-
“
Why a cat is higher class than
a snake?
”
Understand Animal Rights and Conflicts
through Animal Ethics
Animal, a living thing creature besides
human-being, is always staying around with us
and indivisibly existing in our
society. While judging the value of a specific
kind of
animal, we will always have our
judgment through their appearances, features,
living
practices, habitats and so on.
The one that have a cute outlook will easy to get
the love
of people, and contrarily the
rest will not. Human always judge the value
through their
perception, but is it
really accurate? Why a cat can have meat as dim
sum, and why a
snake eat a baby cat for
meal is immoral?
In animal
ethics, it contains a lot of grey areas. For
example, people believe that they
treating a stray dog good is because of
their love and care to animals, which is a good
free-will to perform these
actions, but at the same time they are having
meats for meal,
like pork chops and
steaks, as they likely to forget what they are
eating is harming
animals and making
them feeling pain. This is one of the common cases
that happen
in our daily life. Treating
dogs and cats good means caring, but eating meats
means
nothing at all. Apart from this
case, as mentioned before, cats and dogs can have
other
animals
?
meat as dim sum, but others cannot have them as
food reversely. It is cruel
that other
animals to kill a cat or dog for appeasing hunger,
when a cat kill a bird as a
hunting
game and practice is endurable. Obviously, people
classify animals with a
dramatic class:
Dogs and Cats are the highest level, the second-
lowest level are the
Pigs, Cows,
Chicken which used for meal, the lowest level are
the mice, and the rest
of animals are
middle level. Is that moral to treat animals
through this classification?
Do animal
have their own animal rights?
According to Kantian Ethics, animals do
not have moral standing as they are not
rational. The 2
nd
categorical imperative of Kantian is
“
Act in such a way that you
treat
humanity, whether in your own
person or in any other person, always at the same
time
as an end, never merely as a
means.
”
He gives an example
that if a man shoots a dog,
there is
not value judgment of the dog whether it is wrong
or not, but to the owner or
to himself,
as they have their own dignity. To treat people
merely as a end means to
respect the
rational agents of people, and as animals is not
an rational agency, to treat
them
merely as a means is acceptable.
Peter Carruthers is a professor in
philosophy. He has the same prospective of
Kant
?
s.
He argues
that only human beings are the sole rational
agents in the world and no
other animal
can be rational agent. He believes that
Contractualism is the moral theory.
Only the human beings, who are rational
agents, can enter the contract.
Apart
from Kantian Ethics, Utilitarianism is also
applicable to investigate Animal
Rights. Peter Singer, a famous
professor of philosophy, argues animals should
have
their rights through
utilitarianism. Utilitarianism calculates
happiness and pain, as
aiming to
maximize the great amount of happiness, including
all kinds of subject, no
matter animals
or human-beings, who are sentient to feel pain. In
“All Animals are
Equal”
, he argues that the
feeling of suffering from pain is the key factor
to determine
whether the individuals
should be calculated, while the ability of
thinking or talking
are not the main
factors. Moreover, he believes that all animals
should be calculated
equally for the
interest. To sum up, Singer believed that all
lives which can feel pain
and happiness
do have a moral standing, no matter human-beings
or animals.
To compare this
two arguments, the main difference between two
arguments is that
animals should be
treated as individuals or not. Through two
passages, Singer is much
more caring
about animals feel. As animals is not only a kind
of thing, they are
identifiably having
their own sense. When they are hurt, they feel
pain. This is not
doubtful. Someone may
points out the
Zhuāngzǐ
?
s philosophy of happiness
of fish, as
he emphasis that we do not
have the sensation of fish so we cannot define
whether
fish is experiencing happiness
or feeling pain. I must admit that we cannot feel
about
whether the animal is
experiencing happy or not, but we undoubtedly can
feel whether
that animal is suffering
from pain, which Singer holds the same belief. It
is an
absolute judgment. Do we have to
argue about a cow will not feeling pain in the
process that turning itself into meat?
Will it be possible that he enjoys that process?
As human-beings is the dominant on the
Earth, if we do know that animal is feeling
pain, we have to care about them and
try to minimize the pain as we can. Therefore,
human-beings should not be selfish to
treat animals as things, but individuals.
To study Ethics, we always
ask a
“
railway
question
”
, which is about
five people being
on a railway, and if
you can choose to let the rail kill those five
people, or change the
rail to the track
where only one person being there. We do not have
to answer this
question this time, but
change to other circumstance. If the railway is
five people and
your own pet dogs, how
will you choose? Or if the railway is five lovely
cats and one
person, how will be your
choice? According to the book
“
Some We Love, Some We
Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to
Think Straight About
Animals
”
, the writers
points out that most of the people will
choose to kill the animals rather than the people.
Inside the books, he quotes the book
“
Us and Them: The Science of
Identity
”
, written
by David Berreby, that human-being have
a instinct to distinguish social circle to
“
us
”
and
“
them
< br>”
, and animals is being identified
as
“
them
”
< br>. In a choice to choose whether