Anthro Answers - Michigan7 2014

anthro
[T]here can be no doubt that any useful knowledge in medicine or surgery

is abundantly worth the lives of the animals destroyed to obtain it.
-John Call Dalton, 1875
no rights
To be human is, primarily, to embrace that we are human with strengths and weaknesses,
and that our humanity is preordained to seek the Truth, Good and Beauty as part of our humanity.
To be human is to be an agent of peace, justice, and reconciliation in our community or society.
To be human is to be heroic and generous in an unobtrusive way, free from any selfish motive,
with no media to show the litany of our good deeds. To be human is to have time to listen to the story
of a grieving soul, to give hope to the hopeless, to give love to the unloved.
-Danny Castillones Sillada
2ac - no rights
Animals cant have rights -- lack the capability to have the same moral
judgment as humans
Cohen 86, professor at the University of Michigan Medical School, New England Journal of Medicine (Carl, The Case for the
Use of Animals in Biomedical Research 314:865-869, http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/phil1200,Spr07/cohen.pdf)//dodo
A right, properly understood, is a claim, or potential claim, that one party may exercise against another. The
target against whom such a claim may be registered can be a single person, a group, a community, or (perhaps) all humankind. The
content of rights claims also varies greatly: repayment of loans, nondiscrimination by
employers, noninterference by the state, and so on. To comprehend any genuine right fully, therefore, we must
know who holds the right, against whom it is held, and to what it is a right. Alternative sources of rights
add complexity Some rights are grounded in constitution and law (e.g., the right of an accused to trial by jury);
some rights are moral but give no legal claims (e.g., my right to your keeping the promise you gave me); and some
rights (e.g., against theft or assault) are rooted both in morals and in law. The differing targets, contents, and
sources of rights, and their inevitable conflict, together weave a tangled web. Notwithstanding all such complications, this much is
clear about rights in general: they
are in every case claims, or potential claims, within a community of

moral agents. Rights arise, and can be intelligibly defended, only among beings who
actually do, or can, make moral claims against one another. Whatever else rights may be, therefore, they
are necessarily human; their possessors are persons, human beings. The attributes of human beings from which this
moral capability arises have been described variously by philosophers, both ancient and modem: the inner
consciousness of a free will (Saint Augustine); the grasp, by human reason, of the binding character of moral
law (Saint Thomas); the self-conscious participation of human beings in an objective ethical order
(Hegel); human membership in an organic moral community (Bradley); the development of the human
self through the consciousness of other moral selves (Mead); and the underivative, intuitive
cognition of the rightness of an action (Prichard). Most influential has been Immanuel Kant's emphasis on the
universal human possession of a uniquely moral will and the autonomy its use entails. Humans confront choices that
are purely moral; humans--but certainly not dogs or mice-- lay down moral laws, for others and for
themselves. Human beings are self-legislative, morally autonomous. Animals (that is, nonhuman animals, the ordinary sense of
that word) lack this capacity for free moral judgment. They are not beings of a kind capable of exercising or
responding to moral claims. Animals therefore have no rights, and they can have none . This is the core of the
argument about the alleged rights of animals. The holders of rights must have the capacity to comprehend
rules of duty, governing all including themselves. In applying such rules, the holders of rights must recognize possible
conflicts between what is in their own interest and what is just. Only in a community of beings capable of self-restricting moral
judgments can the concept of a right be correctly invoked. Humans have such moral capacities. They are in this sense self-legislative,
are members of communities governed by moral rules, and do possess rights. Animals
do not have such moral
capacities. They are not morally self-legislative, cannot possibly be members of a truly moral community, and therefore cannot
possess rights. In conducting research on animal subjects, therefore, we do not violate their rights, because they have none to
violate. To animate life, even in its simplest forms, we
give a certain natural reverence. But the possession of

rights presupposes a moral status not attained by the vast majority of living things . We must not infer,
therefore, that a live being has, simply in being alive, a "right" to its life. The assertion that all animals, only because they are alive
and have interests, also possess the "right to life" is an abuse of that phrase, and wholly without warrant. It
does not follow

from this, however, that we are morally free to do anything we please to animals . Certainly not. In our
dealings with animals, as in our dealings with other human beings, we have obligations that do not arise from
claims against us based on rights. Rights entail obligations, but many of the things one ought to do are in no way tied to
another's entitlement. Rights and obligations are not reciprocals of one another, and it is a serious mistake to suppose that they are.
Illustrations are helpful. Obligations may arise from internal commitments made: physicians have obligations to their patients not
grounded merely in their patients' rights. Teachers have such obligations to their students, shepherds to their dogs, and cowboys to
their horses. Obligations may arise from differences of status: adults owe special care when playing with young children, and
children owe special care when playing with young pets. Obligations may arise from special relationships: the payment of my son's
college tuition is something to which he may have no right, although it may be my obligation to bear the burden if I reasonably can;
my dog has no right to daily exercise and veterinary care, but I do have the obligation to provide these things for her. Obligations
may arise from particular acts or circumstances: one may be obliged to another for a special kindness done, or obliged to put an
animal out of its misery in view of its condition--although neither the human benefactor nor the dying animal may have had a claim
of right. Plainly, the
grounds of our obligations to humans and to animals are manifold and cannot
be formulated simply. Some hold that there is a general obligation to do no gratuitous harm to sentient creatures (the
principle of nonmaleficence); some hold that there is a general obligation to do good to sentient creatures when that is reasonably
within one's power (the principle of beneficence). In our dealings with animals, few will deny that we are at least obliged to act
humanely--that is, to treat them with the decency and concern that we owe, as sensitive human beings, to other sentient creatures.
To treat animals humanely, however, is not to treat them as humans or as the holders of rights.
Impossible to evaluate all forms of life equally -- benefits of

speciesism outweigh -- cures diseases, saves lives
I am a speciesist. Speciesism
is not merely plausible; it is essential for right conduct, because those who will
not make the morally relevant distinctions among species are almost certain, in consequence, to
misapprehend their true obligations. The analogy between speciesism and racism is insidious. Every sensitive moral
judgment requires that the differing natures of the beings to whom obligations are owed be considered. If all forms of
animate life--or vertebrate animal life?--must be treated equally, and if therefore in evaluating a research program the
pains of a rodent count equally with the pains of a human, we are forced to conclude (1) that neither humans nor
rodents possess rights, or (2) that rodents possess all the rights that humans possess. Both alternatives
are absurd. Yet one or the other must be swallowed if the moral equality of all species is to be
defended. Humans owe to other humans a degree of moral regard that cannot be owed to animals.
Some humans take on the obligation to support and heal others, both humans and animals, as a principal duty in their lives; the
fulfillment of that duty may require the sacrifice of many animals. If biomedical investigators abandon the effective pursuit of their
professional objectives because they are convinced that they may not do to animals what the service of humans requires, they will
fail, objectively, to do their duty. Refusing
to recognize the moral differences among species is a sure path
to calamity. (The largest animal rights group in the country is People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals; its co-director,
Ingrid Newkirk, calls research using animal subjects fascism and supremacism. Animal liberationists do not separate out the
human animal, she says, so there is no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights. A rat is a pig is a dog is a
boy. Theyre all mammals.) Those who claim to base their objection to the use of animals in biomedical research on their reckoning
of the net pleasures and pains produced make a second error, equally grave. Even if it were true--as it is surely not--that the pains of
all animate beings must be counted equally, a cogent utilitarian calculation requires that we weigh all the consequences of the use,
and of the nonuse, of animals in laboratory research. Critics
relying (however mistakenly) on animal rights may

claim to ignore the beneficial results of such research, rights being trump cards to which interest and advantage
must give way. But an argument that is explicitly framed in terms of interest and benefit for all over the long run must attend also to
the disadvantageous consequences of not using animals in research, and to all the achievements attained and attainable only
through their use. The sum
of the benefits of their use is utterly beyond quantification . The elimination

