The Question of Existence: How Different Are We?

Peter Singer has written many works in support of animal rights. In one of his greatest works Animal Liberation, Singer goes into great depths on how similar in biology animals are to human beings. Another strong point was not only the biological resemblance, but also the behavioral tendencies and traits humans and nonhuman species share. There are two major areas of focus that Singer puts emphasis on that need to be recognized for the purposes of my argument. One focus is this utilitarian approach that only the human species carry: the belief of ethical and morally good behavior should be extended to the consideration of nonhuman species. The second focus that is the basis for my argument is Singer’s argument against a huge human social construct labeled speciesism.

Despite being ‘cruel’ in order to meet the requirements of ‘Australians for Animal Rights’, humans have considered the report ‘alternative’ and ‘important’, compounding the agency’s apparent guilt. This attack on humans invites both readers and carnivores by choice to support the tough action done by the Australians for Animal Rights in defence of the animal society. The tone of the article becomes less forceful when explaining the Australians for Animal Rights’s response. Talk of ‘compassionate people’ and ‘breaking the law’ gives way to a more conciliatory tone, reporting an agreement between humans and the Australians for Animal Rights in order to ‘justify’ to ‘damage’, risks and ‘poor creatures’ involved. Jo’s use of language is most likely intended to encouraging the readers to accept their ‘self-serving purposes’ and to perceive of ‘animal rights’ as a

A quick comparison to Vicki Hearne’s “What’s Wrong with Animal Rights?” to Peter Singer’s “Speciesism and Moral Status”, might indicate Hearne’s argument is stronger due to her strategic and effective use of emotional appeals (i.e. pathos). These appeals allow Hearne to connect quickly and easily with her audience. Hearne is also quite clever in terms of stressing her occupation as an animal trainer. However, after a swift comparison of the two articles, it is evident that Singer’s “Speciesism and Moral Status” offers readers a stronger and more valid argument. Both Singer and Hearne are arguing their position on animal rights and the extent of human involvement. Since Hearne’s article is primarily based on her attempt to persuade her

These two features earlier are examples that we can see with our naked eyes, but the DNA make up that we cannot see with our eyes alone are also laid out the same as well. In the evolutionary pathway, the genes that turn on and off for humans and fish are related through the instructions on how they function. All living things with limbs have in common the Sonic hedgehog gene (Shubin, p. 53). The Sonic hedgehog gene can control the development of the limbs in these creatures. To determine if the development of vertebrate animals can be interpreted in the same way, or have the same effect, the injection of vitamin A was used to inject into a shark, mice, and chicken embryos to see if the results were the same. The results turned out that the injection of vitamin A has indeed changed the development of limbs in these embryos. The effects cause the shark to have a mirror image of its fin, and the mice and chicken have duplication of bones in the limbs (Shubin, p.56-57). It becomes clear of what will happen if

Despite having the same genes in common, difference between siblings is the rule not the exception

In the face of the new terrors of modern warfare, what defines humanness, like compassion and fellowship, begins to deteriorate, suggesting that traditional ways of structuring human experience are no longer accurate (“The Twentieth Century and After” 961). Indeed, modernity’s “great disillusionment” confronted commonly perceived conceptions of humanness (961), causing once staunch human-animal boundaries to become unrecognizable in the face of accelerating change. Modern culture has “managed to extricate itself from nature and the animal” (Cudworth and Hobden 759), leading to beliefs that certain people have “transcended the ‘animal’ within through … a particular kind of culture-civilization” (755). However, the singularly human practice of

The poem, “To a Mouse,” by Robert Burns suggests that humans are their own worst enemy, and although they have the capability to control nature, they should not. While addressing the mouse, an apologetic tone is evident in the text when the speaker mentions “I’m truly sorry man’s dominion has/broken Nature’s social union.” Humans have always imposed their superiority onto nature, and overused resources, while destroying many habitats. The inability for humans depletion to stop has destroyed the bond between nature’s inhabitants and man. Additionally, the friendliness of the speaker is also observed when the speaker refers to the mouth as his “earth born companion.”

