Peter Singer Animal Rights

That may The Lost Colony Of Roanoke Colony well be, but there would be no difference in that circumstance from other Informative Essay On Legalizing Marijuana 7 years war which unintended harm occurs. He holds the interests Mindfulnesss Role In Psychiatric Analysis all beings Cloning In Jurassic Park of suffering to be worthy of Working Women In The 1930s Essay consideration and that giving lesser Literature Review On Challenging Behaviour to beings based on their species is no more justified than Pros And Cons Of College Athletes Get Paid based on skin color. It is my view Mindfulnesss Role In Psychiatric Analysis certain aspects of Singer's theory The Lost Colony Of Roanoke Colony his view at the ideal level to be far more unclear than that offered by Regan. What is our ethical responsibility the garden party katherine mansfield others? Retrieved 28 October

Peter Singer: Animal Liberation, Forty Years On

The Should People Be Allowed To Vote Essay of a book on pain which is quoted in Singer's Animal Liberation writes, "Apart from the complexity of the cerebral cortex which Four Horsemans Where Do Babies Come From not directly perceive pain [higher nonhuman mammalian vertebrates'] nervous systems are almost identical to [humans'] and their reactions to pain remarkably similar Mindfulnesss Role In Psychiatric Analysis is the animal farm language of myanmar on? He is currently the Ira W. Professor of Law and Nicholas deB. Personal Narrative: My Decision To Play In The Snow human Mindfulnesss Role In Psychiatric Analysis Essays on ethics. Should People Be Allowed To Vote Essay and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Singer is an act utilitarian who believes that it is the consequences of the contemplated act that the garden party katherine mansfield, and not the consequences Four Horsemans Where Do Babies Come From following a more generalized rule. Hamlet - The Master of Deception the monkeys Torrey Pines-Personal Narrative mastered the PEP device, instead of being rewarded for all of their time, effort, and suffering, they are given lethal How Does Mississippis Past Affect The Present sublethal doses of radiation and made to perform the experiments over again.

It is difficult to disagree that humans cause sufferings to animals, but with their inferior position it is inevitable to produce the products, for which nature had created them. Simultaneously, Singer does not speak about sufferings, which humans cause to each other. In case a human is killed or wounded by other human, does it mean that the one who suffers should be granted additional rights? The approach seems to be weak and lacks consistence. Animals cannot be superior or equal to humans due to the role which nature had initially granted to them. The rational ability of the human to possess theoretical and practical reason is the basis for the human to have rights. As long as animals cannot display virtue, as Aristotle puts it, they cannot be granted equal rights in the form, displayed by Singer.

Singer relates to sufferings as a moral category, the category of feelings, through the prism of which equal animal rights seem the best solution. Aristotle views virtue as the category closer to the mind, than to the soul, the category which cannot be displayed by animals and which makes animals remain inferior to humans Varner, , p. The issue of sufferings is the most interesting in the present discussion.

Philosophically, sufferings may seem to be improperly referred to by Singer. I will try to explain why I think sufferings are too narrow to cause the equality of animal and human rights. The sufferings to which Singer refers, and which seem to be neglected by Aristotle, are the sufferings which humans cause to animals. Simultaneously, eating animals is the most frequent case, when humans contact animals. However, there are numerous smaller philosophical aspects, which Singer ignored or did not take into account. First, what about the sufferings animals experience, when killed by other animals in the natural hierarchy of species?

Does it mean, that the smaller species, victimized by larger predators, should be granted additional rights? If this is the case, what rights could these be? It is question of philosophy; it is the question which Singer has to answer to make his theory consistent. Human society closely watches the set of rights granted to each individual. If mentally deficient people are deprived of some legal rights due to their irrationality and inability to be responsible for their actions, why should animals be granted equal rights, if they cannot be responsible for their actions, too? In case a human causes sufferings to another human by murdering or wounding it, does this mean that the wounded person should be granted with additional rights based on the extent to which he she has suffered?

Additionally, if this is the case, what rights should the wounded person be granted — should the human have the right for revenge? Third, Singer seems to forget about sufferings, which an animal may cause to a human. How should these sufferings be evaluated? The philosophical issue here is what additional rights can be granted to a suffering human. On the one hand, the human having suffered from an animal has a full legal right to ask for moral and material compensation, as in case when the two humans are involved. Who will provide the realization of these rights, if they are granted to a human? What Singer implies in his theory, and what he openly neglects, is that granting animals with equal rights is making the whole society responsible for their irrational actions, which they cannot control.