of horrible disease, the increase of longevity, the avoidance of great pain, the saving of lives, and
the improvement of the quality of lives (for humans and for animals) achieved through research
using animals is so incalculably geat that the argument of these critics, systematically pursued, esablishes not their
condusion but its reverse: to refrain from using animals in biomedical research is, on utilitarian grounds, morally wrong. When
balancing the pleasures and pains resulting from the use of animals in research, we must not fail to place on the scales the terrible
pains that would have resulted, would be suffered now, and would long continue had animals not been used. Every
disease
eliminated, every vaccine developed, every method of pain relief devised, every surgical procedure invented,
every prosthetic device implanted-- indeed, virtually every modern medical therapy-- is due, in part or in whole, to
experimentation using animals. Nor may we ignore, in the balancing process, the predictable ,gains in human (and
animal) well-being that are probably achievable in the future but that will not be achieved if the decision is made now to desist from
such research or to curtail it. Medical investigators are seldom insensitive to the distress their work may cause animal subjects.
Opponents of research using animals are frequently insensitive to the cruelty of the results of the restrictions they would impose.
Untold numbers of human beings--real persons, although not now identifible-would suffer grievously as the consequence of this
well-meaning but short-sighted tenderness. If the morally relevant differences between humans and animals are borne in mind, and
if all relevant considerations are weighed, the calculation of long-term consequences must give overwhelming support for biomedical
research using animals.
The rights of animals cannot be compared to the civil rights

movement- humans and non-humans cannot have the same rights
Polacheck Schmahmann 95 [David R. Schmahmann is a partner in the firm of Nutter,
McLennan & Fish. Lori J. Polacheck is an associate in the firm of Nutter, McClennan & Fish, MA
The Case Against Animal Rights, Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review
http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1382&context=ealr&seiredir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2Fscholar%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3D
%2522proponents%2Bof%2Banimal%2Brights%2522%26btnG%3D%26as_sdt
%3D1%252C23%26as_sdtp%3D#search=%22proponents%20animal%20rights%22]
A conviction and often stated belief among animal rights theorists is that the precepts of their
movement, like others once despised and rejected, will gain currency over time, and that
"animal rights [are] the logical progression in the evolution of natural rights theories." 213 It is
standard, indeed almost mandatory, preface to writings by animals rights activists to allude to the ridicule with which the ideas of early
abolitionists and suffragettes were received.214 Human
attitudes towards animals, the movement that seeks to

endow animals with civil rights tells us, are analogous to the archaic attitudes once expressed
about women and African-Americans, that the former are "themselves childish, frivolous and shortsighted; in a word, they are big children all their life long-a kind of intermediate stage between the child and the full-grown man,"215 and the
latter "a clownish, simple creature, at times even lovable within its limitations, but straightly foreordained to walk within the Veil."216 Those
who express reservations about the concept of civil rights for animals implicitly are warned
thereby that as the concept of "rights" continues to expand exponentially to include more
categories ofbeing217-and Professor Stone goes so far as to mention "humanoids, computers, and so forth" as potential beneficiaries of the
rights concept he advances218-their opposition to the process will, in time, come to seem quaint, if not distasteful, as archaic as does that of the
most patriarchal misogenist or chauvinist race theorist. The
analysis that equates animal rights with the rights of

women and African-Americans is as inappropriate as the equation is distasteful, and the
progression upon which those who make it rely is not inexorable. For one thing, it is not necessarily
true that because history is replete with examples of obduracy and ignorance in making political
distinctions, there is no credibility to the distinctions now made between animals and humans.
While it may be true that in the context of the relatively brief span of American history the experience of women and AfricanAmericans has been one of ascending from subordination to relative political empowerment, it
does not follow that political empowerment is a constantly expanding process, destined
eventually to empower not only animals but even other entities not yet fully identified. One legal
writer postulates that as a general proposition, "a refusal to recognize rights is a dubious position to take in America .... "219 It is doubtful,
however, that such a postulation is true. There are many claimed "rights" which, particularly so
in the American political tradition, are roundly refused because they have no grounding in
morality, culture, or history or because they conflict with other valued rights. Far from substantiating an
argument that history suggests an inevitable empowerment of animals, history, in fact, suggests the opposite . For one thing, human
history abounds in instances of enslavement and liberation, and the political fortunes of women
have varied from cultures that are matriarchal to those with prevailing attitudes quite different.
No society, however, has ever politically empowered living animals, with the possible exception of Caligula's Rome.
Nor should ours do so now. Animals are not politically empowered under our current array of
animal laws. Animals do not possess legal rights as that term is used by Professor Christopher Stone;220 animals cannot
institute legal actions; and courts do not consider animals' harms and benefits in granting and
denying legal relief. Instead, our laws properly seek to ensure that people treat animals in a way that is consistent with
human interests-including interests in the preservation of our environmentand esthetic
sensibilities
While we should avoid the unnecessary suffering of animals, we dont

need to morally justify the use of animals -- the relationship between
humans and animals are based in biology -- morals cant apply to
them
Nicoll & Russell 01, Professor of Integrative Biology at Berkeley & Department of Physiology-Anatomy at Berkeley, Ph.D.
in physiology from Stanford (Charles S. & Sharon M., Why Animal Experimentation Matters: The Use of Animals in Medical
Research, ed. E.F. Paul & J. Paul, p. 167-168)//dodo
From an evolutionary perspective, attempts
to find moral justification for the use of animals on the basis

of our "moral superiority" or otherwise are unnecessary, and the arguments against such justifications
are nonsensical. We are essentially like all other organisms whose fundamental goals in life are
to eat, survive, and reproduce. Our adaptive advantage-our intellect, with all that it entails-has enabled
us to be exceptionally successful at realizing these fundamental goals . It has also enabled us to achieve
many things that no other animal can even imagine, including science, technology, the arts, and so on. Because of their
idiosyncratic philosophical beliefs, animal advocates would deny us the ability to use our adaptive
advantage in certain ways: namely, to use animals for our benefit, particularly in pursuits that involve
acquiring knowledge about the functions and malfunctions of living creatures, including ourselves. Animal advocates
have an unbalanced obsession with the use of animals in biomedical research. This is illustrated by our
content analysis of twenty-one of the major books on animal rights that are devoted to describing how humans exploit animals.
Nearly two-thirds of the total pages of these books emphasize concern about animals' use in research and teaching, even though only
about 0.3 percent of the animals used by humans are employed for this purpose. 80 The
relationships that develop

between or among different species (e.g., symbiotic or parasitic) are a result of evolution. Since these
relationships are based in biology, it is nonsensical to moralize about them and to advocate
"rights" for animals, or even for equality among the species. Accordingly, the only code of morality that could be rationally
applied to relationships between other species and ourselves is that of contractualism, as we discussed in Section I. However, given
that animals
are not capable of understanding the moral concepts needed to engage in a

contractual agreement with humans, approaching human-animal interactions from a contractualist
perspective leads to the conclusion that moral theorizing about human duties to animals is a
pointless enterprise. The foregoing arguments in this essay illustrate that, from the perspective of Darwinian theory, the
exploitation of some species of animals by others is not an appropriate topic for moral concern ,
especially when the exploiting animals need to engage in this activity in order to survive. This generalization applies to the human
animal as well as to other predatory species. However, although the evolutionary viewpoint would hold that the human use of
animals per se is not worthy of moral consideration, the humane perspective requires that how we use animals is of moral concern.
The unnecessary or unjustified suffering of animals, including humans, should always be avoided.
animal have no rights

