By Monday, summarize and blog one of the essays assigned from Spatt's book (pp. 194 ff). The goal here is to create a summary paragraph you will be using to write a single-source essay later, so choose wisely.
In the first sentence, mention the author and the title of the essay. In addition, state the thesis, the main argument, of the essay. Then, in subsequent sentences, describe the main arguments that the author uses to develop his thesis.
Some advice:
1. Don't try to do too much here. The examples and details that support the author's argument may be the subject of later paragraphs. However, here you are trying to summarize those arguments, not develop them. In later paragraphs of YOUR essay, you may need to to develop details of the author's arguments to confirm or refute them. In this paragraph, summarize.
2. For now, be objective. In later paragraphs, you may choose to evaluate the author's argument. In this paragraph, you must establish the pose of objectivity.
3. Thus, quote brief passages of the text to show that you are letting the author speak for him/herself. Don't overdo it, though. Don't let the author do your writing for you.
4. Don't do too little. Search for the author's arguments. Summarize them completely.
5. Look for the principle of argumentative organization (more on this point in class). Finding it will help you to provide a complete argument.
P.S. This assignment should not be included in the paragraph portfolio. As always, I'm trying to get you to start the writing process on future assignments. You'll be using this paragraph to write WA#2.
In the essay, “Why animals Deserve Legal Rights,” Steven M. Wise discusses that animals are entitled to the same legal rights as humans because they have extraordinary minds that enable them to display similar human characteristics. Research has demonstrated that nonhuman animals have the capability to apply knowledge and reason to many varied situations. In a research study with Kanzi, a seven year old banobo, and Alia, a two year old human, “When Kanzi was asked to ‘put some water on the vacuum cleaner,’ he gulped water from a glass, marched to the vacuum cleaner, and dribbled water over it.” This exhibits that like humans, chimpanzees have the ability to relate information previously learned to a situation, allowing them to act rationally. Additional studies have shown that the organization and interactions of individual apes in their society share similar qualities to that of human society. “[Apes] flourish in rough-and-tumble societies so intensely that they have been dubbed Machiavellian, and in which they form coalitions to limit the power of alpha males.” Just as in human societies, many individuals in groups of apes are captivated by the desire for power resulting in tension and the act of standing up to individuals who have acquired too much power. The American Revolution mirrors this behavior, where Americans fought for their political freedom from the oppressive British Monarchy. With the confirmation of scientific research, humans can no longer claim that animals are not permitted the same legal rights as themselves because they are not able to demonstrate equal competence and thought patterns.
ReplyDeleteIn “Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights” by Steven M. Wise, a professor at Harvard Law School and Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, it is argued that animals deserve the same rights as humans. Wise compares the qualities defined as human to the qualities that animals have been proved to possess. He begins with the human qualities, and as he emphasizes, “Philosophers have proffered many criteria as sufficient, including sentience, a sense of justice, the possession of language or morality, and having a rational plan for one’s life. Among legal thinkers, the most important is autonomy…” While these are clearly seen among humans, Wise proceeds to cite animals that have some of these human-like qualities. For an example, he refers to the seven-year-old bonobo named Kanzi who has been used in various language-comprehension tests. Wise explains, “When Kanzi was asked to ‘put some water on the vacuum cleaner,’ he gulped water from a glass, marched to the vacuum cleaner, and dribbled the water over it.” In addition, he argues that apes have been proven to have emotions and a sense of higher intelligence like humans. As he strongly supports, “They [apes] are probably self-conscious; many of them can recognize themselves in a mirror. They use insight, not just trial and error, to solve problems. They form complex mental representations, including mental maps of the area where they live.” Wise concludes that animals deserve the same legal rights as humans because they express so many human qualities.
ReplyDeleteIn Steven M. Wise’s essay called “Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights,” he argues that animals deserve the same rights as humans because they have human qualities. Wise argues that animals are autonomous, meaning they have sentience, have language and have a rational plan for one’s life and thus deserve basic rights. Recent and past observations have shown that animals have the ability to act on impulse and “at least some nonhuman animals have extraordinary minds.” A study was done on a bonobo that showed that he was able to understand and follow directions better than a 2-year-old human. Also, Jane Goodall and others have study apes for 40 years and have shown that they have all the same emotions as humans, act rationally, count, use and make tools, and much more. Wise argues that based on the new knowledge of these studies, the laws should be changed and animals deserve basic rights.
