Tom Regan, PhD
Philosopher, North Carolina State University
The Case for Animal Rights
Essay - The Case for Animal Rights
by Tom Regan
Due Sunday, July 1st
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Animal Rights (PP7)
View the video clip and read the essay
linked below. Then answer the following questions. Do animals have
rights? Why or why not?
Tom Regan, PhD
Philosopher, North Carolina State University
The Case for Animal Rights
Essay - The Case for Animal Rights
by Tom Regan
Due Sunday, July 1st
Tom Regan, PhD
Philosopher, North Carolina State University
The Case for Animal Rights
Essay - The Case for Animal Rights
by Tom Regan
Due Sunday, July 1st
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8 comments:
It seems that animals do not have rights unless they are pets or close to becoming endangered. It seems animals bred for consumption and testing have no rights. They are treated without regard to happiness, health, or sanity. As Tom Regan states, animals are legally treated with cruel and unusual punishment. Just because it is legal doesn’t make it right. Animal testing and animal factory farming are big business in this country, just as slavery used to be. It is difficult to change a way of life when livelihood is challenged and many would be out of a job. Everyone knew that ethically slavery was wrong, yet slaves had no rights. Everyone knows that animals testing and factory farming is ethically wrong, yet it continues.
Animals do not have rights, no. I think that the video post was very moving. The essay also got my mind thinking in a different perspective. I do not think that animals have any rights. The laws protecting animals are few and far between. I really appreciated the affirming that we cannot ask animals what they do or do not want, but that they still have a connection to us as humans. Animals experience life as we do, with pleasure, pain, and neutrality. They also can’t communicate with us, and we are more powerful, so we have eaten them for survival for at least as long as we think humans have existed.
Animals don’t have rights because we have always killed them so we could live. As society has evolved, we have learned more convenient ways to kill animals, which involve plenty of abuse. But, since the humans have always killed them, it doesn’t seem to be a problem for many. I really love that Tom Regan explained how we humans are connected to animals, but a lot don’t believe that is true. I believe that the fear we cause animals bleeds into our society. Animals have no rights, but I believe that they have the right to at least die with dignity, that is not happening now.
I believe animals have the right to live and reproduce because they are God's creatures. Animals in laboratory, however, do not have the right to be set free and be pain free, they have no rights. They are only used for the purpose of mankind. Even though we need the animals for scientific study it is still unethical and harmful to the creatures being tested. Researchers or society may not think experimental animals are being abuse, but as for the lab- rat is it no fun and game. The speaker made very interested topics relating humans and animals, he mentioned they are equal and animals should be treated with dignity just as humans. For the purpose of the human race to prolong longer lives, I feel human beings have more rights than animals.
Animals do not have rights. Well not good enough in my opinion. they do have some rights ie you can get in trouble for animal abuse but if you hit a dog or cat with your car you just put it on the side of the road or just run over it until it disappears. The speaker did a great job at explaining how animals dont have rights and we as humans over look the rights of animals and do not feel responsible for their care. The part in the video when the monkey was holding the dog was in my eyes a sign of affection and caring but yet some people either believe they feel no pain or they do not care. He pointed out various examples of excuses that people could use of why it should be ok to continue what we do but then counteracted them with a logical reasoning of why that shouldnt be. Why dont animals have any rights???? I dont know.
I think that animals should have some rights, but they do not have rights like humans do. Animal neglect or abuse is punishable by law, but other things are often condoned by humans according to tradition. The video shows people choosing animals on farms to be eaten, a bull being stabbed by men for sport. These things are considered okay by the people who do them, as the video suggests. People make up the rules as they go per se. I think animals do have feelings and do have knowledge of what is being done to them, but I do not see them as equals to humans. Because of this same thought process, people do choose human rights over animals in most cases. But with the way the world is getting, they will probably even stop choosing human life over animals.
It is clear in the video that animals do not have rights unless they are endanger species or a pet. It is clear that animals legally do not have rights but that does not mean that it is ethical. But I do understand the important role that animals play in scientific research that leads to prolonging human life. Therefore I do believe that human beings have more rights then animals. Humans make u the rules and there are laws to protect animals form abuse. But the video demonstrates how much of what humans do with animals can be interpreted as abuse. It seems obvious that are culture understands that factory farming and animal testing is not ethical but that it is legal. Therefore I think in the eyes of our society today animals do not have rights by definition.
My question for animal rights is where do we draw the line? Or do we protect animals from their natural prey? It is hard to watch, some of the cruel things and conditions that some animals are put through. We do not have to make it that terrible, but for those supplying the animals as a food source, they tend to not care of the treatment, nor do they consider the feelings of the animals. Let’s be honest and understand that most animals walking the earth now would not be here if we either did not protect them or breed them. Cattle would not be roaming fields unless we protected them to start with. I understand that there are individuals that believe that all animals should have an advocate, but we are talking about animals that would not exist of we did not need them as a food source.
So, no- I do not feel that all animals have rights, but I do feel that we as a society need to treat animals with more care. It should not be an experience as we have seen in the video.
I believe that our animals don't have rights. But I don't agree that this is the way it should be. We have a type of hierarchy when it comes to our animals. We have those we have chosen to have as pets, those we may kill for trophies and those that we choose to eat. So how do we decide how each of these groups of animals gets treated?
Tom Regan raised the idea of how we treat animals is no different than how we have treated fellow humans in the past. Slaves were chained and whipped often. The Nazis rounded up the Jews and killed them. In the past, we treated fellow humans like they are animals themselves.
Tom also talked about how there is no difference between how humans feel pain and how animals feel pain. Unfortunately, animals can't express the pain they feel as we humans can. This does not make the pain that animals feel any less important.
I know that animals currently have no rights, but I know there are many people out there that are trying to be the "voices" for the animals out there. They are trying to bring the abuse that animals are suffering to light and to aid in stopping this abuse from occurring. I think we need to take a look at how we are treating animals and make a change in how some of our animals are handled.
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