Arguments For The Murder Of Animals

In “The Animals: Practicing Complexity”, the idea of morals and ethics is brought to question. Michael Pollan offers the idea of giving animals a better life before they are killed for food. He depicts a farm where the animals are used as a natural sort of farm machinery that never needs its oil changed and when they are done working can be eaten (Pollan 350). This concept makes killing animals for food morally acceptable. By changing the treatment of the animals before they are killed the suffering aspect is eliminated. It is almost as if people would be able to give the animals a purposeful life before being used as a source of nutrition. The morality and ethics could then be justified. However, this simple idea is more complex then it may

However, if the animals were treated well and were killed painlessly, that would not be morally wrong because, in this case, eating meat is only wrong when the animals are not treated as well as they could be. Singer believes that every sentient being should receive equal consideration, but he is aware that humans and non-human animals do not deserve the same rights because different beings have different interests (Singer 149). An example Singer gives is that it would not be wrong to deny dogs the right to vote because dogs are incapable of understanding the significance of voting, so they cannot have the right to vote, but it would be wrong to deny a dog’s interest in not suffering since dogs have a strong interest in avoiding pain (Singer 149).

The treatment of animals on slaughterhouse farms get treated like they have no use, when they are of great use to humans. Animals should not get treated like they are useless. The workers that treat animals poorly need to be fired. They are being inhumane and unreasonable. Those animals that are suffering are doing it to provide a meal on millions of people’s tables. The way we kill animals makes no sense. Think about being in those animals positions. What would you want to change if people were skinning you alive, or pounding your head to the ground so you’ll die?

Consumers of factory-farmed meat support the mistreatment and suffering of animals on factory farms. It is not that humans and nonhumans should be treated identical, rather that animals ought to have the same basic principle of equality as humans. In “All Animals are Equal,” Peter Singer clarifies “the basic principle of equality does not require equal or identical treatment; it requires equal consideration” (Singer, 29). This still begs the question, what makes farm animals worthy of moral consideration? One answer is that animals have the ability to suffer. The capacity for suffering, as Singer suggests, is a “prerequisite for having interests at all” (Singer, 34). Singer asserts “the capacity for suffering and enjoyment is, however, not only necessary, but also sufficient for us to say that a being has interests – at an absolute minimum, an interest is not suffering” (Singer, 34). This claim is entirely plausible, as it is clear that the animals in factory farms have the capacity to suffer. Even so, there is a common

Hunting is not a form of animal cruelty because its serves a purpose to the population of certain animals. Animal cruelty is when people force pain on animals which lead them to suffer a slow agonizing death. This is a large moral issue today that just keeps growing into a nationwide problem. For instance, morally humans believe it is okay to harm non-domesticated animals rather than domesticated animals such as our pets. Domesticated animals and non-domesticated animals still have behavioral instincts. A domesticated dog will attack if threatened and a non-domesticated wolf would do the same. Thinking of ourselves as the dominate species is untrue in the state that animals kill other animals for food, just as we as hunters do and anyone who eats animal products. Many will ask what the differences are between hunting, poaching, and true animal cruelty.

     Conversely, there exist equally as many challenges to raise had the ethicist taken the alternate position that animals have equal value and accordingly that their pleasure is impermissibly infringed upon when they are killed for human interest. Arguments could be presented for a bevy of actions taken on a daily basis by society as a whole. One might address the fact that using animal testing for the advancement of medicine has benefits that outweigh the pains. Similarly, while the development of land effectively kills the previously animal inhabitants, it is an accepted result that society has displayed it is willing to disregard. In each of these cases, the majority of society condones such behavior, as evidenced by their

Humans have always had a complicated relationship with non-human animals. This relationship has always benefitted the needs of humans, with little consideration for animals’ needs. Some animals are tortured for entertainment, some are butchered for food and others are taken from their habitat and family, and forced to be pets for humans. These are all examples of the ways humans have exploited animals for their own satisfaction. Hal Herzog’s essay “Animals Like Us” describes the complicated relationship that humans and animals have, and how difficult it is to determine what is ethical when dealing with animals. Jonathan Safran Foer makes a similar observation in his essay “The Fruits of Family Trees” of the ethical issues in the

In Peter Singer's article all animals are equal, Peter Singer argues for the moral considerability of animals. His main argument boils down to, we ought to extend to nonhuman animals the same equality of consideration that we extend human beings. Now whether or not eating meat is morally justifiable is a good question. In this paper, I will argue that it is not morally justifiable to eat meat, however with the exception of a few alternatives. The immorality of killing an animal for its flesh is morally wrong, for example most of the meat that we consume in urban modern societies is from factory farms. Factory farms employ extremely cruel farming tactics, for example putting up to six chickens in a single cage this gives them barely enough room to move or even open the wings. Chickens for example raised in factory

