preview

Animal Rights At Factory Farms

Good Essays

Madison Bowdish
Dr. Brian Onishi
PHIL 229
15 Dec 2016
Animal Rights in Factory Farms The idea that industrial farming is bad for the environment is well known, but what people do not think about is horrible practice of factory farms within industrial farming. Factory farms are inhumane and not only because the animal is being slaughtered, but because of the way the animals are treated before the are killed. A person would think that if they were to be innocently killed that they would want to be treated with respect and dignity before they die. In this paper, I will argue that animals have rights through a utilitarian view and that they should not be treated in an inhumane way. The framework I plan to discuss is Peter Singer 's utilitarian view on animal rights. A general idea of what utilitarianism is can be described as the need for the many outweigh the needs of a few, or “majority rule” when it comes to happiness. Singer’s criteria for how a being gets rights is based on the ability to feel pleasure or pain. With this criteria it allows people who are mentally handicapped, the senile, and babies to have rights (Hozien). Most would agree that it would be cruel to not give these people rights, so Singer argues that since animals can feel pain and pleasure they also have rights. Although he believes that they should be treated equal he does admit that there is a range or difference of pain. He equates this to racism or in this case speciesism. For instance he states that

Get Access