ReplyDeleteIn his essay “Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights” Steven M. Wise, a specialist in animal-rights law, argues that animals should be allowed the same basic rights as humans. Wise believes that all creatures are entitled to “freedom, safety from torture and even life itself” because “animals have extraordinary minds”. Philosophers’ argument for human’s rights comes down to human’s abilities to reason, communicate and their sense of justice. Wise uses Jane Goodall and her study of apes to help illustrate this point. In the forty years Goodall studied apes she discovered they can recognize themselves in a mirror, use insight to solve a problem and form mental maps or where they live. Furthermore, “they understand cause and effect…[and] act intentionally” and “form coalitions to limit the power of the alpha males.” The parallels between a human’s sense of justice and reasoning abilities and an ape’s sense of justice and reasoning abilities become quite obvious. Wise then argues that an ape’s reasoning abilities surpass those of a toddler; and that, if a toddler is given basic rights, then an ape should be given basic rights. The law needs to change to reflect modern time and modern knowledge.
ReplyDeleteStephan Wise’s, “Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights,” was written to explain the reasons why animals, which have plenty of humanistic qualities, should be given legal, human rights. Wise reminds us that, at one time, all people were not equal; many had to fight for their right to equality. Today, “…every human is a person in the eyes of the law” because they had a say in their future. He uses this predicament to justify why animals should have legal rights. People sought equality because “being human, all by itself, is sufficient for legal rights.” Yet, “there must be something about us that entitles us to rights,” such as, our “sentience…the possession of language or morality… the most important [being] is autonomy.” Wise acknowledges that animals show humanistic qualities and there is “evidence [that] has been accumulating that at least some nonhuman animals have extraordinary minds.” Not only does he mention that animals “act intentionally” and not just instinctively, but also that some of them “can figure out what others see and know, abilities that human children don’t develop until the ages of 3 to 5.” Wise explains that this current knowledge we have of animals is enough to declassify them as things which should get them legal rights. He states that, “twenty-first century law should be based on twenty-first century knowledge.” We currently have enough information to get these animals’ legal rights, “the next step is obvious”, and it just needs to be taken.
ReplyDeleteIn the essay “Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights,” Steven M. Wise argues that animals should be treated equally as human in the eyes of the law. Nonhuman animals have been “invisible to civil law since it’s inception.” Many people, Wise proclaims, believe that nonhuman animals are on this earth solely for human use, and lack autonomy. They think that since “animals knew nothing of the past and could not imagine a future” they did not deserve to be considered equally in a court of law. Wise mentions a few tests that have been given in order to prove that animals are more intelligent than most humans think. A 7-year-old bonobo “drubbed” a human 2-year-old in a series of language-comprehension tests. Also, apes have been proven to have most, if not all, of the emotions that we do. Wise argues, “Twenty-first-century law should be based on twenty-first-century knowledge.” He implies that this should be taken into further consideration to get the animals the rights that they deserve.
ReplyDeleteIn “Why Animals Deserve Leal Rights” Steven M. Wise states that animals deserve the same legal rights as humans because they possess many of the same characteristics as humans. Wise began by using many examples in which animals are exploited including biomedical research, the use of animals in the circus, and the extreme conditions in which animals are breed for food. Using these examples, Wise posed the question, “What accounts for the legal personhood of all of us and the legal thing-hood of all of them?” After this question was asked, Wise argued that human beings are much like their animal counterparts because animals have as much autonomy as humans, which is what many philosophers believe give humans the right to make rights. Wise showed that there were very different definitions of autonomy from the very strict definition proposed by Kant saying, “…autonomous beings always act rationally. Anyone who can’t do that can justly be treated as a thing” all the way to the undemanding definition of, “…If she has desires and beliefs and can make at least some sound and appropriate inferences from them.” As demonstrated, humans are not truly rational beings and almost any animal can fall into latter definition, therefore, shouldn’t animals have the same right as humans? In order to argue this point, Wise used examples to show that animals have feelings, knowledge, memories, and planning abilities. The examples that he used were with Kanzi, a bonobo who learned many different skills, and Jane Goodall’s apes who also learned skills and demonstrated that they understood emotions. With the support of these examples Wise made a strong statement, “Twenty-first century law should be based on twenty-first century knowledge…Today we know that apes, and perhaps other nonhuman animals, are not what we thought they were in prescientific age when the law declared them things…The next step is obvious.” He believes that animals deserve rights because we know so much more about them now, and it is inhumane to treat animals the way that we do seeing as how they have many of the same characteristics as humans.
