I have never thought about animals like chickens, in retrospective that was very naive of me. To some extent I thought about cows and pigs but not the same way that I thought about dogs or horses. I actually thought that the research that was being done using animals was necessary but I did not know how it was being done and those scientists were torturing them in the ways that were in the video that was presented to the class.

In the previous blog about personal principles I did not address animal rights, before the reading the articles that were assigned and class discussion I was passive about most aspects of animal rights. My personal principle before the class reading and discussion were basic because I did not believe that animals in general should be tortured but I also believed that humans were superior mentally. As far as livestock was concerned I did not believe that they should be kept in small spaces and kept from roaming freely. However, I also thought that utilizing livestock was a natural process that has benefits in the grant scheme of things. However after reading the article by Peter Singer my opinion changed. Peter Singer stated suffering should be the basis as to how people determine the rights that an animal should have. The mere fact that we can see that the animal is experiencing pain should be reason enough for people to not treat them in the way that we do. One of the videos that were presented in class showed a dog being electrocuted and it was obvious that he was suffer because the dog cannot verbally express that he or she was in pain does not mean that we have the right to continue to torture them. The combination of the videos and article essentially made it clear that I was being very insensitive and as Singer stated a “specist”. To be able to consider myself as a morally up standing person I would need to stop being insensitive, a specist and most importantly not eating animals. By not eating animals it would be a chain reaction because if people are not buying the animals then it would not be a profitable business this would decrease the amount of animals being slaughtered and tortured.

 The philosopher’s position that was least consistent with my own principles is Carl Cohen. Carl Cohen’s position is least consistent with my principles because he states that animals cannot have rights because the very concept of rights is “human”. The example that he utilizes which compares a rat having rights to a table having ambition is grotesque fundamentally. The first issue that I have with this example is that he equates a living thing to an object. One cannot compare a rat having the rights to a table having ambition because a table never lived it does not have any mental processes consequently it would be ridiculous to think that it would have ambition. Unlike, a rat that is fully capable of suffering, which mean it has the right not to be put through painful methods. Cohen’s perspective on rights is faulted as well; it is true that the term was originally coined for humans, but at one point in history rights were limited to one ethnicity and other ethnicity was not considered as being worthy of rights. The point I am making is that we as people grow we better understand others; we evolve and become more understanding to people or things that are not like us in nature. It is barbaric to think that because we are humans we are superior to animals.

In sum, the rights of animals is a topic that should be taken very seriously, because they are essentially to us maintaining a healthy planet thus it is vital that we treat animals as the essential cohabits of the planet.