Do Animals Have Rights?
Throughout time, animals have been used by humans in several capacities: faithful companions, hard labor, food, transportation, product testing and medical experimentation. We as humans view animals as existing only to serve us as a means to an end. Sure humans look at animals and think they are cute and cuddly and even take up animals as pets and treat them as members of their own family, but in the end, we tend to look at animals as being put on this earth to serve our needs when need be. But, do we have a certain obligation to treat animals as more than just a means to an end? Do animals have certain unalienable rights that humans have been denying them after all these years? There are many people that believe that animals do have rights and that we should treat them in a humane way, just as we are expected to treat other humans. Others, like Immanuel Kant, believes that we have no direct duties to animals, meaning they should be treated as a means only, but that our duty to animals is an indirect duty towards the whole of humanity. Kant takes up the position that our duties towards animals are indirect duties towards humanity. In his analysis, Kant says it's okay to ask, "Why do animals exist?" But to ask, "Why doe
But, as has already been presented, Kant discourages torture of animals not because it hurts the animal, but because it indirectly hurts humanity. To prove his point, Kant points to an example of a dog and his master. On the other hand, though, if the master decides to shoot the dog after he is not useful anymore, then the master fails not in his duty towards the dog, but in his duty toward mankind because his act is inhuman and cruel. By contrast, since animals are not rational beings and we don't have to respect that quality, it is acceptable to use them to achieve your goal. Kant comes to his conclusion on his statement that "our duties towards animals are indirect duties towards mankind" (RT, p. In other words, we must always respect the rationality of humans and never use them to achieve our own purposes. This view, by grouping animals in with mere things, goes along with Kant's argument on why we have no direct duties to animals and must always treat them as a means only. Kant then shows, with the aid of the engravings of Hogarth, how this can develop from a young age: a child being cruel to a dog or cat by pinching its tail, followed by a grown man running over a child with his cart and concluding with the heinous act of murder. Kant says that by treating humans as an ends-in-themselves, we respect their rationality and never manipulate them to achieve our purposes. Animals are not rational beings, according to Kant, so we must not show them the same duties of striving to further their ends like we do humans since their ends are a means to our ends. 191) based on his 2nd formulation of his Categorical Imperative which states, "Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only" (EMP, p. In fact, Kant says that we may use animals any way we want and we don't even have a duty not to torture them.
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