Speciesism and Rights for Animals

Da5id »

Thu Nov 15, 2007 7:35 am Agree: 1   Disagree: 1

Muggleborn said:

"...the crazy laws that Chuck Colson is talking about seem...to mix up the
defining attributes between animals and people into a soup that make people
no more 'special' than those animals."

Many people who write about this issue misrepresent what animal advocates
mean when they say humans and animals are "morally equal". Morally equal
does not mean equal in every way. It does not mean anything like equal
intelligence, talent, beauty, skill, strength, souls, made in God's image,
etc. Traits like these are not relevant to moral equality.

Most animal rights philosophers argue that humans and other animals are
"morally equal" in much the same way that Alzheimers' patients and Nobel
Prize winners are morally equal. Just because one person is more
intelligent than the other does not give the more intelligent one special
privileges...the person with the higher IQ wouldn't be first in line for the
liver transplant just because they are more intelligent, for example. In
the same way, just because animals do not possess these "superior" human
traitsdoes not mean that humans are privileged when it comes to things like
being free to enjoy ones life without pain and suffering being inflicted
upon one.

One good moral-equality argument is put forth by Tom Regan Professor
(Emeritus) Philosophy at NC State. He says that humans and other animals
are all "subjects of a life" and that we are all the same in the following
ways:

"Not only are we all in the world, we are all aware of the world and aware
as well, of what happens to us. Moreover, what happens to us - whether to
our bodies, to our freedom, or our lives themselves-- matters to us because
it makes a difference to the quality and duration of our lives, as
experienced by us, whether anyone else cares about this or not. Whatever our
differences, these are our fundamental similarities."