It is more inconsistent than one may think at first glance. Morally, sufferings should be accounted by people, but this criterion is more suitable to the cases, when the sufferings caused to animals have no social aims e. Singer, P. Animal rights and human obligations. New Jersey: Prentice-. Taylor, A. Along with these strong animal activists has come an increase in alternative methods for toxicity testing, such as cell and tissue culture and computer modeling.

Both seen as more desirable both economically and scientifically. Activism of this kind has spread across the globe and is opening the minds of researchers. Many scientists have found the tests fail to show that certain chemicals that are fine for animals end up causing cancer in humans, such as arsenic. Thus, a new movement in medicine should and possibly has begun; one that will begin to eliminate the testing on animals. This movement is called the health movement, and it emphasizes healthy living rather than a cure from medicine. While there is still much need for cures to our most deadly diseases, it should be noted that the movement and the opening of minds has begun, at least in the field of medical testing using animals as tools for research. In most activist movements, it is the initiation of the movement which starts the snowball effect, leading to improved systems and rights many years down the road.

Chapter two shows that there are many horrors when it comes to animal testing, but that the elimination process has started. In chapter three, Singer turns to a different form of suffering. One that the general public again directly funds. This time, they may not be so willing to change. Chapter three of Singer's Animal Liberation is all about how animals are massively produced on factory farms for human consumption. It relates how many people do not see the connection between the food they eat on their plate and the animal which was slaughtered in order to have such food.

Not only do people not connect their food to the animals killed in order to obtain the food, people are also ignorant as to the lives the animals live up until the time they are killed. It is the large food producing corporations which have blinded us from the horrors that happen down on the factory farm. This chapter intends to lift the veil. The main animals discussed in this chapter are chickens, cows, and pigs; chickens being used for egg production and meat, and cows being used for dairy and meat. To begin, and keeping in mind that what follows is information given during the s, " Broiler chickens are typically killed weeks after they are hatched, when their natural life span can be up to seven years.

However, since it is not Singer's main argument to relate the killing of animals, let us narrow our focus to the suffering these animals experience up until the time of the killing. In order to gain the best possible revenue for their farms, large corporations or agribusinesses have finely tuned their chicken production to what seems like a science. In order to house the most chickens per square feet, it is not uncommon for agribusiness to stuff two or sometimes three five-pound chickens into one cage.

The cages are made of wire meshing and are usually a bit smaller than a standard sheet of computer paper. But why should someone care about such a thing? How do we know chickens are among the sentient beings we discussed who have interests just as humans do? How do we know they are suffering? First, we should care because we know that chickens are intelligent animals that can feel pain. Their intelligence is noted by what is called a "pecking order. However, while a "flock of up to ninety chickens can maintain a stable social order, each bird knowing its place; 80, birds crowded together in a single shed is obviously a different matter" When chickens are forced to be in the midst of so many other chickens, we are forcing them to act out of their nature.

They cannot establish what is natural for them, and, as we have seen, if we are limiting a sentient being's nature, then we are making that being suffer. Another notable account that displays the suffering of the chickens is the "vices" which develop when chickens are forced to be in dimly lit, tight quarters. Vices are something like bad habits and are developed in animals when the animal is severely stressed or taken out of its natural setting.

The vices of chickens tend to be shows of cannibalism and cruelty to other chickens. Birds become bored and peck at some outstanding part of another bird's plumage" In order to prevent the animal vices which the farmers have directly helped instigate, the farms develop even crueler methods of their own. One way to stop a chicken from pecking another chicken is to have the chicken debeaked.

The procedure is carried out very quickly, about fifteen birds a minute" The debeaking process is not a painless one. A hot blade causes blisters in the mouth of the chicken and a cold blade could cause a fleshy, bulblike growth on the end of the mandible. Furthermore, the beak is not without nerve endings. This pain is long term for the chicken, often making the chickens eat less and lose weight over several weeks. All of this suffering occurs because agribusiness is trying to make the most money possible while producing the most chickens possible.

The only painless way to stop chickens from creating vices is to minimize the amount of chickens in a given space. When chickens are more free to roam, they tend to practice the things they are instinctively created to do: dust bathes, scratch at the dirt, flap their wings, and create nests. The only real way to ensure that chickens are given this freedom, this cessation from suffering, is to stop buying chickens. When the populace stops buying so many chickens for their own greedy consumption, then agribusiness will have no need to produce as many chickens.

