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Answering Arguments Against Animal Rights |
| Part XIII - Argument Ten: Humans are not animals: only humans have rights |
Argument ten: humans are not animals: only humans have rights.
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This argument states that humans are not animals -- or at least they are a different kind of animal:
not just different in degree from other animals.
It is argued that this difference allows us to exclude all but humans from moral consideration.
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Of course, when presented with the other choices, we are all quick to admit
that we are not mineral or vegetable: we are in fact animals.
This very obvious fact is important to keep in mind because when we speak of
animals' rights we are speaking of our rights, since we are animals.
If animals have no rights, then you have no rights: because you are an animal.
To deny the fact that we are animals is to contradict the very thing animal experimenters are
trying to justify. For, if we were not animals it would make even less sense than it does
to test medical procedures and drugs on animals to see if they are safe for us.
You might as well test them on rocks or trees if we're not animals.
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Biologists tell us that we share much with the other animals. We have
similar bodies, instincts, needs, and desires. We have the same instinct
for survival. We all experience hunger, thirst, exhaustion, sleep, and pain.
We all have hearts and brains. We can all feel and think. Common sense -- as well as science --
tells us that we are animals.
With our huge egos, we think we are so intellectually superior to other animals.
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But what animal is so stupid that it fouls its own home? Only humans.
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The average city dweller -- who cannot survive outside of his or her artificial environment --
must appear incredibly stupid to wild animals who know how to survive in nature.
We have built technological wonders such as the automobile and the nuclear bomb.
But evidently we were too stupid to figure out that these were not worth making, as they do
more harm than good and threaten our continued existence.
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Every other animal -- when not artificially bred by us -- controls its population
in harmony with its environment.
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It is only humans who at this late stage -- with 40,000 children dying daily --
continue having more than two children per family.
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This is not a sign of great intelligence.
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