Introduction
Animal rights represents a complex and controversial moral issue, becoming more intense, and in the same time, more tensed every day. There are various levels of supporting the animals’ rights, ranging from activist movements against the use of animals for tests in laboratories, against the hunting of animals, against the use of animals for their fur or even against consuming animal meat. The animals’ rights discussion represents a moral issues, since it centers the human relation with the non – human, defining what is considered as good, or as moral, and what is considered as wrong, or as immoral, when dealing with the treatment that humans apply to non – humans (the animals).
Significance of the Problem - Summary
Animals’ rights represents a social controversial moral issue, because while the activists of animal rights are sustaining that animals should have rights, because they too know what pain and suffering is (“Animal Welfare Strategy 2012 - 2015”), others sustain that they should not have rights, because rights belong to those who have the ability to claim something, and animals do not have this ability (Cohen, 1986).
Cohen (1986) considers that only humans and not animals have the capacity to develop moral values, because humans possess the free will, humans have the intuitive cognition of what is right and what is wrong and humans have the ability to establish moral laws, being morally autonomous and consequently, since animals miss all the above, they have no rights.
The Christian principles reflect the same view, as humans have no respect for animals’ suffering, promoting the consumption of animal meat through religious rituals (Halteman, n.d.). However, the Utilitarian theory provides that actions are morally right when it the greatest number of beings is benefiting with the greatest good (Olson, 2002), which, translated into the animals’ rights dispute provides that the use of animals for laboratory testing or for food implies a greater total suffering that the benefits that the products that people use as a result of being tested on animals or the enjoyment that the animal meat that they consume create. In the light of the current discussion, animal suffering in laboratories and animal killing for fashion of food purposes represents a moral issue and it provides that animals should have rights.
Moreover, sustaining the same idea, Nathan Nobis (2004) challenges Cohen’s theory according to which animals do not have rights because they do not possess the free will, the judgment and autonomous capacity to establish moral values by pointing out that there are also humans who lack these abilities, who have similar mentalities with those of animals. The researcher argues that if these humans (called “marginal humans”) lack the abilities required for claiming a right, than they should also be considered as not worthy of rights, according to Cohen’s theory, who contradicts his own theory stating that the marginal humans do have rights, which automatically implies that animals also have rights (Nobis, 2004).
The moral issue of animals’ rights is significant for me because I see animals as souls, who just as humans have feelings and emotions but cannot communicate them through an articulated language. As they have the capacity to sense, this implies that they know what suffering is and since people also know what suffering is, they should not harm animals, because it is not morally right to harm another being, moreover, to harm a defenseless being for pursuing personal interests. I consider that everybody should think at the impact that their actions have upon animals when buying a cosmetic product tested on animals, when buying a fur coat or when actually consuming animal meat, thinking that somebody else could apply tests on them for scientific or commercial purposes, or that somebody could use their skin for creating clothes or that somebody else could be consuming them. As the golden rule, or the ethic of reciprocity states “What you do not want others to do to you do not do to them” (Rabbi Hillel in Spielger, 2006, p. 61).
Currently there are applied various official actions to support the rights of animals, promoting an ethical treatment for animals, which refer to proper transportation, hosting and living conditions (“EU Animal Welfare Strategy 2012 - 2015”). Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) is a law established in 2006 by George W. Bush that stipulates the prosecution of those who seek to harm animals for business or institutional related interest (“Bush Inks Amended Version”, 2006). However, the range of unofficial actions for supporting animal rights vary from peaceful demonstrations against animal maltreatment, to extremist actions such as blackmailing, threatening animal food producers or scientists who make experiments on animals.
Discussion (Intervention)
Earlier in this writing there have been advanced such principles as: free judgment, moral value, utilitarian, or the golden rule. I will use these principles and others for developing an intervention for sustaining the morality of respecting the animal rights. People possess the free will, and since recently they were considered the only living beings to benefit of this virtue. Since recently, because according to the latest discoveries, animals may also possess the free will, as the scientists have discovered that animals too are capable of making conscious decisions (Palmer, 2010). This would contradict Cohan’s theory, and would imply that animals do have rights because they possess the free will and the ability to claim not to suffer at the hands of humans.
Moreover, since animals have the sentient capacity, this gives them moral consideration (Bentham in Irvin, 2004), meaning that people mistreating animals should be considered as acting morally wrong. The utilitarian perspective also sustains that harming or killing animals for scientific, commercial or personal interests morally wrong. Other theories suggest that the animal are subjected to speciesism, which is a concept similar to racism or sexism when discussing about inter-human relationship (York, 2013), sustaining Nobis’ (2004) view that Cohen discriminates against animals, when saying that while the marginal humans have rights, the animals (who have the same intellect and reasoning abilities) have not.
Since there is scientific prove that animals have the capacity to make conscious decisions (implying that they have free will) and since the animals are sentient, feeling pleasure and pain, I consider that every action against animals that causes pain and suffering for them is immoral and people harming animals should be held morally responsible for their actions.
For determining people to consider the animals’ rights as a morality issue and the maltreatments of animals as morally wrong actions, I would link and promote the animal rights discussion to the social psychology theory of evolutionary psychology, which holds that the human nature is a complex system defined by the ensemble of social relations and if this ensemble can be changed, than the human nature can be changed (Wilkinson, 2005).
As such, changing the social perception would lead people to see that their actions that imply hurting or mistreating animals are morally wrong. Developing a moral reasoning would not only diminish the abuse upon animals, but would also lead humans to reach higher moral values (Block, 2003), overpassing their own human condition, being guided by superior moral principles, entrenched in the universal morality, by attempting to maximize their own personal happiness and fulfillment, the happiness and fulfillment of other individuals in the same species and the happiness and fulfillment of all other sentient creatures in the universe, including the animals at this point (Kant, 1997).
References
Block, G. (2003) “The moral reasoning of believers in animal rights” Society & Animals. Vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 167 – 180.
Bush inks amended version of Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (2013) Retrieved on 7 August, 2013 from http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/06/12/bushinksaeta1206.html.
Cohen, C. (1986) “The case of the use of animals in biomedical research”. The New England Journal of Medicine. Pp. 865 – 869.
EU Animal welfare strategy 2012 – 2015 (2012) European Commission.
Halteman, M. (n.d.) Animal rights and Christian responsibility. Calvin College. Retrieved on 7 August 2013 from http://www.wheaton.edu/CACE/CACE-Print-Resources/~/media/Files/Centers-and-Institutes/CACE/articles/Halteman-AnimalRightsandChristian%20Responsibility.pdf
Kant, I. (1997) Lectures on ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nobis, N. (2004) “Carl Cohen’s ‘kind’ arguments for animal rights and against human rights”. Journal of Applied Philosophy. Vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 43 – 59.
Olsson, I., A., S. (2002) “Animal rights or human obligations? An introduction to animal ethics” Proceeding of the Veterinary Science Congress SPCV, pp. 205 – 206.
Spielger, W. (2006) gates of Jewish healing. Morrisville: Lulu Enterprises, Inc.
Wilkinson, W. (2005) “Capitalism and human nature” Cato Policy Report. Vol 27, no. 1.
York, P. (2013) Comparing racism and specieism, human slavery and animal slavery. Animal Rights Academy. Retrieved on 7 August 2013 from http://animalrightsacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Comparingracismandspeciesism.pdf.
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