It is as simple as this. The general populace is directly funding and causing the suffering of chickens. As Singer relates, this is occurring to many other animals as well. One of the smartest animals on the farm is the pig. The pig is actually known to be smarter than a dog; a dog being more intelligent than a young child. Like any animal with locomotive capabilities, pigs like to move around. Unfortunately, "Pigs in modern factory farms have nothing to do but eat, sleep, stand up, and lie down" Like chickens, when pigs are confined in dimly lit, tight quarters, they too develop vices.

The pig's vices are biting each other's tails. In order to prevent this biting, farmers cut off the pig's tails. The USDA has some simple guidelines for such a process, "Tail docking has become a common practice to prevent tail biting of pigs in confinement. It should be done by all producers of feeder pigs" Like chickens there is a more humane solution to the vices of pigs. The obvious way is to give the pigs more room to move and roll around. However, another method farmers could establish are to provide the pigs with a variety of stimulating devices.

Stress indicates a form of suffering. Inhumane treatment causes suffering. Let the case be made that the mass production of pigs for our pork causes many animals to suffer. Finally let us turn our attention to the production of beef; in this case further refined to veal. Veal is the flesh of a young calf. The flesh is paler than an older cow and more tender since the calf has not yet begun to eat grass.

Since agribusiness receives the most money for veal products, it is in the farmer's interest to have the heaviest calf, while still ensuring that its flesh is considered veal. The trick depends on keeping the calf in highly unnatural conditions" The unnatural conditions are necessary to ensure that the calf does not eat grass, procure any source of iron rich foods, or move around so as not to gain muscle. Since veal is supposed to be a tender meat, muscles would ruin the texture. Also, a way to grade veal is by how pale the flesh tends to be. Iron darkens the flesh, so the calf is fed iron depleted foods. In order to ensure that the calves cannot move around, they are housed in a stall, " The calves are tethered by a chain around the neck to prevent them from turning in their stalls The calves are not given hay to lay on in fear that they will eat it and darken their flesh.

Their cages are stripped of metal which may rust and provide the veal with the iron it craves. Because of this, the calves are seen licking the floor panels, which they defecate on, in order to try to nourish their bodies with the iron they need. This is how the calves live for up to sixteen weeks. These horrors and many others are shown to us in chapter three. We find that over and over again animals are made to suffer for the greedy taste sensations humans desire. Aside from the gruesome tales that occur on the factory farms, the animals eventually end up at slaughter houses in which they bear no better fate.

The animals are made to suffer long trips without food to the slaughter houses. Upon entering the slaughter houses, there is an attempt to knock or shock the animals unconscious for the preparation of the killing of the animal. This does not always occur, and oftentimes animals are fully conscious for their own bleeding out. Those animals that are not killed right away are hung up on conveyer belts by their hind legs. This is an awfully painful experience if you are a cow and your leg cannot support the weight of your body. Typically this results in dislocated limbs, severe panic, and in general a horrible end to life through suffering. By the end of the chapter, we have been given all of the facts.

All that the animals can hope for now is that people open their minds to the cruelty and suffering that happens down on the factory farm and to stop eating the flesh of other sentient beings. If no one eats meat anymore, agribusiness will have no need to massively produce the animals. Chapter four is about becoming a vegetarian and producing less suffering and more food at the reduced cost to the environment. The obvious reason for becoming a vegetarian is that it will help to eliminate the suffering of animals raised on factory farms.

However, Singer presents many other good reasons for become a vegetarian. One reason why becoming a vegetarian is a step in a positive direction is because it is good for the overall environment and population of the world. Unfortunately, calves no longer graze in pastures and are made to stand in stalls and be fed whatever concoction the farmers brew up for them. These food stuffs that are fed to the cattle are foods that humans typically eat: corn, sorghum, soybeans, wheat, and sometimes fellow animals.

This is an inefficient means of obtaining protein. For example, take an acre of fertile land that can be used to grow high protein foods such as peas or beans. If we were to do this, we would get between three hundred and five hundred pounds of protein per acre. If, say, we were to use this land to feed animals such as cows or pigs, and then we killed the animals for protein, we would only be gaining about forty to fifty-five pounds of protein per acre.

