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The Ethical Debates About Animal Rights

1369 Words6 Pages

Eugene Prude
8 Dec. 2014
1123- 04
ELP150
There are speculations about animal rights. In particular there are two philosophers that argue each other about the topic. Peter Singer argues that “animals do have rights”. (mycourses)Carl Cohen argues that “animals have no rights”. (Steven M. Cahn. p. 339) This is very important topic because if animals do have rights, then there would be major changes that would take effect immediately in society. Each philosopher makes a valid argument. By the word valid, I mean each gives a set of premises and a true conclusion. In this paper, I will take the side of Carl Cohen and argue why animals have no rights. In my stance on this topic, Cohen says “animals have no right to life because they lack capacity. …show more content…

My response would be any animal that know the difference between right and wrong and could make the right decision every time should not be killed. Therefore no animal has the ability to distinguish right from wrong every time. For example, if a tiger sees a human in the wild, the tiger first instant would be to kill the human. This instant cannot be changed even if the tiger is not wild. This is not good judgment; therefore, animals can be killed. In conclusion, animals can be killed without punishment of others. Another objection to my theory would be, since there is a major difference between animals and humans; why do researchers act off of data that animals give off and then use it on humans. For example, vaccines are commonly researched. My response would be wouldn’t you want to test a vaccine on an animal before you try it on a human. For example, recently the disease Ebola has been an epidemic in Africa; we should test the Ebola vaccine on an animal before injecting a human with it, just in case the vaccine makes it worse. I think more people would like this utilitarianism way of thinking. The utilitarianism way of thinking is making sure that the greater number of people are happy in a

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