Nonhuman animals have rights and should be treated as
beings of moral concern. While we debate the morality of this statement,
we do not question the fact that humans have rights, but what exactly
are rights and who or what bestows them upon us? If a right is to be
defined as the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled, then
who gave us this power and how do we know that animals do not have it as
well? Because humans deem themselves superior to animals, we grant
ourselves rights over them. We have assumed the position that the one
with the most power wins the most rights, but I propose that we, as
humans, do not have the right to decide who or what gets rights.
Suppose that, one day, we are capable of space travel to
other galaxies. We come upon a planet that supports life. When we land,
we find only animals comparable to the ones we have here on earth - no
life equal to humans. Before our arrival, these animals had complete
domain over their own planet - much like the animals of our planet ruled
earth before our appearance. Do we have the right to use those animals
for our own purposes just as we have used our earth animals? Now suppose
that, one day, our planet is visited by extraterrestrial beings far
superior to ourselves in every way imaginable. In fact, in their eyes,
we are animals. Does that give them the right to do with us as they
wish? Would it be OK for them to use us for food, fashion or biological
testing if it benefited their species? I think we might have a problem
with that. There is always going to be the possibility that a more
advanced species exists, but that doesn�t mean that they should have
domain over all species below them.
One may argue that it is the human�s ability to reason
that sets us apart from other animals. That we reason makes us superior.
While it cannot be conclusively proven that animals cannot reason, for
the moment, let�s assume that they can�t. So what? If our alien visitors
were telepathic and could travel by teleportation at will, does that
give them rights over us? Birds can fly. Humans cannot. Does this make
them superior to us? What it does is make them superior flyers.
Depending on what attribute we focus on, all species can be seen as
superior in one way or another. These differences are irrelevant when
deciding which species get which rights. We all have rights.
Human beings are mammals. We are animals. Like other
animals, we are born, we grow, and we die. We have an instinct for
survival. We need to eat and rest when necessary. We reproduce. We each
have a central nervous system and so we can feel pain and have the
capacity for suffering. But do animals share a similar consciousness
with humans? This epistemological problem has no answer. We cannot know
what goes on in an animals mind for sure. They may very well share some
of the traits that we reserve only for humans. We just can�t know.
We do know that we have many significant similarities
with animals and so it follows that they would hold certain rights as we
do. When we treat animals inhumanely, we infringe upon these rights. If
rights are distributed on the basis of superiority determined by certain
attributes, what happens to human beings that we consider inferior? We
would not enslave dimwitted people for our own purposes, yet that�s what
we do to animals every day. As human beings, we avoid subjecting
ourselves and others to pain. When we inflict pain on someone else, we
consider that to be immoral. That animals feel pain suggests that we
have an obligation not to inflict it upon them, no matter how society
could benefit.
A naturalist might say that we are all a part of the
food chain. Animals eat animals. We eat animals. That�s the natural
order. That may have been true at one time, but when we apply technology
to the way in which we prepare animals for our consumption, we see a
scenario that was never intended by nature. The horrific acts happening
today involving animals are inexcusable. Technology is not a bad thing,
but our progress as a society should include a revaluation of our
treatment of animals. In this day and age, we now have an abundance of
choices for better foods, warmer clothing, and more efficient materials,
none of which depend on the killing of animals. As living beings that
contribute to the balance of our ecological system - and therefore the
continued survival of our planet, we have an obligation to not only
refrain from harming animals, but to protect them as well. Failure to
fulfill this obligation constitutes an immoral act.
Go on to World Order
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