ReplyDeleteIn Mirko Bagaric and Julie Clarke's "Torture: When The Unthinkable is Moraly Permissable" They argue that torture should be considered legal when saving and innocent person's life. The "War on Terrorism" has brought up this arguement because so many people believe it is wrong and yet it is happening in so many countries. Bagaric and Clarke say that "Torture is permissable where the evidence suggests that this is the only means, due to the immediacy of a situatuion, to save a live of an innocent person." They bring up an analogy of a hostage situation where it would be considered an option to kill the wrongdoer to save a hostage and how it is very similar to a situation where torture would be ok. Three main arguments are brought up. If we start allowing torture but only for certain things, sooner or later the "situations in which it will be used will increase." Bagaric and Clarke argue back that it is already going on, thirty-two countries have been reported as using torture illegaly. The second argument is that torture dehumanizes. The third is that "We can never be totally sure that torturing a person will in fact result in us saving an innocent life." An example against that argument is the hostage example, the hostage-taker's gun may not be loaded but it would still be ok to shoot them. The two say that "We need to take a pain-minimalizing approach." We should worry more about the pain that could be caused to the innocent person and all of those that care about them if the end result is death, not focus on the pain of the suspect. Pain is inflicted on individuals all of the time through things like surgery and recovery yet that isn't illegal. "If standing idly by allowing innocent people to be killed does not dehumanize society, inflicting physical persuasion on a suspect logically cannot...If we are not dehumanized now, torture will not make any difference."
ReplyDeleteIn “Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights” by Stephen M. Wise the argument is made to give rights to those that can’t speak, or fight for themselves. The author claims that unless a person does something to an animal the law ignores them, and when something is done it’s often too late to help the animal in need. The author questions why animals weren’t given these basic rights in the first place and most of these theories date back to early philosophers. Although the early philosophers such as Kant didn’t believe that animals posses the ability to be autonomous, studies suggest that that some animals have the ability to posses “extraordinary minds.” Especially apes, who have most of the same emotions we do, also have similarities mentally. Wise believes that because nonhumans have shown to “have what it takes for basic legal rights” the laws should be written accordingly.
ReplyDeleteIn Steven M. Wise’s essay “Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights,” he argues that animals deserve all the same legal rights as humans. He begins his argument by examining what entitles humans to possess rights but not animals. He includes various criteria from philosophers, such as language and plans for life, but ultimately decides that “autonomy is ‘sufficient’ for basic legal rights.” Although he cites different ideas to what being autonomous actually entails, he concludes that all humans have some type of autonomy and further argues that many animals do as well. An example Wise uses to demonstrate animals’ rationale is the 7-year-old bonobo Kanzi. “A series of language-comprehension tests” were used to see the difference between a 2-year-old human, Alia, and Kanzi. In a test to get an orange from a refrigerator, “Kanzi immediately complied; Alia didn’t have a clue what to do.” Wise continues to cite traits that animals possess to make them autonomous such as their ability to “form complex mental representations.” He concludes that animal rights is an inevitable step because human rights evolved and so, too, should animals rights.
