A debate on whether animals deserve equal treatment to human status.
Personhood has always been a staple or a yardstick for a species’ intelligence. With the most fundamental criterion of personhood being consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, capacity to communicate and self-awareness. These strict criteria determines one’s personhood, but unfairly ambiguous as some may point out, as notions such as consciousness are still deeply debated in the field of psychology, the degree of reasoning selected and why? There are also instances of personhood being lean to human disabilities while scrutinising animals who are smarter and more able to do things.But facts are facts, and my initial thesis according to the very primitive definition of personhood is yes, animals should be a part of personhood, as they should have the same rights to live a life of comfort and without constant suffering imposed by humans.
Personally one of the most applicable arguments for animals attaining the status of personhood comes from john Locke an enlightenment philosopher, famous for abstract ideas and notions that continue to be used even in today’s politics and society, centuries later. John Locke is considered one of the most important philosophers to the abolishment of slaverly, giving rights to all human beings and if he was imaginative enough this would also be held true to animals as Peter Singer (an Australian philosopher) says “if it’s not ok to do it to a human, it’s not ok to do it to an animal either.” In the piece of the Workmanship’s ideal (an intellectual attack on slavery), john Locke explains that whoever fashions something, whoever creates it, whoever designs it has the authorial knowledge of it. This is what people call as Locke’s epistemology, which states that we know our world better than we do nature which will come in for importance for the paragraphs below. Furthermore, we also see that in Locke’s formulation in the Second Treatise of governance Locke says famously men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; are the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business. They are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another’s pleasure. So we are God’s property because he made us. Right? Well, this is controversial but he argues that Human beings, from God were given the capacity to make things for themselves like the workmanship ideal states fashion and build things, with the full understanding of their creation, just like how God has full understanding of us. So human beings, as Locke conceives of them, are kind of like miniature gods as we can act in a God-like fashion upon those around us inventing, dictating, influencing and monitoring our creations.
Sure this arrangement allows us to create, dictate and build society as we know it. But this power given to humans also gives us purpose and the ultimate purpose that philosophers such as John Locke states is to help serve God and pursue the ends in which they are created. Being miniature gods on this earth, gives us the ability to abuse and take out abilities too far over the cliff, but such abilities are confined or should not be used out of the barriers of natural law. As miniature gods created by an ultimate being, would it be justified if we treat animals without ethics and enslave them. The content of natural law, sure argues that to survive you can eat animals, but eating animals is no longer the problem, the problem has transformed to need a more desperate solution such as the status of personhood. We as humans, gifted with the ability to see ethics and run this world to create peace and civilisation,is what john locke and the natural laws argue. But currently, when people are dissatisfied with the government for their corruption and discrimination (all in breach of natural laws), revolutions and coup d’etat occurs a punishment to that of governments, just like how we take nature or animals without respect nature also has a way of biting us back. So giving animals personhood to the enlightenment era, if you proposed this to John Locke, will not be a case of just giving personhood to animals for the mick, but a must in order to uphold the value of humankind and our survival.
Utilitarianism has been on the forefront of philosophy, representing the theory of morality. “Which advocates actions that foster happiness or pleasure and opposes actions that cause unhappiness or harm. When directed toward making social, economic, or political decisions, a utilitarian philosophy would aim for the betterment of society as a whole.” Essentially utilitarianism is the notion to maximise happiness or pleasure, as Jeremy Benthem states attributes such as pain and pleasure are truly the only things that matters, giving our life flavour. As Bentham went on to explain, allowing for “immunity from pain”, pleasure is “the only good”, and pain “without exception, the only evil” (1970, 100). As such, pain and pleasure are the final cause of individual action and the efficient cause and means to individual happiness.
Imagine this if detainment annihilates your freedom, autonomy, and self-determination, destroying your capacity to go where you need to pursue what you wish to do. Essentially stripping you of essential 21th century human credits. If you lack lawful rights there isn’t anything you can do when another person denies you of your freedom. You become their slave. Everything that makes us truly human comes from the idea of freedom. Freedom according to John Stuart Mill is the greatest level of happiness for all and for everyone living on earth. As freedom gives you the autonomy to proceed with your purpose, gives you the opportunity to pursue your own interest, not to live for someone else, but to live for yourself.
Therefore according to John Stuart Mill, giving animal rights and therefore the status of personhood, is the greater good for all, essentially being the greatest utility for all. Accepting animals to be more alike, not only brings a stronger bond between mankind and animals but it also enforces a degree and a stronger urge to take care of our planet. Because if we respect those who maintain nature, we follow and learn from them looking up to them and copying their mentality through the concept of social learning, producing a world of peace and also of respect for everything around us.
What seems right to us is not always right or worthy to animals. As we should question whether personhood is truly what animals desire? To be freed and given rights similar to humans, to live off farms and in school for 25 years of their life? Is this what they truly want, because if we were to bring a human from the date of 1180 bc would they be inclined to be suddenly thrusted in the life of capitalism and technological innovation. The simple answer would be no! Human evolution to reach our current advancement required centuries of slow adaptation, Let’s take evolution as an analogy to this “in the book the 6th extinction, it brings up 3 paramount characters that played an instrumental role in assessing how evolution and eventually extinction occurs Cuvier, Charles Darwin and Lyell.
