There is no question that since the beginning of humanity, animals have not had any rights in any way. The interactions between people and both domesticated and wild creatures are defined by the special abilities only granted to humans. The explanation is that, unlike animals, which exist only to survive, humans are moral beings with the capacity to act in accordance with their sense of right and wrong as well as logic. Animals lack rights and are therefore not deemed deserving of this privilege because we are unable to challenge their intelligence in relation to their actions. However, this does not imply that because animals do not have rights, people should hurt and mistreat them. In the last few decades, there has been concern over animal mistreatment in most parts of the world especially among the developing nations, which has led to the emergence of some activists groups. These groups believe that with no rights animals are facing challenges in the hands of humans who feel they do not need to have special handling. Michael Pollan in his article, “Animal’s Place,” he presents Peter Singer’s unpretentious but difficult to contradict argument, which discusses the interaction between humans and animals based on equality grounds. Constructed on equality, every individual will realize that they are not equal; “Some are more talented and skilled, better-looking and smarter than other persons in the society. The idea behind this statement is to make people understand that the interest of every person in the community should receive equal treatment irrespective of their capability and appearance. Consequently, the problems and questions brought up in the society today are whether animals should have a well-established relationship with humans based on equality. For instance, if a person uses their intelligence to take advantage of the weak in the society, how can humans not use the same reasoning on animals with no knowledge of questioning their actions? Pollan ponders over the issue and ethics of consuming meat among the humans and questions the principles of meat processing in the society. He asserts that the loss of contact between humans and animals when considering the slaughtering and conveying the view of the public is the reason behind ill-treatment witnessed among animals used for food. Some of the proponent ideas postulated concerning meat eating are that animals on the farm do not consider any other life other than stretching limbs and wings (Pollan, 07). Besides, turning around as opposed to humans who always contemplate on doing exercises to keep their body fit and healthy. However, the animals used for meat have an instinct to defend themselves from other wild animals as well as humans.
Antagonists also point to the niche of humans in the natural hierarchy in an attempt to contradict the ideology of vegetarianism. The opponents claim that the humans are on the top of the food chain and therefore animals would be vulnerable to predators in the wild just the same way they seem on the farm. Nonetheless, Pollan attempt to reason against this vague declaration put forth by vegetarianism. He ponders over the inaccuracy of humans to maintain the moral principles based on the natural order since manslaughter and rape are also natural demand, which they do not approve in the society. Moreover, animals kill each other to survive in the wild as opposed to the humans who kill for food. Human beings establish their interaction with either wild or domesticated animals on food chain while animal-animal relations is on the grounds of survival of the fittest. Additionally, Pollan emphasizes that creatures in the wild do not have other options to eating meat when compared to the humans who have various alternatives at their disposal. He believes the pain and suffering faced by animals are established on the fact that complex animals are bound just like the humans for an analogous evolutionary objective. Likewise, the strain between human and animals differ significantly in several aspects of language and therefore opinions concerning thoughts and capacity to imagine other alternatives to the current actuality significantly differ. According to humans, suffering is a pain increased by feelings such as sadness, anxiousness, loss, shame, self-pity, humiliation just to mention a few, which requires the aspect of self-consciousness that nearly most animals lack. For that reason, they do not accord the quality of suffering to animals who they consider do not have the self-awareness instinct to define their emotions in the wild or farm. Even though animals similarly feel pain as humans have suggested, they get over it in a manner that human beings cannot support. However, the suffering encountered by a person allows them to acknowledge full consequences of castration, expecting it and think about its outcomes in their life. Therefore, representing an agony of a particular order bestowed among the species of humans, an ability that animals are lacking. The ability of people to use language as a means of communication also defines the rift that exists between their interactions with animals in the farm and wild. Word makes pain experienced more endurable to people than animals. For instance, making a trip to a dentist may be tormenting to an ape or dog who do not understand the objective and duration of the practice. Accordingly, persons have more talent and intellectual capacity to argue and comprehend why specific events happen in their lives than the animals in the wild.