ReplyDeleteSteven M. Wise, in “Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights,” argues that animals deserve equal rights as humans are given. He believes animals’ posses the same qualities as humans which entitles them to these rights. Animals are autonomous meaning they have language and thought patterns deserving the right to have equal treatment as humans. Since they have been” invisible to civil law since its inception,” it is time for animals to have their voice heard. Wise believes that animals have been repressed for years and have not been given credit for their intelligence. He explains the multiple tests that have been done to prove this between a 7 year-old ape and a 2 year old human tested on the same level of intelligence. As a result of recent studies, Wise says “Twenty-first century law should be based on twenty-first century knowledge,” by giving humans and animals the same rights.
ReplyDeleteIn “Torture: When The Thinkable is Morally Permissible,” Mirko Bagaric and Julie Clarke argue in what situations they believe torture can be morally acceptable. The first argument that is presented by Bagaric and Clarke is that torture should only be permissible “due to the immediacy of the situation, to save the life of an innocent person.” The authors of the article suggest that the quickness of a situation, i.e. self-defense of another, would be an acceptable allowance of torture to save a person’s life. Instances of hostage taking where situations are known to be controlled by people who are prone to violence from their past history fast action is not only need but desired. Bagaric and Clarke suport this by saying, “In such a case it is not only permissible but desirable for police to shoot (and kill) the wrongdoer if they get a ‘clear shot’.” They next discussion brought up is how we look at torture and how we can moralize it. Bagaric and Clarke discuss how we as a society must choose who is suffering more, the person who we are saving or the person who we are torturing. The authors suggest that, “we need to take a pain-minimization approach.” To determine whether or not torture is moral we need to see that the person receiving the momentary pain will save the person whose life is at stake. To support, the authors argue, “The enduring pain that would be felt by the relatives of the victims grossly outweighs the physical pain inflicted on the suspect.”
ReplyDeleteIn “Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights,” Steven Wise argues that non-human animals deserve human rights. Wise argues that the characteristics that determine that humans deserve rights are autonomy, a sense of justice, the possession of language, and having a rational plan for one’s life. People believe that animals were put here for use and lack autonomy, but there has been evidence building for decades that shows that animals have extraordinary minds. The example provided was the test of intelligence between a 2-year-old girl and a 7-year-old bonobo, where the bonobo outperformed the girl. Wise states that animals experience the same emotions that humans do and they act intelligently. Animals also have rules that establish a limit on alpha males. The knowledge that humans have obtained about animals shows that the animals should be treated as people and not things.
ReplyDeleteIn Mirko Bagaric and Julie Clarke's article "Torture: When the Unthinkable is Morally Permissable" they argue that in certain situations it is permissable to sacrifice the self-respect of a criminal through torture in order to save an innocent victim. This is because "the justification manifests from the closest thing we have to an inviolable right: the right to self defense. They argue that it is sometimes okay to inflict mild harm onto a wrongdoer in order to save an innocent person, and would be "verging on moral indecency to prefer the interests of the wrongdoer". If it is okay for policemen and bystanders to hold a gun to or shoot a criminal who holds a victim hostage, why should this situation be any different? There is the potential for harm, and inflicting mild harm onto the criminal to sacrifice the victim's safety should not even be questioned. The authors admit "there is no doubt that inflicting pain on people is bad" however they take on a realist stance that not everyone lives by this form of social contract and when faced with such a sticky situation as being held by a criminal, that one must do whatever is in their power to break free from the criminal, even if this means resorting to torturing them. In all honesty, being a bystander to such a crime and not making attempts to torture the wrongdoer to protect the victim is just as much of a crime or more so than actually inflicting torture to save a victim. In our world today, they argue, it is more of an individual's right to freedom to get away from danger than it is for a wrongdoer to not be dehumanized when they commit a crime that affects innocent people.
ReplyDeleteThat legal rights should be given to other nonhuman animals based on intelligence levels is expressed in Steven M. Wise's essay "Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights." He explains that animals do not exist to the law "unless a person decides to do something to them." He goes on to tell how billions of animals are killed, tortured, and exploited every year. Wise then discredits the claim that humans have rights because we "are made in the image of God" and that there must be another qualification for legal rights. Wise goes on to say that many philosophers and judges use sentience and autonomy as qualifications for legal rights. Later, Wise provides evidence of nonhuman animals displaying an equivalent amount of intelligence as humans. In his attempt to aquire legal rights for nonhuman animals, Wise claims that "twenty-first-century law should be based on twenty-first-century knowledge.