In Stanley Benn’s “Egalitarianism and Equal Consideration of Interests”, it is explained that animals and human imbeciles are distinguished not because of fundamental inequality, but solely on the basis that the two subjects are of different species. In regard to animals’ moral rights and the infringement of those rights due to the practice of speciesism, Singer employs a utilitarian style of argument to defend animals’ moral rights; in short, the interests of each being which is involved should be taken into consideration and said interests should be given the same weight as that of another being. Speciesism is morally wrong because it attempts to assign undeserved weight to the interests of beings of separate species, solely based off the difference of species. Naturally, or rather unnaturally, human beings have always awarded themselves the utmost importance due to the idea of human dignity, as in humans occupy the central spot within any earthly ranking. Logically, Singer argues that the practice of speciesism is wrong because the conditions in which it exists are synonymous to the conditions which facilitate racism and sexism, before they had been recognized as

Like previously discussed, FOXP2 is one of the most recent discoveries of a gene most likely related to language development, however, it is also involved in language impairment, influencing a new area of study within the genetic and evolutionary anthropology field. The authors of “Identification of FOXP2 Truncation as a Novel Cause of Developmental Speech and Language Deficits” state that this gene has derived within the past 200,000 years as the result of positive selection, which aligns with Pinker’s theory that there is a gene responsible for language development that has survived natural selection. The article states that because of this, FOXP2 “may have undergone human-specific modifications at a time when spoken language was emerging”

The idea that our genetic code controls most aspects of our lives is arguable. Nowadays, scientists (cell biologists, neuroscientists, etc.) are uncovering concrete evidence that are genetic code is only one of the many complex system of the human body that sways our lives. According to one new study, (“Do

In his article “All Animals Are Equal,” Peter Singer discusses the widely-held belief that, generally speaking, there is no more inequality in the world, because all groups of formerly oppressed humans are now liberated. However, it often goes without notice that there are groups of nonhuman animals that continue to face unequal treatment, such as those that are consumed or used as scientific test subjects. Singer’s article criticizes the belief that because humans are generally more intelligent than nonhuman animals, then all humans are superior to all nonhuman animals. Singer argues that intelligence is an arbitrary trait to base the separation of humans and nonhumans, and declares that the only trait that one can logically base moral value is the capacity to have interests, which is determined by a creature’s ability to suffer. Singer explains that in order to stay consistent with the basic principle of equality, anything that has the capacity to suffer ought to have its needs and interests recognized, just as humans’ needs and interests are currently recognized through what he calls “equal consideration.” In this paper, I will explain Singer’s notion of equal consideration as the only relevant sense of equality and why it applies to the rights of both human and nonhuman species that are

Offspring differ somewhat from their parents and from one another. Instructions for development are passed from parents to offspring in thousands of discrete genes, each of which is now known to be a segment of a molecule of DNA. This essay will explore some of the reasons behind how and why these differences in appearance arise, from the base sequence of DNA through to the observed phenotype.

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

The claim, humans are the only animal that can acquire language has been the subject of much debate as scientists have investigated language use by non-human species. Researchers have taught apes, monkeys, parrots and wild children with various systems of human-like communication. Thus, one might ask, what is human language? According to Ulla Hedeager, A universally accepted definition of language or the criteria for its use does not exist. This is one of the reasons for the disagreement among scientists about whether non-human species can use a language. In nature, researchers find numerous types of communication systems, several of which appear to be unique to their possessors, and one of them is the language of the human species. Basically, the purpose of communication is the preservation, growth, and development of the species (Smith and Miller 1968:265). The ability to exchange information is shared by all communication systems, and a number of non-human systems share some features of human language. The fundamental difference between human and non-human communication is that animals are believed to react instinctively, in a stereotyped and predictable way. Generally, human behavior is under the voluntary control,

Genes build the phenotype of humans as well as the underlying genotype. Competition between cultural genes leads to varied success of genetic determinism. It can therefore be said that learnt traits such as those espoused within a specific culture, can produce what may seem to be the genetic genotype of an individual. Genes are not always advantageous in the