Animal Cruelty and Animal Rights

¶ … animal cruelty and animal rights have been a several theme in recent media and public sentiments, few people really understand what it means to give animals the rights that they deserve. Instead, we are harming animals both directly and indirectly on a daily basis to satisfy our basic needs. This implies that human beings still look to animals as if they have no righs whatsoever, and more than that, it is completely legitimate to kill, maim and destroy their livelihood at will. Animals are not only treated with complete disregard, but humanity has deemed them fit to be genetically altered, manipulated and changed. All of these actions seem to fit the portfolio of God, rather than our own human species. In the following analysis I will thoroughly examine animal rights, and clarify through conceptual frameworks, why it is necessary for us to have animal rights.

There are many conceptual reasons why philosophers do not accept an egalitarian comparison between humans and animals. Kant, Descartes, Aquinas, and many other philosophers rejects the claim of animal rights because they view them purely as organic equivalents to machines. They argue that animals are driven by coarse instincts and thus are unable to experience pain. This is the fundamental underpinnings of their social and political argument. Their assertions however are unwarranted and unjustified. Close examination of animals have shown that they do indeed have feelings, moreover, they have sophisticated mechanism by which they express and feel pain. Biology has taught us that animals are just as sophisticated anatomically as human beings, and that they have evolved through natural selection to be primary candidates within their species. Therefore to assume that animals not only are only servants to mankind, but also mere machines is an unfair and unwarranted assumption. If anything else, most animals on this planet have evolved thousands or millions of years before human beings. They are the inheritors of this planet as much as any human being. The principle of Ethology and anthropology have shown us that animals act in many ways just like humans, they protect their young, operate within groups and show the structure and the formalities just as complex as human society. Therefore, it is wrong for philosophers to assert their inhumaneness as a qualifier for their abuse. It is evident from modern understanding that animals are just as sophisticated and entitled to their existence as humanity.