Jeremy Rifkin A Change Of Heart About Animals Summary

Jeremy Rifkin wants us to believe that animals are similar to humans. I personally think that I agree and disagree with his argument. One reason why I agree with Rifkin is because I believe animals have feelings, just like Rifkin said “They feel pain, suffer, and experience stress, affection, excitement, and even love.” (Rifkin 33). On the other hand, I disagree with Jeremy’s argument because I don’t think we should go out of our way to pay more attention to these animals feelings when we have millions of children that don’t even get the amount of attention these pigs are getting.

In the article, “A Change of Heart about Animals”, by Jeremy Rifkin argues about how scientists have shown and proven that there are many similarities between animals and humans. Jeremy Rifkin believes animals should be treated with more empathy and that the animals should be treated more like humans. I agree with this statement and that they should be treated better with more animal rights.

I honestly think that Jeremy Rifkin had some very significant findings when he published “A Change of Heart about Animals”. If it wasn't for Rifkin many people like myself would have not known that animals share some of the same traits as humans like grief, self awareness, and the need for affection. Everyone needs to know that animals aren't some type of toy but rather a living creature with feelings. Rifkin wants his readers to believe that humans and animals are much alike and want some of the same rights for them but is that a good idea…

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.

Animals have similar characteristics to humans in terms of their physical and psychological states, thus we have a moral obligation to free them from unnecessary pain. More ethical alternatives to animal testing are more cost-effective, quicker and more reliable.

Furthermore, Rifkin discusses the cognitive abilities of animals, by informing us that learning is passed on from parent to offspring. Rifkin says that most animals engaged all kind of learning, Rifkin in paragraph 15 wants to make us get in our emotions and he says, “So what does all of this portend for the way we treat our fellow creatures?” Rifkin believes that a lot of animals are in the most inhumane

In discussion of inhumane treatment, a controversial issue is whether animals are entitled to their rights. While some argue that only humans have rights, others contend that animals should have the same privileges as humans. The author of “A Change of Heart about Animals,” Jeremy Rifkin, claims that animals should have better treatment. Rifkin rhetorically changes one’s view on this subject without the consent of the reader. Rifkin begins by showing the animals’ human qualities, then giving a counter statement to common objections, and finally ends it by utilizing negative language.

After reading Jeremy Rifkin’s article, “A Change of Heart about Animals”, I discovered more about animals than I had ever known before. As a former pet owner I know how much owners care for their pets and consider them to be a part of the family, almost like a child to them, so they are treated with kindness and are loved to the fullest. What I did not know was how intelligent animals actually are. Rifkin does a great job at expressing this by demonstrating to the audience facts that they had possibly not known or heard of before. For example, he describes how crows can make tools out of a wire, gorillas can learn sign language and have an average score on an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test, and how pigs can often feel lonely and go into depression.

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.

In the article “A Change of Heart about Animals” (2003), published by Los Angeles Times, author Jeremy Rifkin discusses how our fellow creatures are more like humans than we had ever imagined. Using academic diction, Rifkin develops his main idea with evidence such as Caledonian crows being able to make tools to complete a task. These birds were given the task of grabbing meat out of a tube with a choice of two tools, a hooked wire and a straight wire. Both of the birds were able to complete the task, however, one bird showed exceptional cognitive abilities when she bent a straight wire into a hook to grab the meat. This suggests a logos persuasive appeal that broadens the reader’s awareness of the conceptual abilities of crows. Rifkin’s use

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?

Over 100 million animals are killed in U.S laboratories for experimentation and chemical drug, food and cosmetics testing. In “A change of heart” by Jeremy Rifkin focuses on telling readers, how animals have feelings, think and are really smart. He gives examples and shows evidence on how they are more like us than we imagined. How the way that animals are treated is wrong. There is no doubt that we should stop animal cruelty.

Jeremy Rifkin had made such impact on readers through his article “A Change of Heart about Animals”. Not only did he inform us the reality that animals do have feelings, he also unbounded the label we had long given to the animals, thus fully altered our perspectives about these fellow creatures. In regard to the influence, I myself am not excluded. As a matter of fact, since I was a kid, I have started raising pets. As long as it seems, I have built myself an assumption about these domestic animals as they don’t differ much from humans’ natural behavior in life. They have feelings, family and awareness of surroundings.

To the editor of “A change of heart about animals” Los Angeles Times, September 1, 2003: thank you for the well-written article by Jeremy Rifkin on animal emotions and cognitive abilities. Animal emotions are, indeed, important. When watching the full documentary last week on Koko, the gorilla who can, do sign language, and understand several thousand English words made me eager to write you. I agree with your statement that animals are more like us than we imagine in your opening sentence. We do need to respect animals around us because we take them for granted lots of times.

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