Animals of present day in this country certainly would be considered to have some rights that have been decided for them by humans. These are in areas such as the slaughter of animals for food which nowadays is done by electrocution which is considered to be a near painless and quick death. Animals would also be subject to proper nourishment when in captivity and suitable shelter. They should also be kept in acceptable conditions when kept as pets. Although in contrast this isn’t necessarily put into practice. Battery farming is a good example of the treatment of chickens that is not what would be considered humane or morally right because it involves the animals in question living in squalor.
Many people would say that it is inconvenient and or impracticable to give animals similar rights to humans. W are part of a culture which use animals for food, for clothes, for research in the development of new drugs, and to determine the safety of household products and many of these inflict a great deal of pain upon the animal involved.
A common example is animal farming where the organisms are raised for the sole intention of creating profit for the farmer after slaughter has occurred. This rather unsurprisingly has negative implications to the animals who are often treated unfairly in the minds of some people. Tere is substantial financial pressure on the farmer to decrease the costs of producing meat. This often leads to packing more animals into a smaller space thus reducing expenditure. For instance (as described in ) ‘farmers who raise chickens are inclined to put them in small `battery' cages. They are commonly kept `eight to ten to a space smaller than a newspaper page. Unable to walk around or even stretch their wings much less build a nest the birds become vicious and attack one another' This is but a small example of the pain and suffering that can be endured by some animals during farming and it is for this reason that unless slaughtering was done a hundred per cent humanely it would not be right to exploit animals for food if they were given rights. Our present treatment of animals is morally indefensible since factory farming causes livestock pain and to use other techniques such as free range, which I would like to add our considerably more expensive, is just not going to happen any time soon.
Many of us are equally unfamiliar with the many experiments that are conducted in animals daily. This is often vivisection which is experimenting on live animals to record their effects etc. Many of these are in the name of important drugs which could have life changing effects on us but some are not. E.g () ‘N.J. Carlson gave high voltage electric shocks to sixteen dogs and found that the `high-shock group' acquired `anxiety' faster.’ Experiments like these happen right under our eyes and we know nothing of them. The majority of people would agree that these are sick and immoral and would certainly not be practiced in a world full of animal rights.
People would probably have different views on testing on animals into say a pill to cure cancer. However this does still put pressure and some pain on the animal provided during testing. But surely it’s for a good cause? Well maybe but these to would not be allowed because they restrict the freedom of the animal which every human being takes for granted.
Sports such as hunting that cause pain to animals would be disallowed because they are very similar to that of rearing livestock except the animals are free. In this way many people would argue that game animals such as pheasants that are hand reared for a little while then released into the wild where they will be shot provides the animals with a better quality of life but it is by no doubt a slower death.
However foxes are largely a form of vermin that is to say that they disrupt human processes. The animals themselves have been known to steal chickens and other small livestock out of country farms and attack pets such as cats. If fox hunting was banned which it undoubtedly would if animal rights were put into place then this may have drastic effects on domestic and agricultural areas. The fox population would gradually rise and this may cause an increase in livestock raids because of the lack of natural food sources. The animals would also probably migrate to more urban areas and could come into friction with pets and even humans.
Not to mention the loss of traditionalism if the s. Although many would say fox hunting is barbaric and unnecessary it is none the less a prominent part of British County Life and who’d be missed by many.
Animal rights is the concept that all or some animals are entitled to possess their own lives; that they are deserving of, or already possess, certain moral rights; and that some basic rights for animals ought to be put down in law. The animal-rights view rejects the concept that animals are merely goods or property intended for the benefit of humans. The theory doesn’t assume that animals and humans are completely equal and this is shown in things such as voting which requires a great deal of moral thinking and a knowledge of human political systems.
The fundamental principle behind Animal Rights is that non human animals deserve to live free form harm, abuse and exploitation from humans. This means more than just treating animals well before they are exploited it means that animals have a right to be free from this exploitation as well as cruelty just as animals. Sir Aurobindo (faqfile.html) a poet and philosopher once said ‘Life is life--whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man's own advantage...’ He is saying that it is a human idea that we are in some way inferior to other animals because we have the gift of greater intelligence but this does not mean that we have the right to exert our will upon other animals and treat them cruelly or exploit them. At the end of the day we are not so different and it is human blindness that causes us to wrong animals. dd
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