Are All Non Human Animals Equal

Animal Rights & Testing

The author of this report has been asked to contrast, compare and analyze three articles that all relate to basically the same thing, that being the status and rights of animals. As part of the analysis, there will be an agreement on the points with which the author of this report agrees, a critical thinking of how the authors attempt to refute each other, the key elements of those refutations, the significant connections that exist between the three texts, what those connections mean to the author of this report in terms of framing the author of this report's views and a gist of the synthesis conducted will bring up the proverbial rear of the analysis. This report will conclude with a setting up, but not a full execution, of the author's own potential argument that might or might not happen on future reports. While animals are not held in the same regard as humans in many respects by a lot of people, there are many of those that vehemently disagree with that being the case on one level or another or to one degree or another.

Analysis

As noted in the introduction, all three articles to be reviewed for this report take a stance on animal rights and/or testing. However, not one of the three of the same or takes the same stance in general. Before getting to the analysis and personal reflection part of this report, the author will briefly summarize the positions of Singer, Regan and Cohen, those being the three authors under review for this report. Singer makes the assertion that all animals equal and this is stated straight away in the title of the article. Singer starts off by talking about human groups that fight for equality with the examples given including the Black Liberation movement. He asserts that any liberation movement requires the expansion of our horizons and perceptions about what equality really means. He goes on to state that a seminal work when it comes to animal rights, that being The Rights of Animals, has often used as a parody piece to rib the women's rights movements. Singer concedes that humans and other animals are indeed not on the same level and this should have a bearing in any discussion about the rights they should or should not have. In the end, it is asserted that while animals besides humans are not on the same plane as humans, they nonetheless should be treated equal. He compares that concept to that of how humans are treated. Just as humans should not be treated differently based on their level of intelligence (or lack thereof), the same should apply to animals. Singer, when compared to the other two authors summarized in this report, is clearly in the middle as compared to the other two (Singer, 1989).

When it comes to the animal rights issue, Cohen clearly believes that animals can and should be used for testing purposes. He concedes that people and assail and condemn the use of animals for testing purposes based on the fact that the animals should have rights. However, Cohen then boldly proclaims that animals have no such rights and that they should be used for animal testing (Cohen, 1986). Regan's work (which was done in conjunction with Singer) is more middle of the road in that he asserts that animals do not have intelligence like humans do and such, not unlike Cohen. However, he goes onto state that giving cattle more room to move around and feed is all well and good but their status and treatment as a renewable resource, albeit in the form of a live mammal, is not really changed and thus their fundamental status and basis for treatment is the same (Regan & Singer, 1989).

As for the connections of the three sources and the analysis that can be rendered accordingly, the author of this report has a few things to say. First, the three sources all intersect in that none of the three sources assert that humans have rights that are equal to humans. They assert that no such right exists, more or less, and that one should not exist on top of that. Second, they are connected in that there are many connections between the human world and the animal world when it comes to this topic. The mention of the fact that a human being an "imbecile" is not license to test or work on that person against their will just like it would not be permissible for the same to happen on someone who is very intelligent and gifted. Also, there are more than one parallel between the animal rights arguments and those of certain human groups with examples of the latter including females and black people. Sometimes the argument is facetious and sometimes it is not, if there were a point to all of that. The author perceives all of this to mean that humans and animals are not in the same class but they should be treated as two large and single groups nonetheless. Either all animal lives are superior or none are.