However, there is a belief that humans are animals. They exist within the same but a complex kingdom that encompasses other classes of living creatures provided with central nervous systems built in a much comparable way as that of humans with skeletal and immunological orders. Thus, biologist place the human in the kingdom Animalia because they have almost similar features and characteristics to the other creatures who use the four limbs to move from place to place. There is no need for a surprise among the human as to why they have developed advanced cognitive, communicative, learning, timing and problem-solving abilities and therefore use this advantage to consider themselves superior. A great number of animal learning studies over the last few decades have indicated that particular species of faunas have demonstrated the timing, cognitive, learning and emotional capabilities just like their counterparts in the kingdom. Subsequently, the issue concerning the morality of meat production also brings questions given that animals too can similarly express emotions to the humans. Most scholars found it difficult to argue against the capacity of animals to encounter and express fear as well as playing throughout their youths to adulthood. Surprisingly, some researchers have exposed that some wild animal such as elephants have demonstrated grief mood especially during the death of a family member (Ananthaswamy, 03; Aronianpour, 04). When an elephant dies, family members come together to attempt to recover the dead and in most cases end up living beside the carcass for several days. They try to reach out and use their trunks to touch the remains hoping to revive the dead elephant because of the grief and sorrow in their hearts. Likewise, researchers have witnessed sea lioness wailing when a predator eats their pups in the wild world (Sanders, 05). The evidence provided by these researchers leaves little doubt that indeed animals understand the concept of death and are emotionally disrupted by such investable events. Peter Singer, one of the Animal Liberation authors, considers a very valid point regarding the relationship between animals and humans. Peter Singer believes the issue is not whether animals can reason, or talk but whether they can show emotional attachment to suffering they encounter or subjected to by humans.
Animals have the intelligence of sensing and expecting impending danger, as well as the ability to experience terror and fear trained on their expectations of something good or bad, is coming their way. Furthermore, some animals are capable of having an appalling feel of fear based on what they perceive as well as hearing the misery of others within the family in the same way as humans. Consequently, scholars and biologists should assume the behavior of each of the species in the kingdom Animalia based on the niche. Although sexual impotence may not be significant to the monkeys as it is with the humans, animals deserve respect from the superior creatures. Even though Pollan asserts that there is debate over the difference in the functionality of the central nervous system of human from that of animals, there are significant similarities that make these two living creatures analogous. The reaction to pain is one of the aspects that animals share with the humans bringing the commonality of the two beings. The resemblance in the establishment of the brain, which receives and transfers discomfort reactions to other organs of the body, is quite similar across all the species within the animal kingdom. Additionally, all living creatures in the kingdom are equipped with a flight or fight reception when they encounter something frightening in the course of their movement or activity. The highly advanced mechanism (flight or fight) to sustain life is the evolution’s scheme to save humans and animals from dying when they react to something creating discomfort (Radford, 35).
Works Cited
Ananthaswamy, Anil. “What Separates Us from other Animals?” Review. 2014. Retrieved on November 24, 2017 from: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129531-100-what-separates-us-from-other-animals/
Aronianpour, Hila. “Humans vs. Animals.” 2006. Retrieved on November 24, 2017 from: http://www.csun.edu/~hka90416/paper2.html
Pollan, Michael. “Teacher’s Guide to The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A natural History of Four Meals.” Retrieved on November 24, 2017 from: http://www.penguin.com/static/pdf/teachersguides/OmnivoresDilemmaTG.pdf.
Radford, Tim. "Human Evolution: Us and Them." Nature, vol. 503, no. 7474, 07 Nov. 2013, pp. 34-35.
Sanders, Clinton R. “The Sociology of Human-Animal Interaction and Relationship.” 2006. Retrieved on November 24, 2017 from: https://networks.h-net.org/node/16560/pages/32228/sociology-human-animal-interaction-and-relationships-clinton-r-sanders