**evidence specific to animal testing
animals have no rights

Animals cant have rights -- rights are a human concept and animals
cant be evaluated in the same way
Simply defined, rights
are just and fair claims (to anything-life, liberty, power, privilege, etc.) that belong to
persons, as groups or individuals by law or tradition . Understanding rights in their various manifestations is not
simple, however. As philosopher Carl Cohen has cogently written: The differing targets, contents, and sources of rights, and their
inevitable conflict, together weave a tangled web. Notwithstanding all such complications, this much is clear about rights in general:
they are in every case claims, or potential claims, within a community of moral agents ... [i.e.,] among beings who actually do, or can,
make moral claims against one another. 44 Thus, it
is clear that animals cannot have rights: they cannot claim

them. The concept of "rights" is a creation of the human mind that was invented to promote
harmony and/or to reduce conflict in complex social, political, economic, and legal interactions. Accordingly, there are
no "natural" or "God-given" rights. The granting or claiming of rights has significant ethical
ramifications that can be understood only by beings with the capacity to reason and to make
moral judgments. When persons claim the rights to which they are entitled, they must accept the
associated obligations. For example, individuals who claim the right to freedom of expression must
refrain from abusing that right by slandering other people. People who do not meet their moral obligations can
lose their rights. In our society, they may lose their property, their freedom, and even their life. Thus, the claiming of rights
is not without cost. Obviously, animals cannot have rights of the kinds that are accorded to normal
human beings. Animals can neither claim rights nor accept the responsibilities that are
associated with having them. The concept of rights has meaning only in a community of moral
agents. Therefore, only humans can have rights.45 These conclusions are supported by considering how rights and
moral codes might be applied to animals. Contributors to a recent anthology, The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond
Humanity, argue that all species of the great apes should be given moral standing equal to that of
human beings.46 If this suggestion were to be implemented, then nonhuman apes would need to be
given special status because their behavior cannot be judged by the moral standards that apply
to normal human beings. For example, Goodall reported in a 1977 article that adult male and female
chimpanzees have been observed killing and eating infant chimps on numerous occasions in different
reserves in Central Africa.47 Should these animals have been tried for infanticide and cannibalism ? If they
had, would they have been entitled to a trial by a jury of their peers ? What would those peers be? Could a
nonchimpanzee ape (i.e., a human) have served as the presiding judge at such a trial? How could we have
communicated with the animals to inform them of their rights? Obviously, if apes or other animals were given rights
or considerations equal to those we accord to normal human beings, we could not hold them
accountable to the same moral standards to which we hold humans.
There is an inherent difference between inherent value and the ability

to have rights
Bender Harnack Leone 96 [David & Bruno series editors Andrew professor of English
eastern Kentucky University, Animal rights opposing views 42-43]
The Obscurity of Inherent Value Inherent value is a key concept in Regans theory. It is the bridge between the plausible claim that
all normal, mature mammals-human
or otherwise are subjects of a life and the more debatable claim

that they all have basic moral rights of the same strength. But it is a highly obscure concept, and its
obscurity makes it ill-suited to play this crucial role. inherent value is defined almost entirely in
negative terms, It is not dependent upon the value which either the inherently valuable
individual or anyone else may place upon that individuals life or experiences It is not
(necessarily a function of sentience or any other mental capacity, because, Regan says, some entities
which are not sentient (e.g., trees, rivers, or rocks) may, nevertheless, have inherent value. It cannot attach to anything
other than an individual; species, eco-systems, and the like cannot have inherent value. These are
some of the things which inherent value is not, But what is it? Unfortunately, we are not told. Inherent value appears as a
mysterious non-natural property which we must take on faith . Regan says that it is a postulate that subjectsof-a-life have inherent value, a postulate justified by the fact that it 0jds certain absurdities which he thinks follow from a purely
utilitarian theory. But
Why is the postulate that subjects-of-a-life have inherent value? If the inherent
value of a being is completely independent of the value that it or anyone else places upon its
experiences then why does the fact that it has certain sorts of experiences constitute evidence
that it has inherent value? If the reason is that subjects-of-a-life have an existence which can go better or worse for them,
then why isnt the appropriate conclusion that all sentient beings have inherent value, Since they would all seem to meet
that condition? Sentient but mentally unsophisticated beings may have a less extensive range of possible satisfactions and
frustrations, but why should it follow that they haveor may haveno inherent value at all ? In the
absence of a positive account of inherent value, it is also difficult to grasp the connection between being
inherently valuable and having moral rights. Intuitively, it seems that value is one thing, and
rights are another. It does not seem incoherent to say that some things e.g.. mountains, rivers,
redwood trees are inherently valuable and yet are not the sorts of things which can have moral
rights. Nor does it seem incoherent . to ascribe inherent value to some things which are not
individuals, e.g., plant or animal species, though it may well be incoherent to ascribe moral
rights to such things.
The line for granting rights is rationality- you cannot reason with nonhumans
Reasoning with Animals Aristotle was not wrong in claiming that the capacity to alter ones
behavior on the basis of reasoned argument is relevant to the full moral status which he
accorded to free men. Of course, he was wrong in his other premise, that women and slaves their nature cannot reason well
enough to function as autonomous moral agents. Find that premise been true, so would his conclusion that women and slaves are
not quite the moral equals of free men. In
the case of most non-human animals , the corresponding

premise is true. If, on the other hand, there are animals with whom we can (learn to) reason ,
then we are obligated to do this and to regard them as our moral equals. Thus, to distinguish
between the rights of persons and those of most other animals on the grounds that only people
can alter their behavior on the basis of reasoned argument does not commit us to a perfectionist
theory of the sort Aristotle endorsed. There is no excuse for refusing to recognize the moral equality of some people on
the grounds that we dont regard them as quite as rational as we are, since it is perfectly clear that most people can
reason well enough to determine how to act so as to respect the basic rights of others (if they
choose to), and that is enough for moral equality. But what about people who are clearly not rational? It is
often argued that sophisticated mental capacities such as rationality cannot be essential for the
possession of equal basic moral rights, since nearly everyone agrees that human infants and
mentally incompetent persons have such rights, even though they may lack those sophisticated mental capacities.
But this argument is inconclusive, because there are powerful practical and emotional reasons
for protecting non-rational human beliefs reasons which are absent in the case of most nonhuman animals. Infancy and mental incompetence are human conditions which all of us either
have experienced or are likely to experience at some time. We also protect babies and mentally in competent
people because we care for them. We dont normally Care for animals in the same way, and when we doe.g., in the case of muchloved petswe
may regard them as having special rights by virtue of their relationship to us . We

protect them for only for their sake but also for our own, lest we be hurt by harm done to them. Regan holds
that such side effects are irrelevant to moral rights, and perhaps they are. But in ordinary usage there is no sharp line between moral
rights and those moral protections which are not rights. The
extension of strong moral protections to infants

and the mentally impaired in no way proves that non-human animals have the same basic moral
rights as people.
Discussions on animals rights are infinitely regressive no line as to

where we stop giving rights as environmentalists wont stop at
sentience
eastern Kentucky University, Animal rights opposing views 48]
Another practical
reason is that this is an age in which nearly all significant moral claims tend to be expressed in
terms of rights. Thus, the denial that animals have rights, however carefully qualified , is likely
to be taken to mean that we may do whatever we like to them provided that we do not violate
any human rights. In such a context. speaking of the rights of animals may be the only way to persuade many people to take
seriously protests against the abuse of animals. Why not extend this line of argument and speak of the rights
of trees. mountains, oceans, or anything else which we may wish to see protected from
destruction? Some environmentalists have not hesitated to speak in this way, and, given the
importance of protecting such elements of the natural world, they cannot be blamed for using
this rhetorical device. But, I would argue that moral rights can meaningfully be ascribed only to entities which have some
capacity for sentience. This is because moral rights are protections designed to protect rights holders
from harms or to provide them with benefits which matter to them. Only beings capable of
sentience can be harmed or bene fitted in ways which matter to them, for only such beings can
like or dislike what happens to them or prefer some conditions to others. Thus, sentient animals,
unlike mountains, rivers, or species, are at least logically possible candidates for moral rights.
This fact, together with the need to end current abuses of animalse.g., in scientific research
and intensive farmingpro- vides a plausible case for speaking of animal rights.
The inadequacy of the anti-cruelty view provides one practical reason for speaking of animal rights.
animals =/= human

