A Change Of Heart About Animals By Jeremy Rifkin

In the article “A Change of Heart about Animals” (1 September 2003), published by Los Angeles Times, author Jeremy Rifkin discusses how “... researchers are finding [is] that many of our fellow creatures are more like us than we imagined.” (Rifkin 61). Using academic diction, Rifkin develops his main idea with evidence such as “They [animals] feel pain, suffer, and experience stress, affection, excitement, and even love -- and these findings are changing how we view animals. ”(Rifkin 61). This suggests a pathos and logos persuasive appeal that broadens the reader’s understanding and knowledge in changing our perspective of the inhumane and inequality treatment that non domestic animals receive. Rifkin’s use of pathos and logos appeals is to

Animals by Simon Rich is an outstanding short story which takes a unique perspective on the everyday life in a classroom. The story is written from the point of view of a hamster who spends his tortured life entrapped in a cage. From the first point in this story, it is clear that the purpose of the writing is not to understand the hamster, but rather to analyze the different actions of the people, and to discover that how they act towards the hamsters reflects on their character. It is curious to view the everyday interactions of people through a different set of eyes, that is done by humanizing the narrator’s perspective. Based on the actions of the many people and the treatment of the class pet, the author suggests that human nature is very much a product of the financial circumstances a person is subjected to.

In the article “A Change of Heart About Animals”, Rifkin asserts that humans are treating animals in the most atrocious way, and he claims that in order for their lives to improve, we need to definitely adjust ours. He uses great amount of logos, and several experiments done with different animals and tries his best to closely relate animals to us, humans. Rifkin although, never inserts a call for action to this problem throughout his article. Instead, he puts the emphasis on the pathos of the argument. In the world we are living in today, there is about 8.7 million different living species. Whether they are land or marine animals, they do play a big role in our community such as being apart of the food pyramid, assisting handicapped people wherever they go, or being a transportation for people living on farms and fields. With this being said, the ranking of animals in our community has brought up a heated argument in connection to their rights and welfare. Eight legged, four legged, or two legged land or sea animals do not comprehend the concept of rights. If we, humans, give animals “rights”, we are basically inferring the fact that we are like animals, and they have the entitlement to share our rights. Although they don’t understand rights, the fact that many of these animals are being treated inhumanely is wrong and animal welfare should be ingrained into this community rather than the massive inhumane treatment.

Jeremy Rifkin in the article " A Change of Heart about Animals" argues on the fact that as incredible as it sounds, many of our fellow creatures as like us in so many ways. For example, in a movie named Paulie a young girl that suffers autism gets attached to a parrot. The girl struggles to talk but she just can't. Time passes by and then the girl starts talking because the parrot helped her. An incident happened so the little girl's parents decide to let the parrot go. The parrot ends up in an animal testing lab but somehow he managed to escape. The parrot begins to miss his owner because he formed a bond with a human being. Obviously, this proves Rifkin is right when he states that animals experience feelings like human beings.

To start with, The term Animal Rights did not emerge until the late 1970 's, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. In Particular, Richard Ryder, a British Psychologist, expressed his boldest ideas, but in order to get his word out around the world he needed assistance from one of the top Australian philosophers, Peter Singer. Singer published numerous of notable books such as " Animal liberation " which described in vivid detail, the grueling agony animals had to suffer. In fact, Pete Singer got his inspiration for his book " Animal liberation " from his view on utilitarianism, the belief that a morally good action is one that helps the greatest number of people and animals. Indeed, the phrase Animal Rights first surfaced in the 1970

In Chapter two of Moral, Believing Animals Christian Smith argues that human beings are moral animals because they are strong self-evaluators who inhabit morally based orders. In the next chapter, smith adds that humans are moral animals because they also believe. This ability to believe and act morally allows humans to stray away from our instinctive minds. In other words, it is apart of what makes us human. Smith finds that this way of viewing humans provides a better account of human religiousness. Religion is the manifestation of our capacity to be self-conscious. Smith uses Narrative morality writing to help explain his views on religion and human beings, which allow us to recognize our true moral capacity.

Humans are a unique species because they have possess the ability to reason. Other animal species only have instinct, thus making them less smart. In Richard Connell’s short story “The Most Dangerous Game”, it tells of a hunter named Rainsford who got stranded on Ship-Trap Island. Zaroff hunted Rainsford on the island, but in the end Rainsford killed Zaroff . In “The Most Dangerous Game”, the author uses imagery, setting, and characterization to suggest that instinct is better than reasoning.