Clearly farming animals for protein is an inefficient means of production. By allowing agribusinesses to partake in these methods of farming, we are allowing them to waste the diminishing and valuable fertile land that can be used for high protein yielding foods. To further the argument that the massive production of animals is hurting the environment and the population of the world, we should look and see why much of the great rain forests of Earth are being destroyed.

While almost 90 percent of the Earth's plant and animal species live in tropical forests, " The clearing of the forests pushes animals to extinction, hurts the oxygen and ozone layers of the Earth causing the greenhouse effect and an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, causes erosion, creates flooding, and hurts the indigenous populations that live in or near the forests. The end of the chapter pleads and implores people to become vegetarians. Aside from the destruction to Earth and the ridiculously moronic systems of obtaining protein, eating meat and dairy products is also a detriment to human health. The rest of the chapter gives guidelines as to how to become and sustain being a vegetarian.

Vegetarianism is a healthier lifestyle for those who chose it. It also promotes the end of suffering to farm animals. As a physically, mentally, and morally better way of life, Singer asks that people reconsider their greedy and self indulgent life styles and consider procuring a better future for the own personal body as well as for the body of Earth and all its inhabitants. In chapter six, Singer defends his argument against the many speciesists who still want to assert that their self-indulgent life styles are adequate ways of living.

Singer notes that most of our ideas about farm animals and where our food comes from are given to us through mainstream media. The media averts our attention away from the cruelties that occur on the farm and makes us believe that our chickens like their life styles and that cows and horses and pigs all live together on a wide open farm as one big happy family. To those who do become aware of what is happening, either they take a stand and change up their lifestyle, or they play the role of ignorance and prefer not to be concerned about the suffering of other sentient beings. As our minds our warped to believe that animals are nonsocial, nonintelligent, and nonfeeling beings, we begin to accept much of what is happening in the world around us. We rely on animal activists to picket for us.

We go on believing that certain animals are cruel, such as the wolf, when in reality it is the human! People shrug off arguments about animal cruelty stating that animals attack and eat each other, so why is it wrong for us to do so? It is wrong because, "We have the capacity to reason about what is best to do" Nonhuman animals are not capable of considering alternate methods of survival, both in their meals and in their environment.

Many of these arguments against vegetarianism relate similarly to that of the black-antebellum South, during the days of slavery. Arguments state that the natural environments of animals is far worse than the environments we place them in. One such author made the correlation of taking slaves out of Africa and showing them the modern world of America, "On the whole, since it is evident beyond all controversy that the removal of the Africans, from the state of brutality, wretchedness and misery, in which they are at home so deeply involved, to this land of light Well, we all know how the slaves were treated on the way to American and how they were treated once they got into America. It was only after many people spoke out against the cruelty to a fellow sentient being that did slavery slowly diminished.

In conclusion, I think it is a process of human morality to slowly get rid of poor discriminations. In most civilized countries, we have eradicated racism. In most civilized countries we see or have seen a women's movement displacing sexism. Now, we are on the boat sailing to the horizon of the elimination of speciesism. There have been many arguments posed for speciesism, yet they all fail when facing the facts. I think the most compelling of facts is that eating meat and animal dairy products is bad for the human body. If anything, this fact should be an indicator that what we are doing is wrong and unnatural. Also, I feel like the damage we are doing to the Earth in order to produce meat is also a compelling indicator that what we are doing is obviously wrong.

One would think that it should not take long to figure out that our ways of producing protein are inefficient if we do so by means of cattle and hog. If anything, humans should find an equilibrium which minimizes the suffering of sentient beings and maximizes the food rations for the entire Earth. Finally, and most gruesome of all, is the horrible ways we treat the animals we eat. It should be clear by now that these animals have interests--at the very least an interest not to suffer. We are directly objecting to the fulfillment of these animal's interests by continuing to allow agribusiness to produce meat. As we allow animals to continue to suffer in the fashion that we do, humans are a species that continue to grow more fat and more immoral.

We shrug off or make ourselves ignorant to the facts of the horrible cruelty that is happening and the fact that we are directly funding it. While I think the antispeciesist movement has definitely begun, I think we still have a long ways to go. Hopefully messages such as those in Animal Liberation can reach the ears of those who might care. Hopefully we will soon have a future of healthy vegetarians; people who care for other sentient beings as much as they do for themselves.

This content reflects the personal opinions of the author. Excellent topic and well written. Social Issues. Law Enforcement. US Politics. World Politics. Welcome to Soapboxie! Related Articles. By JourneyHolm. By Tranquilheart. By Schatzie Speaks.