Animal Rights

Are you saying that, because animals to do not express communication in human language, they can be tested on, tormented in Spanish bullfights and eaten? That is a diabolical idea. *** Why Sentience Is Not Limited To Speech *** What is "sentience"? Sentience is the ability to feel things, including emotions and pain. Research has proven that all animals ("animals" as defined in Round 1) feel pain, and pain is not something any creature psychologically or physically deserves. To inflict pain on animals for, as an example, human entertainment, is unethical. ***Ethics*** From the beginning of civilization, human society has adapted to further accommodate the psychologically complex human brain. Our thoughts are biologically programmed to protect our species; for this, society created ethics and morals. One may argue that morals apply only to humans, but, in reality, "morality" involves psychological compassion. Compassion to animals also develops compassion to our own species. Most people are unaware of the horrendous abuse that animals endure everyday; lab tests on animals have been proven unnecessary and are yet practiced by a variety of companies; animals are killed for ENTERTAINMENT (Spanish bullfighting) et cetera. Animals have the same ability to feel pain as humans, and many can even feel emotions. To help forge society, humans created a concept of ethics, based on the stronger psychology of human beings. While one can argue that ethics is only mutual, and meant for intra-human relationships, why do animals not deserve similar respect from humans? All sentient beings deserve respect. An animal may kill a human, and yet that animal is psychologically made to do such a thing; ethics is too complex for animals to practice. Humans, though, have the ability to extend compassion, and animals deserve this compassion. Animals are an important portion to the world's evolution. Why do animals deserve to be treated equally to humans? Many years ago, humans created the concept of ethics, where an advanced psychological being, the human, treats another with emotions and psychological environmental-fostering such as compassion. By these ethics, murder and torture, for example, are considered crimes, as is cannibalism. While one could argue that it is biologically necessary for humans to help each other for the survival of the human species, ethics was, in fact, made as the framework of civilization and society for humanity. So, humans gave rights and welfare great importance. Yet, why are animals not given the same respect? As the legendary Mahatma Gandhi said, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." Why do other non-human species deserve such equal respect? 1. Animals can feel emotions and physical impulses. They feel pain, et cetera. 2. By the basic human concept of ethics, they do not deserve any direct infliction of pain by humans, bound to follow these ethics by society. 3. Humans have caused great harm and destruction to the Earth, while animals have merely helped the ecosystem balance. 4. Animals cannot commit "crimes". What an animal does is morally justifiable as animals have a varied notion of "ethics", and do not have the psychological complexity to understand these ethical propositions. Therefore, animals have not committed crimes, and do not deserve infliction of pain. Research on dogs and arthropods at the University of Lincoln showed that these animals react to stimuli by a nervous charge pattern similar to that of humans while experiencing emotions, proving that animals are capable of emotions. The assignment of different moral treatment to animals and humans is a form of discrimination called speciesism, that must be abolished. Jeremy Bentham, the founder of the reforming utilitarian school of moral philosophy, stated that when deciding on a being"s rights, "The question is not 'Can they reason?' nor 'Can they talk?' but 'Can they suffer?'" In that passage, Bentham points to the capacity for suffering as the vital characteristic that gives a being the right to equal consideration. The capacity for suffering is not just another characteristic like the capacity for language or higher mathematics. All animals have the ability to suffer in the same way and to the same degree that humans do. They feel pain, pleasure, fear, frustration, loneliness, and motherly love. Whenever we consider doing something that would interfere with their needs, we are morally obligated to take them into account. Why are we morally obligated to do so? It is because humans created the concept of morality. Morality is a subtle thing, and a subject of human psychology. Biologically, the human's developed morality intuitively to ensure the genetic survival of the human race, and for the survival of the human race, we need a balance in the ecosystem. Slaughtering animals destroys the balance of the ecosystem in a variety of ways. Some of these are described below: 1. Raising them for slaughter: For the formation of factory-farms, or any slaughter farms, there is a massive encroachment of wildlife, that results in the destruction of forests. According to the Worldwide Fund for Wildlife (WWF), 31% of the total land area is covered by forests; ideally, 46% of the Earth's land mass would have to be covered by forests for a balanced ecosystem. 2. Hunting: Hunting creates an imbalance in any habitat-ecosystem, by reducing the population of animals. In his book "Animal Liberation", moral philosopher Peter Singer states, "The basic principle of equality is not equal treatment, it is equal CONSIDERATION." This equal consideration, I believe, must be given to non-human animals, or we violate morality. Morality is necessary for the maintenance of society and civilization. Conclusion: Animals deserve equal respect, welfare, and rights and do not deserve to be treated in cruel conditions of factory farming, slaughterhouses, laboratories that practice animal testing et etera Sources - Environmental Values: Why the Naive Argument against Moral Vegetarianism Really is Naive; Journal of Popular Culture: Configuring the Human in Western History; The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity; The Case for Animal Rights by Tom Regan (Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, North Carolina State University); Animal Liberation by Peter Singer; http://www.worldwildlife.org...