In the article titled “A Change of Heart about Animals”, by Jeremy Rifkin, it talks about how us humans need to have a different perspective on how animals are treated and have more empathy for them. I however, disagree with Rifkin. It is essential to recognize that in nature, animals kill each other for food and have no sympathy for whatever it is that they are eating.With this said, why should killing,eating,and animal experimentation be any different or inhumane?

As Rifkins said “ many of our fellow creatures are more like us than we have ever imagined.” (Rifkins 33) I do agree what Rifkin is saying. As you see the example he has given us about Betty the New Caledonian crow and Coco the three hundred-pound gorilla. Betty was under a controlled experiment and had to choose which stick to use to get a piece of meat out of the tube. As the study, nine times out of ten, show after she hooked wire was taken away by a fellow bird she then use the straight wire to convert it into a hook. Coco the three hundred pound gorilla was taught sign language. She has mastered over one-thousand signs and understood thousands English words On an IQ test her score was between seventy and ninety five . Which places

Both in and out of philosophical circle, animals have traditionally been seen as significantly different from, and inferior to, humans because they lacked a certain intangible quality – reason, moral agency, or consciousness – that made them moral agents. Recently however, society has patently begun to move beyond this strong anthropocentric notion and has begun to reach for a more adequate set of moral categories for guiding, assessing and constraining our treatment of other animals. As a growing proportion of the populations in western countries adopts the general position of animal liberation, more and more philosophers are beginning to agree that sentient creatures are of a direct moral concern to humans, though the degree of this

The main theme of Animal Liberation by Peter Singer is summarized in one quote by Isaac Bashevis Singer, “In their behavior towards creatures, all men [are] Nazis” (84). Singer spends the whole book attempting to prove that Nazis and the abusers of animals are the same. He does this by talking about scientific testing and the way animals are treated before being killed for their meat. He dives into the specifics of what happens during animal testing and animals killed for meat in order to appeal to the humanity of the reader in order to exploit it. By exploiting the humanity of the reader Singer attempts to guilt the reader into becoming a vegetarian.

Rifkin claimed that animals were capable of every emotion a human has. He was asking and demanding that humans should treat animals of all kind with more respect. And that they are given more equality or the same as humans. It is obliviously irrelevant to the rest of society, expect for the ignorant few who support this.

The Vancouver Aquarium uses dolphins and belugas to provide entertainment and utilizes the profit gained, to aid them in research. In The Case for Animal Rights, Tom Regan’s moral principles state that there should be total abolition of the use of animals in science as well as for entertainment purposes (337). Moreover, he claims that humans and animals have equal values and rights. Based on this principle, I argue that the practices of the Vancouver Aquarium of using belugas and dolphins for scientific and entertainment purposes is immoral and thus unjustified.

The biggest debate pertaining to the ethical treatment of animals is whether or not they are moral agents and if they are deserving of moral consideration. Many humans believe, in order to say a being is deserving of moral consideration, is to say that this being is able to recognize such actions out of moral consideration. In the minds of the majority, humans are thought to be the only beings able to recognize such actions out of moral consideration and the only beings capable to respond to such actions (Gruen, 1). This thought reinstates that humans are the only ones who can be wronged in a moral sense. However, when individuals are asked

We have seen countless examples by Carl Safina in Beyond Words, of animals exhibiting many of the previously thought human characteristics. Starting from the great mammals, such as elephants, whales, chimpanzees, and wolves, down to the smallest birds and fish, we have seen their intellect, emotions, compassion, need for companionship and family. The cognitive and emotional overlap between humans and nonhuman animals is evident through Safina’s first hand observations of animals in the wild, in ways that exhibit theory of mind, conscience thought, self-awareness and deception; all previously thought to be only human qualities. We are equal in many ways and we humans need to take the responsibility to correct what we have created. In many cases, WE have taken away the dignified existence all animals deserve. There are many obstacles that must be overcome; physical, economic and political to name just a few. But justice – a moral principle and basic right of equality of treatment, in equal circumstances, receiving what you deserve, needs to cross over the species boundary in the nonhuman animal kingdom. This is not only imperative for the survival of animals, but for the human race