Dec 28 - Animal rights

 

As we look back over the past several decades, a lot of progress was made in acknowledging the rights of groups that were previously marginalized.  Whether it is race, gender, or religion, we now recognize that these groups deserve equal rights in the way they should be treated.

If we are to look back at our current thinking 50 years from now, what may we then think of our behavior today?


The philosopher Peter Singer calls our treatment of animals "speciesism", we assume the position from christian dogma that humans are god chosen to use the rest of the species as we think fit. 

This is such a parallel to the chosen race concept in racism that it is hard to refute.

So what rights should animals have?

Are they justified to treat humans as just another food source, kill and eat us at will?

Should they be worshiped as a sacred species as commanded by some deity?

Maybe suffering is the criteria.

If they can kill us for food without us enduring much or any suffering, than humans as food for the lions is just fine.  An anesthetic to dull the pain, or even general anesthesia so we won't even know what happened takes away the concern for suffering.

Or maybe it is a matter of raising humans solely for the purpose of being food for the lions.  These humans would not have existed without that explicit purpose.  Does that make it any more justifiable to kill humans for food?

I really have no answers to these points.

It is everyone for themselves, survival of the fittest, might is right,  no room for the lofty consideration of rights and who gets to eat who to survive. The animals have to eat to survive or they will go extinct!


Wait!  why can't the entire animal kingdom turn into vegetarians? Then all of us animals can live happily together without the fear of being someone else's food?

But is that not "speciesism" too?  Plants are living organisms that reproduce, breath, and have all the characteristics of a living thing.  The argument that they do not suffer when we kill them for food may only be that they do not express suffering like us animals, making it easier for us not to empathize with their suffering.

We may not need to anesthetize a plant before we cut it off at harvest because we see no signs of suffering but does that make it right? Should we not hurt plants that move away when touched?

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=plants+that+move+away+when+touched&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-002

If empathizing with an animal's suffering be the reason for us not to be cruel or to kill animals, is it just a matter of our empathizing mirror neurons in our brains driving us to an emotional decision rather than a rational reason not to eat meat?

Then there is the argument that we humans know better because of our rational faculties.  Only wild animals will eat other animals but we are above that.

Back to humans being superior than other species, that we know what is good for them more than they do?

The curse of the just, is our ethical sense getting in the way of our survival instincts in an evolution driven world?