The law allows us to take certain decisions, so as to facilitate the accomplishment of our everyday desires. Only those who violate it have no freedom. Now just imagine that you did nothing wrong and someone put you in jail as a prisoner and treated you in an inhumane way, what would you feel? Imagine that one day, some scientists made different kinds of experiments on you, what would you feel? Every living thing in our world has feelings; they can suffer from pain, and have emotions. Mammals, as a large group of living organisms living on earth, have feelings, possess emotions, and can feel pain. Humans, as the special sub-group of mammals on our planet have wisdom, creativity, and developed brain, have been living on our planet for many centuries. There is no denying that we are the most intelligent species on earth now. However, are we superior to all other species? The dilemma of the animals' rights is not about the "rights" that animals have, it is about how humans practice their moral rights on them, about whether we treat them equal as we treat other humans, and prevent them from suffering. What if we are taking away animals rights in order to help humans live better? In order to protect animals and their loved ones, it means that we have to change our eating habits and become ethical vegetarians or vegans.
Being a vegan is no longer just about health issues and avoiding the toxicity associated with animal-based foods. Being a vegetarian is aligned to the idea of saving animals from depletion. Many species have been declared endangered while others are already extinct because of human activities. In some states, animal hunting is prohibited because human beings can no longer control their urge to kill. In a bid to protect animals, Vegans feel that going back to plant food consumption would be the best way to discourage killing of animals for their products. Veganism is much more than just the food; it involves the protection of the animals and discouraging use of animal products. It is a philosophy of a totally different treatment of animals.
Man’s best friend, the dog, is proof enough that human beings can be good friends with animals. Animals are born to Mother Nature like a human child and have rights to live. It is the time we observed and respected animal rights. Animals have rights like humans do to live freely and enjoy the earth, at least before human beings destroy what it has to offer. Just like a man can be best friends with the dog, human beings can become friends with other animals too. “The other animals’ experience of capture, enslavement, use and slaying, was one of suffering and violence” (Nibert 11).
Human beings have been assigned a special role by the God to protect the earth and control other living things. At the same time, humans themselves have become a relative threat to other animals because of the slaughter and killing practices. Human beings have the potential and the ability to form lasting friendships with animals because animals have feelings and rights. Animals need protection from humans and other animals as well (Sandøe, Corr and Palmer). They need the feeling of care and room to connect with others.
Animals also make friendships and can be seen interacting in different ways. They even have the capacity to remember their names when they are called. This means that we should treat them with a little more care and sympathy because they can feel the pain and other feelings. According to Alice Walker, animals do not enjoy restriction and being dragged around. Human beings need to be a little friendlier to animals. Even if we do not see the value of the animals' freedom, maybe our feelings that they show to us should motivate us not to harm them. Human beings should protect the animals at least to save them the pain of losing their loved ones. This is because human beings protect their friends and comfort them when they lose their loved ones. “An animal, much like a human, can only be happy when it is living under conditions that allow it to express its natural behavior and feel the emotions that accompany that behavior”(Masson 1).
As vegans, we can fight for animals’ equality and rights like human beings fight for equality and rights. However, humans apply discrimination and racism while dealing with animals all the time. Some animals like the dog are treated in a special way, while others like the donkey are mistreated all the time. Even in a single species, human beings continue their oppressions through racism. For example, the Pitbull is a very common species of dogs, which has been discriminated in the U.S. and across the Americas for ages. The Pitbull was initially bred for dog fighting activities, which are a form of discrimination. However, even after dog fighting was banned, the Pitbull is still being discriminated with claims that it registers the most human attacks in America. Animals should be given equal rights regardless of their species, family, genus, or race. According to Singer (2), all animals are equal which implies that they should be treated equally.
Why should human beings treat some animals like friends while others are treated like slaves? Farm animals like donkeys and cows are maltreated. The oxen are used in farming for all the hard work. When such animals are injured, they are taken to the slaughterhouse and turned to food. Their skin and hide are used for the production of leather. Is anything the cow should be treated better than a dog, the dog does not even provide mean when dead, not even its hide can be used for other purposes, yet the dog is treated as a friend and the cow as the slave. Animals should at least be given some equality. Who said a pig cannot be a good friend to humans? Why is it that humans view some animals as being better than others? Animals should be given equal treatment. “It is undeniable that we human share a great deal in common with pigs. Like us, pigs dream and can see color. Like us, pigs are sociable---pigs express friendship with other pigs a variety of way: vocalizing, body language, who they sleep with, explore with, hang out with during the day” (Masson 20).
However, we do not use animals solely for the purposes of food. Unfortunately, we still use them in the lab experiment. Our medicine and medical surgery are getting better as compared with a few centuries ago. Most of our medical development and biomedical research have relied on experimenting on animals. In his article The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research, Carl Cohen states "human beings are self-legislative, morally autonomous. Animals lack this capacity for free moral judgment. They are not beings a kind capable of exercising or responding to moral claims. Animals, therefore, have no rights, and they can have none" (Cohen). Cohen's argument means that humans have rights under the law and moral that suggest what we can do and what we should not do. Animals, on the other hand, do not follow the human law. For instance, if a person kills another person, he will be put in jail. If an animal kills a person, it does not to go to jail. Animals might be killed by hunters or police because they are dangerous and pose a threat to humans. The one who killed the animal can walk away freely, but has this person really done nothing wrong (Milligan)? According to contractarianism, it is not wrong because only human pain can be morally relevant; and so if no one cares about the pains and death the animal endures, it is not wrong. However, this moral judgment view is unsound. Tom Regan argues in defense of this view in his article The Case for Animal Rights that “ neither you nor the animal have any value in your own right. Only your feelings do.” Using animals in biomedical research is wrong because it comes up against our feeling and moral judgment (Milligan). Thus, in contractarianism, it is totally fine to kill animals for research use, because they sacrifice for humans' benefit. In this case, we can put it under the theory of utilitarianism.
