Student Paper #2

What Is Our Moral Obligation To Animals?

It has been said throughout the life of mankind that animals were on the Earth before humans. Even though this is true, humans have taken over as rulers of the Earth. We as human rulers of the Earth do what we please with our kingdom. This includes choosing how to use both plants and animals for whatever we desire. Animals have been used for tests and entertainment for the benefit of humans. There have been some questions asked about animals. For example, do we have a moral obligation to animals and why? I for one, feel that we do have some sort of a moral obligation to animals because I think animals can feel can feel pain, have some of ability to think and have some feelings.

Animals feel pain and we have an obligation not to cause them pair our pleasure. In Peter Singer's article "Do Animals Feel Pain," he talks about mammals and birds and says:

...we know that these animals have nervous systems very like ours, which respond physiologically like ours do when the animal is in circumstances in which we would feel pain: an initial rise of blood pressure, dilated pupils, perspiration, an increased pulse rate, and, if the stimulus continues, a fall in blood pressure (Singer on-line).

This shows us that at least mammals and birds' nervous system responds similarly to humans. If human's nervous system causes people to feel pain, why wouldn't it do the same for animals? I don't think that animals feel pain just like humans, and I think its not a good comparison, humans and animals. Humans feel pain differently than each other, so of course animals will feel pain differently than humans. Animals can probably take pain better than humans. I say this because most animals don't have pampered lives that humans have, so they need to be able to take more, but they feel pain none-the-less. When some animals hurt some part of their body they make a distinctive noise and take extra care so not to further hurt their body. For example, when a dog hurts its' leg it limps so it doesn't put pressure on its' leg. Because I feel that animals feel pain I feel it's important for people not to hurt or torture animals for fun. For example, when I was young a friend of mine had a pet hamster. We took out a blanket and laid it on the floor. Then we took the hamster and put it on the blanket. We then grabbed each side of the blanket, and used it to threw the hamster in the air. We did this over and over until the hamster hit the ceiling. Now that I am older I realize how stupid that was to do. People do stupid things like this with animals, and that is wrong. We don't like being toyed with, so we shouldn't do that with animals. They do feel pain, and they do get hurt.

Furthermore, animals have some type of ability to think. Again it would be a bad comparison of thinking between humans and animals. In the article "Can Animals Empathize?," Gordon Gallup Jr. talked about a study with chimpanzees and mirrors. It says:

Initially, they reacted as if they were seeing other chimpanzees, but after a few days they grew accustomed to the mirror and began to use it to make faces, look at the inside of their mouths, and groom and inspect other parts of their bodies that they had never seen before (Gallup on-line).

This one of the many scientific experiments recorded that shows an animal using the ability to think. The chimpanzees were able to figure out that if they used the mirror they could clean themselves in places they couldn't before. There have been other test using different animals. Mainly it is done with the reward of food. Animals in theme parks, circus, and entertainment are just some of the places where animals are taught to do tricks. The key word is "taught." These animals learn how to do certain tricks. This takes some type of ability to think to be able to learn something. There are animals who are smarter than other animals, just like there are humans that smarter than other humans. This is why people generally have more feelings for these types of animals. Because animals have some type of ability to think, I feel is another reason why we need treat animals better.

Most importantly, I think that animals have feelings. By watching people who have certain kinds of pets I have noticed some feelings in the animals. Friends of mine who have dogs especially. After my friends have been at work all day their dog is all excited to see them. The dog jumps on them and starts licking my friend's face. Also with the dog, when my friend puts the dog outside it begins to whimper. To go further with the dog analogy, we can tell when a dog is angry. It starts to growl and it shows its teeth. At where I work we listen to KFBK 1530. On this station it has a segment with Paul Harvey and "the rest of the story." One of the the times I was listening to this segment, I heard a story about a boy who was a real life Tarzan. It basically said that the boys parents died and he was left in the jungle. A group of chimpanzees took the boy in as one of its own and took care of him. A local tribe ended up finding the boy with the chimps. When the tribe tried to take the boy; chimps fought the tribesmen to the death to protect the boy. After the chimps were killed the tribe took him back to be with people. This gives a real strong example of feelings on the part of the chimpanzees. This is yet another reason why we need treat animals better.

Do we have an moral obligation to animals? Yes! Why? Because animals feel pain, have some ability to think and have feelings. Humans are the rulers of Earth. We are the greatest that there is on Earth. The one thing that makes us so is our ability to treat things morally. We need to do what we can to make sure not to abuse the privilege of being the rulers over animals. This includes doing unnecessary things to animals. Animals are here for our benefit, so lets not ruin it.

-1083 words

Click here to read summary of this paper