After reading the texts and doing my Q&A for this week, an interesting thought occurred to me. Humans often stand up for those who are oppressed, and the case is no different for nonhuman animals. Nonhuman animals are being abused and exploited, so therefore many believe they should have rights. Of course there are the dissenting voices saying that nonhuman animals are lesser and therefore should not have rights. They do not have the same interests, the same inherent values, or the same self-awareness that humans have. Yet maybe another question to be asked in these days is, if animals were not abused and exploited, would they need rights?
This is a tough question to answer. After all, many humans are not abused or exploited and still have rights that protect them from harm. The same can be said of nonhuman animals living a "happy" life, such as a loved family dog or cat, yet many more animals are still being exploited and abused. Factory farming still happens, lab animals are still being used, and animals are often used for sport, yet because it all happens behind the scene for most people, we do not even think about it. We do not think about how the meat ended up on our table so long as it is there. The same goes for how we got the leather for our couches or clothing. The way to make people see is to bring it to their attention. Perhaps then the conditions for nonhuman animals would be made better. As it is for the moment, the fight for animal rights is still going on, and probably will for a while (if not forever; after all, look how long it has already been going on).
Now my question is, even if conditions for nonhuman animals were improved, would humans still want to grant them better conditions?
Courtney, I think that the answer is yes, that humans would still attempt to 'improve' animal conditions. If we reflect on our current situation, we always seem to be getting "faster, healthier, smarter" as a race with no limits in sight. This is not a place really to discuss how the 'human thing' is going...I think the last and final, or, the best 'improvement' we could make on animals would be to leave them alone. Sometimes the best route for a species is for humans to build it a wild-life sanctuary into which human trends cannot penetrate.
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