PHI1630 Contemporary Ethical Problems - Shanghai Summer 2019

Do animals have rights

The author in “immoral and moral uses of animals” argue about the moral questions about how human treat to animals. He asks questions such as can we do immoral things to animals or do animals have rights? He first tries to consider the problem from rationality and ability to communicate. One opinion is “rationality and the ability to communicate meaningfully with others are the most commonly mentioned differentiating characteristics.” Since human can think, talk and act rationally which animals can’t, animals should not be considered as human and have rights. Based on this argument, we can treat animals like nonliving objects. However, the argument also has some disadvantages. “The trouble is that not all human beings are rational.” People who have mental problems, brain-damage human and even three-year-old child all are irrational, and should we treat them not as human beings?

The second argument is based on Aristotle which is “Man’s tyranny over animals is natural because his superiority as an animal determines for him the dominant position in the natural scale of things.” Just like what write in the Bible, God approves us to take control all living animals. If we give up the dominance over animals, we will deny our nature. The problem with this argument is that we avoid slavery and child labor, not because they are unnatural, but because slaves and children have their own will. So, do animals have their own will and our act to them is immoral?

Baitianyu    Johnny Bai

I think some points are wrong in his arguments. Rationality and the ability to communicate meaningfully with others are the most commonly mentioned differentiating characteristics. You can’t apply this to determine whether animals have rights. First of all, this idea was conducted by people. We can’t apply this to all animals and make it a standard to judge other animals. Also, I think animals have rationality and they could communicate with their own spices. I have seen a lot of examples about animals which show they have rationality. For example, some hunters used to hunt goats for earning money. They forced goats to the cliff. At that time, hunters thought goats could not run away at all. However, goats made a very different decision. They chose to jump across the cliff. The old goats will sacrifice themselves as a place for other young goat to jump. They did not communicate with each other and soon make actions. The old goats just give the opportunities to young goats. Young goats have more abilities to make contributions to the species. From this story, we can figure out that goats are rational. Also, you can not deny their abilities to communicate at all. We just do not understand at all. It is same we could not understand them.

Neither one person, nor any number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human creature of ripe years, that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to do with it. It is from Mill in page 385. I think he is half right and half wrong. It is true that parents are the first teachers for kids. During this period, parents tell kids how to perform in any situations. Kids always do what their parents tell them to do. In this way, kids become the creature of ripe years. They do not react by their wills or wishes. It’s the truth. In my opinion, it is good for kids to follow their parents’ directions in their early periods for the simple reason that they have no idea what the morality is. They may act what they like. Most of actions are impolite and may offend other people unconsciously. For example, kids are likely to argue with other kids to get one toy. They do not know how to share with others at all. In this situation, it is necessary to be taught by adults for kids. By learning, they could make fewer mistakes and act politely. Sometimes they just have no idea to deal things in a more proper way.
Also, kids could not make decisions by themselves wisely at all. They are more likely to do things they like. They will be easily attracted by the candy advertisement or some new toys. They are very curious to all things when they are young and naïve. However, when they grow up, they can make their own decisions by themselves. I do not think things they learn when they are kids will affect their decisions. If so, everyone would not be so struggling when they need to make decisions. They have already known how to deal with these situations. For example, Jobs, the founder of Apple, quit the Stanford University. He must make the decision for himself and his own benefits. He thought it was useless to spend time in university. He wanted to do something cool. I do not think parents will teach their kids to quit university at all. In this way, he did it for his own benefits. Ripe years only help people to know values and norms. However, every individual must make their own decision by themselves.