Regan argues his view of animal rights. He suggests, "What has value for the utilitarian is the satisfaction of an individual’s interests, not the individual whose interests they are." (Regan). This theory has been experienced by most of the people. For instance, when a patient has cancer, the doctors need to find new medicine to help the patient get rid of cancer. Moreover, in order to make the new medicine, the doctors need many rats to do experiments on. Therefore, many rats are going to die in the lab. Most of the people would choose to kill rats for medicine research, which can cure cancer rather than wait for themselves to die (Milligan). Regan concludes that the rights view in principle denies the moral tolerability of any and all form of racial, sexual, or social discrimination; and unlike utilitarianism, the view in principle denies that we can justify good results by using evil means that violates an individual’s right (Regan). Regan argues that everyone including animals have inherent value, and the values for us and animals are the same. Some people might disagree and say that animals have less inherent value than human because of their lack of autonomy, intellect and reason. However, consider the retarded humans – they are mentally disabled, so they lack autonomy, intellect, and reason, too. Do they have smaller inherent value than another human? Thus, we have equal inherent value no matter animals or human being. “They are important in and of themselves, and yet they enhance our lives and world. But even as some societies move to protect these animals, others use them in experiments or entertainment.” (Paul 191)
Peter Singer points out equality between humans and non-humans in his article "All Animals are Equal." He states that "If the experimenter is not prepared to use a human infant, then his readiness to use non-human is simple discrimination, since the adult apes, cats, mice, and other mammals are more aware of what is happening to them, more self-directing and, so far as we can tell, at least as sensitive to pain, as any human infant" (Singer). Singer wants us to believe that we shouldn’t ignore non-human equality and we should treat and apply the same moral judgment on non-humans and humans.
Like human beings, animals should have rights in addition to equality. Animals should have protection from oppression that is often taken away from human beings. If human beings have rights that are naturally provided by their existence, the animals do too. Singer points out that "we have the right to perform painful experiments on retarded humans for trivial reasons; similarly it would follow that we had the right to rear and kill these humans for food." Singer argues with his critical thinking that if we think it is fine to make non-humans suffer, we can make humans in suffer, too; with no responsibility. According to Alice Walker, we do not know what nature has in store for us. Walker argues that we should stop the actions of cruelty like dragging animals around (Walker 1). This is because they too reside on the same earth that the humans do. They too live in the same nature that provides human beings with rights naturally. Animals deserve care and treatment. They should be given basic rights like the rights to shelter, food, and freedoms like that of choosing their food. They should have rights to play with other animals. They should have the rights to interact with people and their animal friends in order to develop relationships and feel loved. Animals should have the most important right provided by Mother Nature, the right to live.
In conclusion, acknowledging animal rights will make it easier for human beings to treat animals like friends. Animals are friendly to humans. According to Peter Singer (1), the practice of killing and eating animals amounts to torture. If we are to become friends with animals, we need to change. Laura Fraser (2) stopped being a vegetarian because she thought the meat was sweet. Plans are also sweet and that is not reason enough to kill an animal. It is the human beings who need to use other sources of food and use machines for farming other than animals. Animals that are sacrificed in biomedical research do give a lot of benefit to our humanity, but we should always consider the equality for all living beings, and not just humans themselves. The correct treatment of all non-humans is not about how many rights we have as humans, but about how we apply moral rights to the animals. Animals have the ability to make and keep friends just like human beings. Animals are our friends.
Works Cited
Cohen, Carl. "The case for the use of animals in biomedical research." The New England Journal of Medicine, 314. 1986. Print.
Fraser, Laura. "Why I Stopped Being a Vegetarian." Salon. 2000. Web. Retrieved from Fraser, http://www.salon.com/2000/01/07/vegetarian/
Masson, J M. The pig who sang to the moon: the emotional world of farm animals. New York: Ballantine Books, 2004. Print.
Milligan, Tony. Animal ethics: the basics. London New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2015. Print.
Nibert, David A. Animal oppression and human violence domesecration, capitalism, and global conflict. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Print.
Regan, Tom. "The Case for Animal Rights." In Defense of Animals. Ed. by Tom Regan. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1985. Print.
Sandøe, Peter, Sandra Corr, and Clare Palmer. Companion animal ethics. Chichester, UK Ames, IA: Wiley, 2016. Print.
Singer, Peter. "Animal rights and human obligations." Animal rights and human obligations. Ed. by Tom Regan & Peter Singer. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1989. Print.
Singer, Peter. "A Vegetarian Philosophy." Sian Griffiths & Jennifer Wallace (eds.), Consuming Passions. Manchester. 1998. Print.
Singer, Peter. "All Animals Are Equal." In Tom Reagan & Peter Singer (eds.), Animal Rights and Human Obligations. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. 1989. Print.
Waldau, Paul. Animal rights what everyone needs to know. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print.