ReplyDeleteSteven Wise argues in “Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights” that non-human animals deserve legal rights because they have many human like qualities. He claims that although non-human animals were perceived to be merely things in the past, there have been studies that prove that they have many of the same traits that define humans as being human. Wise cites one study where a 7-year-old bonobo and a human 2-year-old were compared in a series of language-comprehension tests; “When asked to go to the refrigerator and get an orange, Kanzi [the bonobo] immediately complied; Alia [the human] didn’t have a clue what to do”. Non-human animals have also been proven to be human like through the studies of Jane Goodall. It has been determined that “They are probably self-conscious; many of them can recognize themselves in a mirror….Given the appropriate opportunity and motivation, they have been known to teach, deceive, and empathize with others”. Wise asserts that non-human animals should be treated fairly because they do have feelings similar to those of humans.
ReplyDeleteMirko Bagaric and Julie Clarke, in "Torture: When the Unthinkable is Morally Permissible", postulate that, contrary to popular belief, there are situations where torture is acceptable. According to the authors, torture is permissible where "the evidence suggest that this is the only means... to save the life of an innocent person." They verify this claim by emphasizing that every person has "the right to self-defense" which "extends to the defense of another." The authors then paint a hypothetical picture in which an innocent person is taken hostage by a wrongdoer who "has a history of serious violence." The authors, using this hypothetical picture, attempt to validate their argument by posing the question as to whether "torturing the aggressor in order to save a life" is really worse than succumbing to the wrongdoer's unreasonable demands. After legitimizing their argument, the authors address the three main counterarguments. First, allowing minimal torture only in exceptional cases is in essence a "gateway drug" which would, over time, lead to increased frequency and severity. The authors argue against this by stating that “the floodgates are already open… torture is used widely.” The second counterargument is that “torture will dehumanize society.” The authors counter argue that “a society that elects to favor the interest of wrongdoers… is in need of serious ethical rewiring.” The final counterargument argues that torturing a person does not guarantee that an innocent life will be saved. The authors remind us that “as with any decision, we must decide on the best evidence at the time." The authors rightly acknowledge that “there is no doubt that inflicting pain on people is bad”, and they encourage a “pain-minimization approach.” However, they unnecessarily complicate their argument by suggesting that by protecting the interests of the suspect we are approaching moral nihilism. The act of protecting the interests of the suspect (however morally wrong it is) is a moral decision which presupposes morals, while moral nihilism is the view that nothing is moral or immoral. Bagaric and Clarke end their essay by suggesting that “if standing idly by allowing innocent people to be killed does not dehumanize society” then “torture will not make any difference.”
ReplyDeleteIn Steven Wise’s essay, “Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights”, he argues that if humans should have (legal) rights, then animals should be able to share those rights with us. He presents this concern; statistics show that every year in the United States, “tens of millions of animals are likely to be killed, sometimes painfully, during biomedical research; 10 billion more will be raised in factories so crowded that they’re unable to turn around, and then killed for food.” Wise’s concern shows his stance on animals being used for medical research, and for food. He presents arguments from the viewpoint that is opposite of his own; arguments such that only autonomous beings are the only ones that should be given rights. If a being is not autonomous, then it is to be only treated as a thing, or object. This argument concludes that since only humans are autonomous (and being autonomous, they always act rationally), they should therefore be the only beings on Earth to be given rights. However, from his own viewpoint, Wise argues that autonomy is tough to define, and that he knows people who do not always act rationally. He also presents the viewpoint that animals solely exist for human use, and lack autonomy. “Aristotle granted them a few mental abilities: They could perceive and act on impulse.” Wise backs up his case for animal rights by presenting data over the course of several decades; evidence that refute the notion that animals lack autonomy, such as a Georgia State University experiment conducted by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh. The experiment involved a 7-year-old bonobo monkey named Kanzi, and a 2-year-old human named Alia. Three tasks were given; “put some water on the vacuum cleaner”, “feed your ball some tomato”, and “go to the refrigerator to get an orange”. Kanzi was able to comply with and accomplish all three tasks, while Alia was unable to accomplish the last task. He also presented research on apes collected by Jane Goodall, where she discovered that apes share most of the emotions that we humans possess. Goodall discovered that apes are probably self-conscious, can recognize themselves in a mirror, use insight to solve problems, form complex mental representations (including mental maps of their surroundings), understand cause and effect, act intentionally, compare objects and the relationship of the objects, can count, use (and make) tools, can teach, deceive, and empathize with others, figure out what others see and know (children don’t develop these abilities until they are about 3 to 5 years old), create cultural traditions that they pass down to their descendants, and live in rough-and-tumble societies “so intensely political that they have been dubbed Machiavellian”. Wise concludes that today’s law should be based on today’s (and most recent) knowledge. He concludes that now since the law prohibits burning someone for witchcraft, and the mute have the same rights as everyone else, and now we know that animals are not what we thought they were, should be given the same rights.