Other animal species commit acts of violence to other nonhumans -yet they arent placed in the same moral standard as humans are
According to animal rightists, only the human animal is immoral for exploiting other species ,
because we do not need to do so and we are moral agents . They also allege that we could use so-called
"alternatives to animals" for biomedical research and that we do not need to consume animals
for food or clothing, or to satisfy our other needs. Thus, we could choose to live a "cruelty-free" lifestyle if we had
the proper moral fiber. The fact that the so-called crueltyfree lifestyle is an illusion has been discussed by us previously.56 Animal
advocates also argue that when predators kill and eat other species, they are justified in doing so
because, unlike us, they have no alternative food sources.57 However, these beliefs-that only human
behavior toward other animals should be judged morally, and that we are the only natural
predator that could abandon a predatory lifestyle-contradict the central tenet of the ALARM
philosophy, the claim that we are "just like other animals." In fact, virtually all human
behavior is judged against moral standards, particularly our treatment of our own kind and other animals. In
contrast, no one can rationally judge the behavior of any nonhuman species against any moral
standards. This difference between other creatures and us nullifies the argument of ALARMists
that there are "no morally relevant differences between humans and nonhuman animals." Animal
activists also maintain that we are especially cruel and destructive to our own kind and to other species. For example, Singer stated:
We rarely stop to consider that the animal who kills with the least reason to do so is the human animal. ... Throughout their history
they [human beings] have shown a tendency to torment and torture both their fellow human beings and their fellow animals before
putting them to death. No other animals show much interest in doing this. 58 This undocumented, sweeping condemnation of
humanity shows an obvious (possibly willful) ignorance of biology. Numerous examples of cruelty by animals toward other animals
can be cited. For example, even
when well fed, the domestic cat is notoriously ruthless to the small
mammals and birds that it kills; it often does so after tormenting them and inflicting increasingly
serious injury. In fact, it has been estimated that the "recreational" hunting by domestic cats in the United
Kingdom kills about 100 million small birds and mammals each year . 59 In the United States, cats are
estimated to kill at least 4.4 million songbirds each day. (I) The U.S. figure alone amounts to more than 1.6
billion songbirds each year, which exceeds the current number of animals used each year for biomedical research in the United
States (about 25 million) by several orders of magnitude.61 Thus, it would seem that if
ALARMists were genuinely

interested in minimizing animal suffering, they would advocate the extermination of the
domestic cat. Shrikes, or "butcherbirds," capture small animals and impale them, often while
they are still alive, on thorns and barbs in their territory to display their hunting skills to females.62 The
great homed owl and wild mink are both known to kill , in a murderous frenzy, more animals than they
can eat. 63 Orcas, or killer whales, have been observed tormenting and brutalizing (seemingly "playing with")
sea-lion pups until they are dead before eating them.64 Walter Howard has reported other examples of animal
brutality to animals. 65 Female cougars and mountain lions often injure several sheep in a flock so that
their cubs can learn to kill prey animals. The death of these sheep is not swift or merciful. Like such cubs, canids such
as wolves or coyotes are not efficient killers of large prey animals . Hence, they usually begin to
consume their prey while it is still alive and conscious. Similar acts of cruelty, when committed
by humans, are considered to be grossly immoral, but animal advocates are largely silent
about these examples of cruelty to animals by animals. Some interspecies exploitation does not involve
predation. Many species of animals, including numerous types of birds and fish, practice a form of nonconsumptive exploitation
called brood parasitism, whereby the parental instincts of a foreign species are exploited to raise the young of the exploiting
creature.66 This form of exploitation often occurs at the expense of the exploited species' young. Cuckoos and cowbirds are the most
commonly known examples of species that practice brood parasitism, "victimizing" various species of songbirds such as reed
warblers.67 To try to judge the behavior of these animals by our moral standards would be ludicrous. They are simply acting out
their instinctive behaviors. Brood parasitism, for example, is an adaptation that gives its practitioners a significant reproductive
advantage. By exploiting unwitting foster parents, they can produce more offspring during each breeding season than they could if
they were obliged to care for their own young. This is clearly behavior that is advantageous from an evolutionary standpoint, though
beyond the pale of moral consideration.
Animals are inherently different than humans -- complexity of minds,

self-experience, and morals
Morrison 01, Professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania; a Fellow of the Center on
Neuroscience, Medical Progress, and Society at George Washington University; and Secretary General of the World Federation of
Sleep Research Societies. He has written numerous articles on the neurological aspects of sleep and on the animal rights movement,
and in 1991 he received the Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award of the American Society for the Advancement of Science.
(Adrian R., Why Animal Experimentation Matters: The Use of Animals in Medical Research, ed. E.F. Paul & J. Paul, p. 5254)//dodo
As a utilitarian, Singer does not actually subscribe to the idea of rights; he does, however, support the aims of the animal rights
movement.10 He and
the rest of the movement see speciesism as analogous to racism .11 To all but a few
people-those captured by the extremes of the animal rights movement- the equation of speciesism with racism
seems to trivialize bigotry. Most people sense a duty to their fellow man that supersedes
obligations to other species. Among these duties is the relief of human suffering, an obvious
objective of biomedical research employing animals; this research is clearly acceptable to most
people. Remarkably, however, it is not acceptable to everyone; if it were, there would be no need for this volume. Why do most of the
rest of us set humans apart? Michael A. Fox, a Canadian philosopher, 12 put forth what I consider to be clear and sensible reasons,
although he would quickly come to reject his own arguments on the urging of a radical feminist friend. 13 Humans
are
unique, Fox originally argued, in many obvious ways. Humans' brain complexity leads to the
sophisticated use of language: consider Shakespeare's plays versus the simple sign language that humans laboriously
teach apes. Furthermore, humans use intricately fashioned tools, even making tools to make other
objects. I would add that those who try to draw other species (the great apes in particular) into our fold by
emphasizing their intellectual abilities demean those animals. Their abilities are but shadows of
our own; they cannot come close to us intellectually. We should appreciate those creatures in their
own right-as wonderful creations of nature, not as defective humans . A recent editorial in the New Scientist
approached this question from another direction: Unfortunately, it has become fashionable to stress that chimpanzees and humans
must have staggeringly similar psychologies because they share 98.4 per cent of their DNA. But this misses the point: genomes
are not cake recipes. A few tiny changes in a handful of genes controlling the development of the
[cerebral] cortex could easily have a disproportionate impact. A creature that shares 98.4 per
cent of its DNA with humans is not 98.4 per cent human, any more than a fish that shares, say, 40 per cent of
its DNA with us is 40 per cent human.J4 Furthermore, we have a concept of ourselves that goes well beyond a chimp's ability to ape
itself in a mirror. We
can see ourselves "as independent individuals with our own integrity, sense of
purpose, and worth. We have a concept of our own lives-their origin, duration, self-guided direction, and
terminus in death-of world history, and of the limitless reaches of time and space beyond the self. ... Humans are the beings
who because of their acute sense of self experience anxiety, guilt, despair, shame, remorse,
internal conflict, pride, hope, triumph, and so many other emotion-laden states ." 15 Only with such
capacities can a being be called "cruel" or "humane" in its actions. My cat, playing with a dying mouse, cannot be
judged cruel. But were I to torture the mouse to death, I would be considered cruel . Human
beings may permissibly kill only when we do so respectfully, for a defined purpose, andmost importantly-as
painlessly as possible. Anything else is cruel. (The duck hunter who follows the rules of his craft merits my respect; he who
shoots at a passing crow for fun is a cad.) Of course, definitions of "defined purpose" and "painlessly" may well differ among
reasonable people. However, I cannot include in this group those who would deny uses that are beneficial to suffering human beings.
Once we have an animal, a group of animals, a species, or even an entire ecosystem within our
control, then, of course, we have a great obligation to it . During my early years as a researcher, when we lacked a
centralized animalcare facility with veterinarians and a full-time staff, I hired veterinary students to provide food and water to the
animals and clean their cages. Nevertheless, I never left for home without personally visiting my animal colony to make sure that
each cat had sufficient water and food, and that none was in distress.
Value to life are fundamentally different in humans and non-humans