Over the years the issues of animal cruelty in factory farms has became a major issue, because of the thriving meat industry. The issues regarding animal cruelty are important because it concerns fundamental moral and economic questions in respect to the way animals are treated, before being brutally slaughtered and consumed by americans daily. The topic of animal cruelty raises multiple differing arguments, many concerning religion and a person's geological location in the world. By considering the arguments made by people who believe animal cruelty to be morally acceptable, and researching the verified practices taking place in factory farms today it will be clear that in the United States, factory farming is a cruel and unnecessary practice.

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.

In Peter Singer’s piece “All Animals Are Equal”, he begins his argument by an in-depth consideration of notable rights movements, such as the Black Liberation and women’s rights movement, then segues into the justification for equal consideration of rights regarding animals, before finally exposing the immorality behind factory farming and animal cruelty. According to Singer, “the basic principle of equality…is equality of consideration; and equal consideration for different beings may lead to different treatment and different rights” (Singer 1974, 506). Based off proposed animals’ rights to equal consideration, Singer formats his main arguments against factory farming and the mistreatment of animals in general. These arguments stem from

The matters pertaining the animal rights and their suffering for the sake of harvesting their flesh have been an issue with a variety of perspectives. Puppies, Pigs and People, a piece by Alastair Norcross, bring to question the treatment towards livestock and what is immoral about the process. The argument proclaims that since we (humans) do not require meat as part of our diet then the exploit of raising animals for consumption (humanly or not) is immoral. On a counter side of the argument, a philosopher, Carl Cohen, states in his work that animals possess no moral rights thus we have the option to eat them despite if it is immoral or not. In the case of who I believe offers the most optimum solution, I believe Cohen is the most accurate in his summation of animal’s roles in our world. I will argue that people have no obligation to abstain from eating animals, but morally speaking animals should be kept in humane living conditions in order for it to meet our obligations towards these creatures.

Many people who think that the way that we treat animals in the process of raising those for human consumption are wrong never stop, to think what they can do to stop this problem from further occurring. Furthermore, they make impassioned calls for more “humanely” raised meat. Instead to soothe their consciences they shop for “free range” meat, and eggs; which has no importance. Even if an animal is raised ‘free range” it still lives s life of pain and suffering that all ends with a butcher’s knife. Although many know that over 53 billion land animals are slaughtered each year for human utilization they still tend to eat this meat with no problem. The simple explanation is that many don’t care what happens to animals as long as they are eating and healthy. If they did care then they would what could be a difficult choice; to go without eating meat and selling it in any form.

We are a nation of meat eaters. We are socialized from a young age to consume high levels of animal products. This deeply ingrained meat-eating tradition is a big part of the American standard diet. A visit to the local grocery store shows that there is no shortage of animal products. Isle by isle you see a plethora of meats, neatly packed and ready to be cooked, dairy products neatly shelved, and even candies that contain animal by-products. This is an omnivore’s utopia, allowing for a lifestyle that involves the overconsumption of meats and animal by-products. The rampant meat industry has managed to condition people to disassociate the meats in our grocery markets and the animals from which they came. Most people have become unaware omnivores, consuming whatever meats are available to them. This shift of moral degradation is evident in how we process and consume our meats. We have become a selfish society that values our own convenience and affordability of meat rather than the consideration of the animal. This begs the question, is eating meat inherently wrong and should we forbid meat consumption under any and all circumstances? To fully address this issue, we must first define the moral status of animals. So, are animals equal to humans in worth and value and should they receive similar treatment?

“Animal, Vegetable, Miserable” written by Gary Steiner, a philosophy professor at Bucknell University is all about one key argument, “we should re-evaluate the ideas we have inherited from Western philosophy that human animals are morally superior to nonhuman animals.” Steiner does his best to open the eyes of the reader to how he believes that using animals for everything from steak to toothpaste is inhumane and crazy. In this essay I will argue Steiner’s ideas using the response letters that were sent to Steiner as well as my own personal views on the topic. Unlike Steiner, I believe that just because humans are mentally superior to every other animal on the planet, that doesn’t mean that we have to supress our primal instincts in oreder to feel better about ourselves. I believe predation is natural and that god gave us a stomach capable of processing meat and vegetation because that is what we need to live a full and healthy life, and i believe that if god considered murder of animals immoral he wouldnt have put so many predators on the planet.