Argument Paper on Animal Rights

Is it ethical for animals to have the same rights as humans? During this paper I will present the views of both sides. I will try my best to give the reader a chance to come to there own unbiased conclusion. I will talk about the key areas of animal ethics. I will present the facts and reasoning behind the arguments over Animal cruelty, testing, hunting, and improper housing. My conclusion will hopefully bring us closer to answering many of the question surrounding “Animal Rights and Ethics”.

Animals have the physical need to receive love and attention. Human beings have the need to correct and overcorrect our actions, especially towards animals. Humanity is defined by any act of kindness, pity, or compassion. As a group, humans believe in both the lesser treatment of animals, and the idea that animals deserve rights. Since we are at the top of the food chain, and we have greater cognitive ability, human beings have the control.

For years, philosophers, humanitarians, and support groups, take in mind the popular organization PETA, have been advocating for animal rights. Animal rights are the benefits humans provide to animals. These benefits are protection against abuse and give animals humane treatment. Peter Singer is one of the many to introduce animal welfare, starting with his book titled Animal Liberation. Some support the idea of not using animals as a food source, clothing and other animal related products, while vegans go as far as to boycott and protest companies that use the animals suffering for profit by creating animal-by products. Why should we extend equal consideration of interests to animals? How different should those rights be from human rights?

According to Gallup.com a third of Americans want animals to have the same rights as people. The Animal Bill of Right implies that animals have the right to be free from exploitation and cruelty, It also prohibits laboratory animals to be used for research. Animals will also have healthy diets and medical care. It will also provide them with an environment that satisfies their needs. I do not believe we need a Bill of Rights for animals. This would not only be extreme but it will affect human culture, medical research, and cost of food

Thesis: Animal testing is a heavy topic that usually goes unnoticed. To many scientists, animal testing is beneficial and to society it is morally wrong.

Throughout history, humans have utilized nonhuman animals for the benefit of mankind. This tendency increased as civilization developed, and presently, necessitated by staggering population growth and technological progress, human use of animals has skyrocketed. We eat them, we breed them, we use them as test subjects. Some people have begun to question the ethics of it all, sparking a debate on animal treatment and whether or not they have rights. In a paper on the subject, Carl Cohen lays out his definition of rights, explains their relationship with obligations, and uses these ideas to present the argument that manifests clearly in his piece’s title, “Why Animals Have No Rights”. THESIS

Animal testing has been one of the issues that people are fighting overtime because of its moral. Even though some results of tests are successful on people, many people are still fighting for the animal’s rights. They believe that animals should have their own rights to live a free life where they belong, just like their species. In scientists point of view, animals have been one of the main subjects to test on, but a lot of them are currently looking forward to use and develop alternatives for the cruel act of animal testing.

Health, benefit, well-being, progress, care, profit, thriving, all words that are synonyms to welfare. Animal welfare has been an agricultural issue for several decades. Animal welfare refers to the physical, emotional, and mental state an animal is in. There are several organization in the United States along with other corporations around the world that have the same mission; to promote animal welfare. This issue has a deep-rooted history, various legislative acts being voted on and passed, as well as many effects from these organizations, and legislative bills.

Billions of animals are killed by human beings each year. Most of these animals live in filthy, unfavorable conditions and undergo painful procedures before being slaughtered for food or other purposes. The way that these animals are treated would never be considered ethical when applied to humans, even though animals and humans have much in common. Humans should not kill or harm animals purposefully, just as they should not purposefully harm other humans.

The concept of animals rights is based on the belief that nonhuman animals have similar interests and rights to those of human beings. It would be considered, not only unlawful, but inhumane to hunt, test, and use humans for medical research. However, we do exactly that to nonhuman animals in hopes of creating a better and safer life for existing humans. Do we do it because human beings, as opposed to nonhuman animals, hold a special place in nature? That human good is the only good? Or is because human individuals hold true to the “top of of food

What makes hunting and trapping for sport is that people that do hunt or trap are seeing these animals as renewable resources. They can reproduce without the help of humans; however, that does not give humans the right to use them as a natural resource. It is a failure to not treat them with respect. One of the main concerns for defending hunting is that it is not different than what wildlife does to each other. The rights view sees that animals not moral agents, and have different morals than what humans have. Then only have to kill what they need to. The still cause harm, but do no moral harm in the logic of the rights view.

backs and they were dragging their hind legs (Reed 38). While in the lab, the

Argument for Animal Rights The argument for animal rights assumes that animals posses their own lives and deserve to be assigned rights in order to protect their wellbeing. This view insists that animals are not merely goods utilised only to benefit mankind and they should be allowed to choose how they want to live their lives, free from the constraints of man. But if animals are given absolute rights, then surely they shouldn’t be allowed to kill each other, as this would be a violation of these rights.

The stress of handling, confinement and isolation alters the animal's mental stability and introduces yet another experimental variable that makes any results from testing even less valuable to human helping. In many cases, drugs and other substances are given to the test animals but studies have shown considerable differences in the effects of these drugs on different species.

Non-human animals are given rights only because of their interactions with human beings. Without involvement with humans, animals do not deserve rights. It is through this interaction with humans that animals are even given moral consideration. We do not give rights to a rock simply because it is a creation of Mother Nature, similarly non-human animals do not have rights unless it is in regards to humans. As pointed out by Jan Narveson "morality is a sort of agreement among rational, independent, self-interested persons who have something to gain from entering into such an agreement" (192). In order to have the ability to obtain rights one must be consciously able to enter into an agreement, non-human animals are