due autonomy

When the Value of Life Is the Central Issue Where pain and suffering are the central issue, most of us tend to
think of the human and animal cases in the same way thus, cruelty to a child and cruelty to a dog
are wrong and wrong for the same reason. Pain is pain; it is an evil, and the evidence suggests that it is as much an evil for dogs
as for humans. Furthermore autonomy or agency or the lack thereof does not seem a relevant factor
here, since the pains of rionautonomous creatures count as well as the pains of autonomous ones.
Neither the child nor the dog is autonomous, at least in any sense that captures why autonomy is such an immensely important value; but the pains of
both child and dog count and affect our judgments of rightness and wrongness with respect to what is done to them. Where
the value of
Life is the central issue, however we do not tend to think of-the human and animal cases alike.
Here, we come down in favor of humans, as when we regularly experiment upon and kill
animals in our laboratories for (typically) human benefit; and a main justification reflective
people give forgive humans such advantage invokes directly a different value between human
and animal life. Autonomy or ncy is now, moreover, of the utmost significance. since the ercise of autonomy by
normal adult humans is one of the central ways they make possible further, important
dimensions of value to their lives. Arguably. even the extended justification of animal suffering n say medical research may make
indirect appeal to the un equal value thesis. Though pain remains an evil, the nature and Size of some benefit
determine whether its infliction is justified in the particular cases. Nothing precludes this
benefit from accrual to human beings, and when it does. we need an independent defense of the appeal to benefit this
kind of CflSC. For the appeal is typically invoked in cases where those who suffer are those who benefit, as when we go to the dentist, and in the
preferring instance human beings arc the beneficiaries of animal suffering. Possibly
the unequal value thesis can provide

the requisite defense: what justifies the infliction of pain it anything does . 15 the appeal to benefit: hot what
justifies use of the appeal in those cases where humans are the beneficiaries of animal suffering is. arguably. that human life is more volatile thou
animal life. Thus,
while the unequal value thesis cannot alter the character of pain, which remains an
evil, and cannot directly, independently of benefit, justify the infliction of pain, it can, the
suggestion is, anchor a particular use of the appeal to benefit.
focus on how we use animals instead

Animals should not be mal treated but that does not warrant equal
rights with humans
Fox 78 [ "Animal Liberation": A Critique* Michael Michael Fox taught nineteenth-century
philosophy, existentialism, environmental ethics, and other courses in the department from
1966 to 2005 Ethics, Vol. 88, No. 2 (Jan., 1978), pp. 106-118
http://aeitis.org/temp/2379979.pdf]
Now how can the above entailments be defended? I
cannot give full treatment to this important topic here,

but I should like to suggest that only autonomous beings, as just described, can and do belong to
a moral com-munity, which is the sort of social group within which (and only within which) such concepts
as those of rights and duties have any meaning and application. For it is only in a community of interacting
autonomous beings of this sort that there can be the kind of mutual recognition required for
these concepts to evolve and be understood. Obligations and rights, as well as the moral discourse generated by
these and ancillary notions, are functions of mutual recognition and accountability and are, consequently, inapplicable outside the
context specified. It
should be made clear that the foregoing is not an attempt merely to legislate
concerning the kinds of beings which qualify as possessor of moral rights . Rather, my analysis s meant to
suggest that, since the only species we know of that has developed the concepts of rights and obligations (and the institutions
associated with them) is Homo sapiens, there must be something about this peculiar sort of social being that accounts for the
phenomenon in question. And my argument is that the relevant features of humans (other than their capacity to suffer and enjoy)
that explain why they have rights are their possession of a certain kind of consciousness,
particular cognitive and linguistic abilities, and the capacity to comprehend, undertake, and
carry out obligations and to expect the same of like beings . The considerations taken up briefly here should
suffice to show that regarding the cognitive capacities of human beings as relevant to the question of possessing moral rights is not
tantamount to invoking some simplistic notion of humans' rationality to settle a vastly more complex set of issues, as proponents of
animal rights frequently suppose. Singer and Regan just
conveniently leave the capacities I have mentioned

out of the picture or else systematically misunderstand and underrate their significance. I conclude,
then, that it is difficult to see how an argument for ascribing specifically moral rights to animals can get started. And if it
cannot get off the ground, then there also appears to be no case for saying either that animals
ought not to be treated as means to human ends, provided that they are treated in as humane a
manner as possible in the process, or that they have a right to life. But it seems to me that the overall obligation to
prevent or minimize animal suffering should suffice as a moral basis for prohibiting the atrociousc onditionso f crowdinga nd
confinementt hat prevailo n modern "factory farms," for drastically curtailing the use of animals in excruciating but pointless
experiments in product testing, and for ending other inhumane practices (in slaughtering, trapping, the keeping of pets, hunting,
racing, and so on). Undoubtedly
animals should not be maltreated. They should not be made to suffer
needlessly or excessively." Singer and Regan are surely correct to single out animals' capacity to suffer as the reason why we
should treat them humanely. But it is no more clear how this extends moral rights to them than how our
dawning ecological sense that we ought not to waste natural resources and systematically ravage
the environment would establish moral rights for trees, lakes, or mineral deposits . What should be
said is that we have an obligation to avoid mistreating animals, but that this is an obli-gation without a
corresponding right on the part of the beings affected by our behavior. '2 The argument presented thus far
undercuts Singer's surely exaggerated claim that philosophers have felt the need to posit " some basis for the moral gulf
that is commonly thought to separate humans and animals, but can find no concrete difference
that will do this without undermining the equality of humans . . . " (S, pp. 266-67). It is difficult to see how
Singer can maintain the position that there is no "moral gulf" separating humans from animals when he also makes the following
(clearly speciesist) remark: "It
is not arbitrary to hold that the life of a self-aware being, capable of

abstract thought, of planning for the future, of complex acts of communication, and so on, is more
valuable than the life of a being without these capacities" (S. p. 23). For once it is admitted that certain forms of life are inherently
more valuable than others (valuable to whom, incidentally, if not to humans?), then
it has already been conceded that

the allegedly "more valuable" beings have a greater claim to life, pleasure, and freedom from
suffering than those lacking the capacities in question. And it becomes highly problematic how Singer can go on
from there to defend such views as that animal pleasure and pain are both qualitatively and quantitatively the same as those of
humans and that their capacity for enjoying life is the same.
answers to
at: marginal cases

