Do Animals Have Souls?

In the article, “Hooked on a Myth” by Victoria Braithwaite, Braithwaite wrote about how fishes have the ability to feel pain. Until reading this article, I was not made aware of the idea that fishes can be smart nor that they can respond emotionally to a stimulus. In the article, Braithwaite thoroughly explained the reasons on why we should respect fishes by giving compelling evidence. Braithwaite argued that fishes feel emotions due to a part of their brain that functions similarly to our amygdala and hippocampus. This proves that fishes have the capability of feeling different type of emotions. She also claimed that fishes are smart since they have the cognitive ability to learn different and unique type of skills that can help them survive. And Lastly, Braithwaite argued that fishes can feel pain due to their nociceptors that allow them to detect pain.

Many things do have feelings when you think they don't have feelings. Many things are not exactly what it seems. Animals have many similarities and differences to humans. Starting with the story the pod.

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.

First, we must determine what emotions are. Are they different for every being, or felt in the same way? Merriam-Webster defines emotion as “a conscious mental reaction (as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body.” As award-winning scientist Mark Bekoff states in his book The Emotional Lives of Animals, emotions are psychological phenomena that help in behavioral management and control (6). Another word that I will use from this point on to describe the event of cognitive feelings and emotions in animals is sentience. Again Merriam-Webster states that sentience is “the capacity to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively.”

The question of the correct ethical treatment of animals has been a topic of many heated debates. The basis of this discussion arises numerous premises that justifies the treatment of animals. Whether animal do in fact have a sentient? And what is distinctive about humanity such that humans are thought to have moral status and non-human do not? Providing an answer to the correct ethical treatment of animals has become increasingly paramount among society as well as philosophers.

Contrary to what we might think, animals share similar characteristics with us in terms of their physical and psychological states. Jeremy Rifkin, author of twenty books on the impact of scientific and technological changes on the society and the environment, writes in his op-ed piece “A Change of Heart about Animals,” research which supports animals have behavioral, mental, and emotional states. Koko, a gorilla, was taught how to use sign language and has mastered more than 1,000 signs and can understand several thousand English words. To express their sense of individuality, orangutans use mirrors to explore parts of their bodies they can 't otherwise see. A common misconception is animals can 't feel anything, meaning they don’t understand suffering. However, elephants appear to experience grief by mourning for the dead and standing next to their dead kin for days (Rifkin). Also according to Victoria Braithwaite, a Professor of Fisheries and Biology interested in animal cognition, studies in her article "Hooked on a Myth" suggests nociceptors, specialized nerve endings that alert creatures to feel pain, are found in the mouths of fish. This study proves animals have the ability to experience pain. Rifkin’s

Since we cannot communicate in an effective way to these animals, some people find it hard to believe that animals really do experience subjectivity. However, it seems that every person can understand that animals such as dogs, cats, and primates seek pleasure and avoid pain. These two ideas are contradictions of each other because if an animal seeks to enhance its subjective experience, it must follow that they do have a similar subjective experience as humans. Not surprisingly, just like the mentally retarded children that were previously mentioned, even if these animals cannot solve complex math problems, read or write, or compose music that these animals are still subjects of life. It follows that if these animals are subjects of life that they should also fall into the domain of equality of

I think every single day we are personally connected with animals. We eat animals for food, wear animal skins for clothes, own animals as pets, use animals for recreation, and experiment on animals to test drugs and consumer products. We are aware of this, yet we naturally give little thought to the overwhelming number of animals that we use in these ways, and what the animals themselves might be suffering as we use them for our purposes. While no non-human animal on this planet has the cultured rational abilities that we do, many, however, have mental capacities that enable them to experience pain, suffering, and anxiety

The article “A Change of Heart About Animals” written by Jeremy Rifkin informs readers that animals feel emotions very much similar to humans and should be given more rights. I agree with Rifkin’s statement, but to a certain extent.

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

One of the most controversial topics in modern philosophy revolves around the idea of non-human animals being considered human people. Controversy over what makes up an actual person has been long debated. However, society deems it as a set of characteristics. The average person normally does not realize how complicated a question this is, and in fact many scientists, philosophers, and individuals will side differently on this specific topic. I personally do not believe that animals are capable of being human people, but throughout this argumentative paper I will address critical views presented from multiple philosophers on why this seems to be the case.

Do animals feel joy, love, fear, anguish or despair? What ere emotions, and perhaps more importantly, how do scientists prove animals are capable of emotion? Sea lion mothers have often been seen wailing painfully and squealing eerily as they watch their babies being eaten by killer whales. Buffaloes have also been observed sliding playfully across ice, excitedly screaming “Gwaaa.” Emotions are defined broadly as psychological phenomena that help in behavioral management and control. This is a challenging question to researchers who are trying to determine the answer to this question. Through current research by close observation combined with neurobiological research, evidence that animals exhibit fear, joy

The controversy over the rights of animals continues today within the United States. There has always been a question about the emotions of animals. Can animals feel and exhibit emotions in the same way that humans do? Some people agree that animals do show signs of intelligence and emotions like love and pain. After-all there are bird breeds who mate with only one partner during their lifespan giving us the impression

It is as if one says a human who is an experiencing subject of a life must be able to understand and communicate its thoughts. Where do animals fit in? Do we discount them because they do not speak our language and we cannot understand theirs?

What is a soul? The spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal regarded as immortal. Many Philosophers studied the soul in several ways in order to get the point of what is the soul. Although sometimes it is confusing to understand what is meant because it is explained in other ways and used in examples. The Philosopher Aristotle came to the conclusion that the soul is the first grade of actuality of a natural organized body. He uses it in the axe and eye as examples but yes it might be confusing but at the end it will make sense in what he means.