ReplyDeleteIn his essay “Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights” Steven M. Wise, a legal scholar at Harvard University, makes the claim that certain animals deserve basic legal rights. Wise starts off by explaining the usual arguments of why humans deserve the rights we have. Some of these arguments that Wise cites are, “sentience, a sense of justice, the possession of language, morality, having a rational plan for one's life and autonomy.” Wise’s argument then concludes that if those are the reasons humans deserve their rights, and it can be shown that certain animals also have those attributes, animals should deserve the same rights as humans. Wise shows that animals do indeed have these attributes through a series of examples, the first one is an experiment done by a biologist at Georgia State University on language development. In the experiment a seven year old bonobo “drubs” a two year old human in a language comprehension test. Other examples Wise gives include studies done by Jane Goodall showing that apes “have most of the emotions that we do, use insight to solve problems, understand cause and effect, act intentionally, compare objects and flourish in rough-and-tumble societies.” Wise ends with the fact that our legal system has evolved as our scientific knowledge of the world has grown, and that “the next step is obvious.”
ReplyDeleteIn Mirko Bagaric and Julie Clarkes’ essay “Torture: When the Unthinkable is Morally Permissible”, they argue that the act of torture, though a morally grey area for most people, must be used in situations where it is the only way to save a life. Bagaric and Clarke state “Torture is permissible where the evidence suggests that this is the only means, due to immediacy of the situation, to save a life of an innocent person.” They continue in the essay by stating the points that would argue against torture and how they seem to be inadequate and unrealistic. For example, the first argument they refute is the one stating that by allowing the use of torture in limited situations those situations will increase in frequency. Bagaric and Clarke follow this argument with the fact that it is too late to worry about torture becoming overused. “Torture is used widely, despite the absolute legal prohibition against it.” Both writers state multiple times in the essay that they do not support violence towards innocent people and “Killing innocent people is bad – nearly always so – irrespective of which ideological or normative position one happens to adopt.” The essay concludes by saying that it is ignorant to think that standing idly by while people are suffering and being killed is even more terrible than inflicting pain onto criminals who could assist in the rescue those victims. “If we are not dehumanized now, torture will not make any difference.”
ReplyDeleteIn the essay, "Torture:When the Unthinkable Is Morally Permissible," Mirko Bagaric and Julie Clarke argue that torture is permissible when an innocent person's life is at stake. They state that torture is justified when an innocent life is at stake because it "manifests from the closest thing we have to an inviolable right: the right to self-defense." Bagaric and Clarke go on to display three counterarguments that may arise to their approval of torture. First, if you allow torture, its use will increase. Second, torture will dehumanize society. Finally, torturing may not always save an innocent life. After each counterargument that may arise, Bagaric and Clarke go to explain the reasons why these counterarguments are reprehensible. Respectively, torture is already widely used, favoring the interests of the wrongdoer would be dehumanizing, and lastly given the evidence at the time we must act accordingly. Throughout the rest of the essay, they give their justifications on why life-saving torture is a humane practice. They state that our perspectives on whose moral rights we are infringing are skewed. They argue that all parties must have equal consideration and that we have to go toward the path that will afflict less pain, "when we are confronted with a situation where must choose between who will bear unavoidable pain, we need to take a pain-minimization approach." Lastly, the objection to torture because of dehumanizing the torturer is refuted with examples of doctors, parents, prisons, all of which is to seek either saving lives or attributing to a more humane society.