Humans have morals inherently in them while animals never had
them in the first place
If having rights requires being able to make moral claims, to grasp and apply moral laws, then
many humans-the brain-damaged, the comatose, the senile-- who plainly lack those capacities
must be without rights. But that is absurd. This proves [the critic concludes] that rights do not depend
on the presence of moral capacities. This objection fails; it mistakenly treats an essential feature of humanity as though
it were a screen for sorting humans. The capacity for moral judgment that distinguishes humans from
animals is not a test to be administered to human beings one by one. Persons who are unable, because of
some disability, to perform the full moral functions natural to human beings are certainly not for that
reason ejected from the moral community The issue is one of kind. Humans are of such a kind that they may
be the subject of experiments only with their voluntary consent. The choices they make freely must be
respected. Animals are of such a kind that it is impossible for them, in principle, to give or withhold
voluntary consent or to make a moral choice. What humans retain when disabled,
animals have never had.
Mentally disabled human beings cannot be labeled equivalent to

animals -- animals are not considered tragic beings
Double bind -- either animals cant be on the same level as humans, or animals will be
considered tragic beings, this thought process forces anthropocentric values, seeing as animals
can only be beings that cannot recognize the fullness of life ( ? )
** modified for ablest language ( ask what term it should be modified too!!! )
Singer and other advocates
for animals argue that we should give special consideration to animals

that lack the cognitive capacities of normal adult and subadult humans because we give such
consideration to classes of humans whose physical and/or mental abilities are no greater than
those of many mammals, such as chimpanzees, pigs, or dogs.48 Such classes of humans, often referred to as
"marginal cases," include normal infants and mentally retarded or mentally disabled (i.e., brain-damaged)
individuals. Including these groups in this category runs counter to the innate inclination of all social
animals, and of many or most nonsocial animals, to protect their young and to favor their own
kind over other species. Any social species that did not show such a preference for its own kind
would soon become extinct, because the survival of such species is strongly dependent on mutual support. Mentally
retarded or disabled individuals have suffered a tragedy because they cannot realize the full
potential in life that normal human beings can experience. By contrast, apes, dogs, or pigs with
cognitive capacities comparable to those of a mentally retarded or disabled human are not tragic
beings. The families of retarded or brain-damaged individuals also suffer from the tragedy that befell their loved
ones. To regard retarded or disabled persons as subhuman, as some animal activists suggest, would
compound this tragedy. Furthermore, what degree of mental retardation would a person have to
display before being consigned "equal-to-animals" status? Crossing the gap that we maintain between our own
species and others would place this judgment on the proverbial slippery slope. Cohen addresses the issue of rights and the mentally
impaired in this way: "The
capacity for moral judgment that distinguishes humans from animals is not
a test to be administered to human beings one by one . Persons who are unable, because of some disability, to
perform the full moral functions natural to human beings are certainly not for that reason ejected from the moral community. "49
at: animals have feelings

The ability to care for ones young does not automatically give a right
to animals -- animals dont have the inherent morals found in humans
This criticism misses the central point. It
is not the ability to communicate or to reason, or dependence on

one another, or care for the young, or the exhibition of preference, or any such behavior that
marks the critical divide. Analogies between human families and those of monkeys, or between human communities
and those of wolves, and the like, are entirely beside the point. Patterns of conduct are not at issue. Animals do indeed
exhibit remarkable behavior at times. Conditioning, fear, instinct, and intelligence all contribute to
species survival. Membership in a community of moral agents nevertheless remains
impossible for them. Actors subject to moral judgment must be capable of grasping the generality of an ethical premise in a
practical syllogism. Humans act immorally often enough, but only they-- never wolves or monkeys---can discern,
by applying some moral rule to the facts of a case, that a given act ought or ought not to he performed . The
moral restraints imposed by humans on themselves are thus highly abstract and are often in
conflict with the self-interest of the agent. Communal behavior among animals, even when most intelligent and
most endearing, does not approach autonomous morality in this fundamental sense. Genuinely moral acts have an
internal as well as an .external dimension. Thus, in law, an act can be criminal only when the guilty deed, the actus
reus, is done with a guilty mind, mens tea. No animal can ever commit a crime; bringing animals to criminal
trial is the mark of primitive ignorance. The claims of moral right are similarly inapplicable to them. Does a lion
have a right to eat a baby zebra? Does a baby zebra have a right not to be eaten? Such questions, mistakenly invoking the concept of
right where it does not belong, do not make good sense. Those who condemn biomedical research because it violates "animal rights"
commit the same blunder.
Animal behavior doesnt correlate to pain -- self-preservation

Harrison 91, professor at Bond University (Peter, Do Animals Feel Pain?, Philosophy Vol. 66, No. 255, pg. 26-27, January
1991, Cambridge University Press on behalf of Royal Institute of Philosophy, JSTOR)//dodo
Even
the simplest representatives of the animal kingdom exhibit rudimentary pain behaviours. SingleThe argument based on pain behaviours is the most intuitive. Con-sidered in isolation, however, it is the least compelling.
celled organisms, for example, will withdraw from harmful stimuli. Insects struggle feebly after they have been inadvertently
crushed underfoot. Yet
few would want to argue that these behaviours resulted from the experience of
pain. Certainly we show little sympathy for those unfortunate ants which are innocent casualties of an afternoon stroll, or the
countless billions of microorganisms destroyed by the chlorination of our water supplies. For all practical purposes we discount the
possibility that such simple forms of life feel pain, despite their behaviours. In more elevated levels of the animal kingdom there are
also instances of pain behaviours which undoubtedly occur in the absence of pain. Some parent birds, for instance, will feign injury
to lure predators away from their young. The converse is also true. Animals
might have sustained considerable tissue

damage, but display none of the signs which we imagine would usually attend such trauma. This is because immobility
is the best response to certain kinds of injury.1 Pain behaviours, in any case, can be ably performed by non-living entities. If we
were to construct a robot which was devoid of speech, yet was to have an active and independent
existence, it would be necessary to programme it with mechanisms of self-preservation . Of the many
objects it might encounter, it would need to be able to detect and respond to those likely to cause it most harm. Properly
programmed, such a machine would manifest its own pain behaviour. If we lit a fire under it, it would struggle to escape. fit found
itself in a dangerous situation from which it could not extricate itself (say it fell into an acid bath) it would attempt to summon aid
with shrill cries. If it were immobilized after a fall, it might, by facial contortions, indicate that it was damaged. But this pain
behaviour would convey nothing about what it was feeling, for robots, on most accounts, can feel nothing. All
that could be learned from such behaviour was how well the robot had been programmed for
self-preservation. 1iutatis mutandis, the pain behaviours of animals demonstrate, in the first instance, how
well natural selection has fitted them for encounters with unfriendly aspects of their environment. For neither
animals, nor our imaginary robot, is pain behaviour primarily an expression of some internal
state. I think these examples are sufficient to show that the argument from behaviours alone is fairly weak. But the reason we are
inclined to deny that simple animals and computers feel pain is that despite their competent performance of pain behaviours,
their internal Structure is sufficiently dissimilar to our own to warrant the conclusion that they
do not have a mental life which is in any way comparable. Animals closely related to the human species,
however, possess at least some of the neural hardware which in human beings is thought to be involved in the experience of pain. It
might be that the behavioural argument is stronger when considered together with the second argumentthat based on the affinity
of nervous systems.
Animals exhibit pain behavior -- method of survival