These 3 names are championed as one of the brightest minds during the 19th century, while maintaining an intellectual rivalry. As cuvier, the “founding father of palaeontology” attempts to argue that the recent massive reserves in extinct animal fossil he has discovered, were a result of the notion of “Catastrophism,” which states “that the Earth has largely been shaped by sudden, short-lived, violent events, possibly worldwide in scope.With extinction or evolution being the bi-product of these sudden continental shifts or changes. However both Charles and Lyell, on the other hand, argues that the earth is cultivated through Uniformitarianism, which is the assumption that an alternative from catastrophism is the belief that the world evolved through slow quasi-static processes, with not sudden rough movement, but slow trends that are pro-longed that shape the face of this earth, eventually creating extinction.”
The ideas of extinction and evolution is just an analogy to how nature works, and alos proves that just throwing animals into the deep end and expecting them to just swim and adapt is a stupid thought. As Charles and Lyell explains, the world does not work on the basis of sudden and unexpected movements that rock the earth to the core, instead they point to the fact that society works on slow movements allowing animals to adapt and for nature to slowly take its course. What good is releasing animals in the human world of injustice and inequality, where thrusting them into a society where they know nothing about is like thrusting humans back into the jungles and receiving ancient bug treatments. Receiving ancient bug treatments is definitely something that no humans deserves or wants, so why do we think that this is applicable or appropriate for animals, it’s like we are throwing animals into a place where they won’t know how to hunt, work and live meaning they’ll go extinct.
Releasing animals into the habitat of humanity is not only a cause of concern to the well-being of animals themselves but also a cause of concern for the environment and the place we live in. As by calling certain animals personhood, creates numerous problems such as the disrupting to our ecosystem, following histories tales such as that of the story of megafauna a mammal in australia hunted to death by ancient humans. This human activity of actively removing megafaunas faster than the megafauna which has a low reproductive rate due to its large size, causes large scale natural disasters. As in the book “the sixth extinction,” Elizebeth Kolbert explains that removing the megafauna meant that there were not enough large herbivores to maintain the landscape, and eat fuels that were the primary cause for one of the most dangerous wildfires centuries ago. Meaning that if we actively remove animals from their habitat to the comfort of our humes and sanctions, this simply equals the destruction of nature, as animals are not made to be put in our care and have rights such as humans but present to take care of the world that we live in, just like what we are attempting to do.
Additionally Elizabeth Kolbert also explains the concept of “enemy release,” simply put is “the idea that invasive species are less impacted by enemies (e.herbivores) than native species, because in the new geographical location, the invasive species are freed from the parasites that kept their growth in check in their native environment.” Essentially what this means is that releasing animals of non-native species to a native island such as from the United States to Hong Kong, can cause a lot of issues such as inviting viruses or pesticides into the country that have no combatants, allowing them to spread in a way they would have not back in their country of origin because they were kept in check. Not only does this mean free transportation of viruses from the most extreme areas, but it also means the introduction of new plants or animals into a society that may in return devastate crops, infect trees and dominate the landscapes eating up anything they want because no one is stopping them.
Many implications of forcing animals into personhood, is similar to being intentionally diagnosed as mentally disordered, just to not go to jail. This analogy of attempting not to go to jail because you were acting upon a disability. Is very similar to how humans attempt to solve our guilt and discriminatory behavior against animals for centuries. As our society becomes increasingly more progressive we reflect on our behavior such as that of people of color. Looking back at what our ancestors did, we feel ashamed. This behavior is exactly what is happening at the forefront of the personhood campaign for animal rights, not coming into light because of our beliefs and progressiveness but because of cognitive dissonance and our guiltiness. Cognitive dissonance in this case is simply “when a person holds contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values, and is typically experienced as psychological stress when they participate in an action that goes against one or more of them.” Well this dissonance in my opinion and as many argue, causes the need to free animals and grant them the status of personhood. Because as humans we without a doubt hold high regards that we are intrinsically good, but constantly eating meat especially with today’s perception generates a sense of guilt when we see the suffering of animals, causing an internal stress and uncomfortableness that we attempt to break through by apparently “giving animals rights”
The motive to grant animals rights clearly is crafted with bad intent, and furthermore if the protection and the reduction of animal cruelty is what people desire in society. We can do this, with more cost effective techniques that would not shake up the order of this world and the capitalistic, socialist or communist system we live in, essentially making the personhood movement redundant in human society and also excessive to clear our guilty consciousness. As we can just enforce stricter animal protection laws. Not risking any type of large shift in our economics and social system, causing stock markets to fall and business bankruptcy due to the increase in tax needed to treat animals.
So what do you think ?? Do you think animals deserve equal rights as humans or not??
About the author:
Eldon Tse — Hong Kong 🇭🇰 | Instagram
Always open to listen to new opinion and ground breaking ideas, to reach me please feel free to contact me through Instagram.