ReplyDeleteIn Stephen M. Wise's essay "Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights", he expresses his belief that all animals deserve legal rights, just like humans. His idea is that animals are autonomous. That is, they have their own language and schedule for how they live out their day-to-day lives. Just like humans, animals make their own decisions. Their lives are self-governed. This idea of Wise's was barely ever taken into consideration in the past. Now, people are researching and experimenting with animals, and they are finding some extraordinary, insightful pieces of information. Take the example that Wise cites of the 7 year-old bonobo who out-smarts a 2 year-old girl. The fact of the matter is that the world has changed, and that human thought has evolved. Therefor, we need to give animals rights.
ReplyDeleteIn his essay ‘Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights’, Professor Steven M. Wise argues that similar emotions and ways of thinking justifies animals being granted basic legal rights. Wise, a specialist in animal-rights law, laments the fact that animals (being non-human) are “considered things with no rights”. He backs up the non-human perception with statistics of inhumane treatment and killing of animals. Wise refutes this ‘animals as things’ stance as primitive and not suited to modern world views. His refutation begins with the question of what a person and a thing is in legal view. Here, he puts forth the various theories and opinions of philosophers. Wise picks on the legal criterion of autonomy, where “things don’t act autonomously” like persons do. “Most philosophers” today, he states, think of a being as autonomous if they have “preferences…and the ability to act to satisfy them”, “cope with changed circumstances”, “make choices”, have “desires and beliefs” from which they can make “sound and appropriate inferences”. He dismisses the ancient belief that animals “lack autonomy” and “were put on earth for human use” with recent scientific evidence. He takes up the example of a bonobo who succeeded against a human child in language-comprehension tests. Likewise, he talks of apes having most of the human emotions we do. On these arguments, he concludes by saying that the modern world should grant legal rights to animals in the light of increasing evidence of animals having autonomy.
ReplyDeleteIn “Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights,” Steven M. Wise, a professor at Harvard Law School and Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, argues that animals deserve the same rights as humans because they share many of the same qualities. He begins his argument by pointing out that many consider the characteristic of autonomy a defining aspect of being human, but then he shows that autonomy is not a sufficient criterion to use because it cannot be clearly defined. Next, Wise argues that animals have been proven to possess language and comprehension skills. As he states, “For decades, though, evidence has been accumulating that at least some nonhuman animals have extraordinary minds.” Furthermore, he argues that animals can express emotions and a sense of higher intelligence like humans. As he strongly supports, “…they have been known to teach, deceive, and empathize with others.” Finally, Wise demands that animals deserve the same legal rights as humans because they express so many human qualities.
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Steven M. Wise argues “Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights,” because he believes that animals and humans share many of the same qualities. He begins by stating that tens of millions of animals will most likely be killed and most likely by humans during research. He then proceeds by explaining that autonomy has no clear definition, yet we “can easily imagine a human who lacks it but, can still walk about making decisions.” The point behind Wise’s argument is that animals are just as “intelligent” as humans. Yet many humans believe that animals were put on earth for the lack of autonomy and use. Yet who is to decide who was really put on earth for the sole dominance, humans or animals?
ReplyDeleteSteven M. Wise argues in his article, “Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights” that animals deserve legal human rights because they possess many of the same characteristics as humans. Wise claims that animals act autonomously, a criterion sufficient for basic human rights. Wise supports this claim through the evidence collected for decades that some animals “have extraordinary minds” allowing them to have language and a rational plan for one’s life. Wise also states that some animals possess greater mental capabilities than young children. A study done on a 7-year-old bonobo showed that he faired better in a series of language-comprehension tests than a 2-year-old child. Wise concludes, that with new evidence showing animals possess similar characteristics to humans, they should be protected in a court of law. He states, “now that we know they have what it takes for basic legal rights. The next step is obvious.”
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