Pain is a mental state, and mental states require minds. Our inquiry, then, is in part an investigation of the selective advantage
conferred by the possession of a mind. A minds reflection on its own activities, amongst other things, enables us to predict the
behaviour of other human beings, and to a lesser extent, animals. By reflecting upon our reasons for behaving in certain ways, and
by assuming that our fellow human beings are similarly motivated, we can make predictions about how they are likely to behave in
certain situations. But more than this, by ascribing consciousness and intelligence to other organisms we can also make predictions
about how they will behave. Such ascriptions, whether they have any basis in fact or not, can thus help the human species survive. As
H. S. Jennings remarked almost ninety years ago, if an amoeba were as large as a whale, it is quite conceivable that occasions might
arise when the attribution to it of the elemental states of consciousness might save the unsophisticated human from destruction that
would result from lack of such attribution.2 Along with human self-awareness then, came a tendency to attribute a similar
awareness to other creatures. That
animals might have beliefs, mental images, intentions and pains like
our own could be nothing more than a useful fiction which gives us a shorthand method of
predicting their behaviour. There is, then, some value in the belief that animals suffer pain, for it provides a reasonably
reliable guide to how they will behave. But it is not an infallible guide. If, for example, we were to pit ourselves against a chessplaying computer, the best strategy to adopt would be to act as if the machine were a skilled human opponent, possessed of certain
intentional statesa desire to win, particular beliefs about the rules, and so on. However, there might be occasions when it would be
better to adopt another attitude towards the computer. Let us imagine that the computer was programmed to play at three levels
beginner, inter mediate, and advanced. Set at the beginner level, the computer might show itself to be vulnerable to a basic fools
mate, so that whenever this simple gambit was used, it inevitably lost. A human opponent could thus he confident of heating the
computer whenever he or she wished. Now this exploitation of the computers weakness would result from the adoption of quite a
different stance. No longer would the computer be treated as if it had desires and beliefs (or more importantly as if it had the ability
to acquire new beliefs), for a human opponent in the same situation would quickly learn to counter the fools mate. Instead,
our wildebeest, on
an intentional account, should exhibit pain behaviour. Only when we adopt a design stance (the
animal was designed by natural selection to behave in ways which would enhance the survival of the species) do we get a
reasonable explanation of why it dies in silence.22 The general point is this. The ascription to animals of
certain mental states usually enables us to predict their behaviour with some accuracy (such
ascription increasing our own chances of survival). But there will always be instances where this intentional
model will break down and explanations which refer to selective advantages will be preferred .
predictions of the computers behaviour would be based on the way it had been designed to operate. Thus,
Animals dont have morals -- behavior is based on the best chance for
survival
Another reason for attributing pain experiences only to human beings is to do with free-will and
moral responsibility. While there has been some dispute about whether animals ought to be the object of our moral concern,
we do not usually consider animals to be moral agents . Animals are not generally held to be
morally responsible for their own acts, and notwithstanding some rather odd medieval judicial practices, animals
do not stand trial for antisocial acts which they might have committed . What is absent in
animals which is thought to be crucial to the committing of some wrong is the mens reathe evil intent.
Animals are not morally responsible for the acts they commit because while they may have
behavioural dispositions, they do not have thoughts and beliefs about what is right and wrong,
nor can they, whatever their behavioural disposition, form a conscious intent. Or at least, So we generally believe. Animals, in short,
are not free agents, and this is why they are not regarded as being morally responsible. But what does the determined nature of
animal behaviour have to do with pain? Simply this, that if animals behaviours are causally determined, it makes no sense to speak
of pain as an additional causal factor. One way of seeing the force of this is to explore some of the contexts in which we use the term
pain. There are many ways we have of talking about pain which exclude animals. Consider the
following: (1) For the long-distance runner, it is a matter of mind over matter. He must break through the pain barrier. (2) The
hunger striker finally succumbed and died. (3) Even though she knew it would mean a horrible death at the stake, she refused to
recant. (4) The pain became unbearable. He cried out. If
we attempt to substitute animals for the human

agents in these statements, the result becomes complete nonsense . Our inability to fit animals into the logic
of these expressions is not merely because animals are not (contingently) long-distance runners, or hunger strikers, or religious
martyrs. The key lies in statement (4). We
must ask: Do animals ever find pain unbearable ?, and, What

reasons could they have for bearing it? Consider this sentence in which a suitable substitution might be made. The
mans hand reached into the flames, and was immediately withdrawn with a cry. We could easily substitute ape for man here and
the statement will retain its sense. But what about this: The man plunged his hand into the flames again, knowing that only he
could reach the valve and stem the flow of petrol which threatened to turn the sleepy village into an inferno. Now the
substitution becomes impossible, for what could conceivably cause the ape to plunge its hand back into the flames?
Nothing, I suspect, for apes do not have reasons for bearing pain. Now it may seem unsatisfactory to proceed on the basis of certain
linguistic practices to make some claim about how things really are. (This, I suspect, is why Anselms ontological argument always
leaves one feeling a little uneasy.) But the exclusive nature of the grammar of pain, or more correctly of bearing pain, reveals the
unique province of pain. Pain operates as one kind of reason which free agents are bound to take into consideration when they
decide on a particular course of action. Pain can be borne if there are reasons. But an
animal never has reasons either

to bear pain, or to succumb to pain. And if pain never need be brought into the sphere of reasons
the mindthen there is no need for it, qua unpleasant mental event, at all. Thus, while it is
undeniable that animals sense noxious stimuli and react to them, these stimuli only need be
represented as unpleasant mental states if they are to become the bodys reasons in the context
of other reasons. Only as various degrees of unpleasantness can they be taken seriously amongst reasons, and this is only
necessary in the mind of a rational agent. Another way of thinking about this is to consider the attributes of the long-distance
runner, the hunger striker, the martyr, the hero of the sleepy village. We could say that they had mental strength, great courage, or
moral character. But we would never predicate these of animals. The
wildebeest dies silently and does not

endanger the herd. But does it die courageously? Does it bear the pain to the end? Does it have a reason for remaining silent?
No, because it does not have a choice. All wildebeest behave in this fashion . And if it does not have a choice,
there is no requirement for the dismemberment of its body to be represented mentally as pain. Pain is the bodys representative in
the minds decision-making process. Without pain, the mind would imperil the body (as cases of insensitivity to pain clearly show).
But without the rational, decision making mind, pain is superfluous. Animals have no rational or moral considerations which might
overrule the needs of the body. It is for this reason that Descartes referred to pain, hunger and thirst as confused modes of thought,
which can only be predicated of creatures which can think.Z3
at: singer/rtc of -isms

Racism/Sexism isnt founded in the nature of different species -- the
difference between humans and animals is different from the way
people view others in a different race or gender
The first error ts the assumption, often explicitly defended, that all sentient animals have equal moral standing. Between a dog and a
human being, according to this view, there is no moral difference; hence the pains suffered by dogs must be weighed no differently
from the pains suffered by humans. To deny such equality, according to this critic, is to give unjust preference to one species over
another; it is "speciesism." The most influential statement of this moral equality of species was made by Peter Singer: The racist
violates the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of his own race when there is a clash between
their interests and the interests of those of another race. The sexist violates the principle of equality by favoring the interests of his
own sex. Similarly the speciesist allows the interests of his own species to override the greater interests of members of other species.
The pattern is identical in each case. This
argument is worse than unsound; it is atrocious. It draws an

offensive moral conclusion from a deliberately devised verbal parallelism that is utterly specious .
Racism has no rational ground whatever. Differing degrees of respect or concern for humans for no
other reason than that they are members of different races is an injustice totally without
foundation in the nature of the races themselves. Racists, even if acting on the basis of mistaken factual beliefs,
do grave moral wrong precisely because there is no morally relevant distinction among the races. The
supposition of such differences has led to outright horror. The same is true of the sexes, neither sex being
entitled by right to greater respect or concern than the other. No dispute here Between species of
animate life, however between (for example) humans on the one hand and cats or rats on the other-the morally relevant differences are enormous, and almost universally appreciated. Humans engage in
moral reflection; humans are morally autonomous; humans are members of moral
communities, recognizing just claims against their own interest. Human beings do have rights; theirs is a
moral status very different from that of cats or rats.
at: nervous systems

