What is wrong with reacting emotionally to the suffering of animals?Is the suffering of animals inferior to the suffering that humans would feel in their place? Animal suffering is completely unnecessary, because adults don't need dairy products or meat for a healthy meal at all, and least of all in the excessive amounts in which we consume them nowadays. Are animals our equals?In his book "Animal Liberation" Peter Singer devotes many pages to examples proving that animals are equal to humans and therefore have rights. At Animal Freedom we say that animals have rights
-a priori-. They don't have to prove they
deserve them first. We also say that animal rights are
really human rights, meant for humans to be able to
talk to other people about their conduct towards animals. "Pity remains the same emotion, whether one feels it for people or for a fly". Leo Tolstoi It is in some people's interest to award a lower status to animals. These people
do things or have done things that harm animals. For instance
eating meat from industrial farming, or having their pets
put down by vets to save the expense of treatment. They
justify their behavior by telling themselves that animals
are not people and that they are of a lower order. This
tendency toward justification is nestled inside human
genes, as it were: conquerors treat losers as slaves,
white people treat black people the same way, and men
feel superior to women. But it is not so securely nestled
in the genes that we cannot get rid of this tendency.
Civilization is learning, and includes among other things
the acceptance and treatment of others as equals. It requires
even more inner growth to treat animals as equals and
still respect their freedom. |