Animals react to behaviors without having the mental capacity to
understand what it means
Descartes, in his Meditations (1614), quite correctly pointed out that there is no necessary logical relation between propositions
about mental states and propositions about physical states. We may doubt the existence of our bodies, but not our minds. A
disembodied mind is a logical possibility. Conversely, there is no logical impropriety in imagining bodies behaving in quite complex
ways, without those behaviours being necessarily accompanied by relevant mental processes. Our robot, for example, would fit the
bill, and indeed for Descartes, animals too were merely automatons, albeit organic ones. Of course from the fact
that there is no logical connection between mental states and physical states it cannot be inferred that no contingent connection is
possible. Descriptions of mental and physical states may be linked in a number of ways, and it is upon such linkages that the second
argument for animal pain depends. The most compelling evidence of connection between the physical state of the brain and the
mental life of the individual comes from instances of brain pathology or brain surgery. The fact that damage to the cerebral cortex
can reduce individuals to a mindless state would suggest that observable brain states cause mind states, or at the very least are a
necessary condition of mind states. More specifically, neurologists have had some success in identifying those parts of the brain
which seem to be responsible for particular conscious states. our experience of pain, for example, seems to be mediated through a
complicated physical network involving the neospinothalamic projection system (sensory aspects of pain), reticular and limbic
structures (motivational aspects of pain), and the neocortex (overall control of sensory and motivational systems).4 (It may be
significant that this latter structure we share only with the primates. An
argument could be made on this basis

alone that the experience which we designate pain is peculiar to us and a few primate species .)
But despite such well- established connections between observable brain structures and more elusive mental
states, it would be rash to attempt to predict the mental states of individuals on the basis of the
presence or absence of certain structures, or even on the basis of the physiological status of those structures.5 The
well-known literature on the psychology of pain illustrates that the same stimulus may prove intensely painful to one individual, and
be of little concern to another. The use of placebos to control pain, the influence of hypnosis or suggestion to influence pain
perception, national differences in pain thresholds, all such aspects of the psychology of pain illustrate that the presence of certain
brain structures and requisite sensory inputs are not sufficient conditions for the prediction of mental states. Not only does the
psychology of pain afford instances in which the same neural hardware might give rise to a variety of different conscious states, but
the human brain itself exhibits an amazing ability to generate certain mental states in the absence of the relevant physical structures.
Phantom pain is perhaps the most obvious example. Amputees frequently report awareness of a limb which has been recently
amputated. In a minority of cases a phantom limb may become an ongoing source of severe pain. Often the pain is located in a quite
specific part of the missing appendage. An even more compelling illustration of the generation of certain mental states in the
absence of appropriate structures comes from John Lorbers engaging paper Is Your Brain Really Necessarv? Paediatric neurologist
Lorber reports on a number of individuals with hydro cephalusa condition which resulted in their having virtually no cerebral
cortex. The most intriguing case cited by Lorber is that of a mathematician with IQ of 126. A brain scan revealed that this young man
had, in Lorbers words, virtually no brain. The supratentorial part of the intracranial cavity contained only a thin layer of brain
tissue, between one and two millimetres thick, attached to the skull wall. No visual cortex was evident, yet the individual, who by all
accounts should have been blind, had above average visual perception. It is likely that the functions which would normally have
taken place in the missing cerebral cortex had been taken over by other structures. Cases such as this show that certain aspects of
human consciousness have a tenacity which confounds our understanding of the link between brain structure and consciousness.
Lorbers discoveries are a striking example of the fact that an advancing neuroscience, far from establishing concrete links between
brain states and mental states, is actually deepening the mystery of how the brain is causally related to human consciousness. It need
hardly be said that when
we cross the species boundary and attempt to make projections about

animals putative mental lives based on the structures of their nervous systems we are in murky
waters indeed. Two further examples illustrate this. The brains of birds, such as they are, do not contain a
visual cortex. Thus if we are to argue that similar brain structures give rise to similar experiences, then it is unlikely that
the visual experiences of birds will be qualitatively similar to our own . On the other hand, the behaviour of
birds would seem to indicate that they can see. While we assume from the behaviour of birds that their visual experience of the
world is much the same as ours, if we are committed to the view that like mental states are generated by like brain stuctures, we are
bound to admit that this assumption is unfounded. We might of course be tempted to revert to the first argumentthat
behaviour, not structure, gives the correct cues to mental states. But this seems to commit us to
the view that computers, flies, and amoebas have states of consciousness like our own . Another
illustration which concerns visual experiences is the much- discussed phenomenon of blind-sight.7 As we have already mentioned,
the visual or striate cortex is thought to be necessary for human vision. Individuals suffering from damage to the striate cortex may
lose sight in part of their visual field. Larry Weisenkrantz and his colleagues have carried out a number of experiments on one such
individual who claimed to be blind in his left field of view. Simple shapes were presented to this subject in his blind field of view.
Though he denied being able to see anything, the subject could, with reasonable consistency, describe the shape of the object and
point to it. In each instance he insisted that his correct response was merely a guess. Examples of blindsight indicate, amongst other
things, that it is possible to have visual experiences of which we are unaware. The blindsight phenomenon thus opens up the
possibility that there might be non-conscious experiences to which we can nonetheless respond with the appropriate behaviour,
Blindsighted individuals can learn to respond as if they see, even though they have no conscious
awareness of seeing anything. The significance of this for a discussion of animal behaviours is
that animals might respond to stimuli as if they were conscious of them, while in fact they are
not. Thus birds which lack the human apparatus of conscious vision (as do blindsighted subjects) might not simply have
qualitatively different visual experiences as suggested above, they might not have conscious visual experiences at all. It may be
concluded that an animals experience of stimuli which we would find painful might be qualitatively different (that is, not painful) or
may even be non-conscious. Animals
might react to such stimuli by exhibiting pain behaviour and yet

not have that mental experience which we call pain, or perhaps not have any conscious
experience at all. So far our discussion of neural circuitry and how it relates to putative mental states has focused upon the
inability of contemporary neuro science to bridge the gap between brain and mind. There are those, of course, who have asserted
that it is impossible in principle to bridge that gap. It is significant that Thomas Nagel, one of the chief spokes men for this group,
has alluded to animal consciousness to make his point. In the seminal paper What is it Like to be a Bat? Nagel leads us into the
subjective world of the bat. These curious mammals, he reminds us, perceive the external world using a kind of sonar. By emitting
high-pitched squeals and detecting the reflections, they are able to create an accurate enough image of their environment to enable
them to ensnare small flying insects, while they themselves are air borne. Nagel points out that we might observe and describe in
detail the neurophysiology which makes all this possible, but that it is unlikely that any amount of such observation would ever give
us an insight into the bats subjective experience of the worldinto what it is like to be a bat. As Nagel himself puts it: For if the facts
of experiencefacts about what it is like for the experiencing organismare available only from one point of view, then it is a
mystery how the true character of experience could be revealed in the physical operation of that organIsm.2 Nagel thus asserts that
the construction of subjective experiences from the observation of brain states is in principle impossible.3 For our present purposes
it is not necessary to enter into the argument about whether mind states are reducible to brain states. Suffice it to say that there is
sufficient confusion about how brain structure and function relate to mental states to rule out any simple assertion that animal
nervous systems which resemble our own will give rise to mental states like ours. It seems then, that pain, a mental state, can be
neither perceived nor inferred by directing the senses on to behaviours or on to the brain itself. But what of the third argument for
animal painthat based on evolutionary theory?
at: evolutionary theory

Animals react to behaviors without having the mental capacity to
understand what it means
Evolutionary theory provides the most convincing case for animal pain. Because evolution stresses continuities in the biological
sphere, it breaks down the distinction between human and animal. Thus any special claims made on behalf of the human racethat
they alone experience pain, for examplerequire justification. Before examining how, in evolutionary terms, we might justify
treating Homo sapiens as a unique case, we ought to consider first how animal pain might conceivably fit into the evolutionary
scheme of things. Natural selection designs animals to survive and reproduce. An important sort of adaptation for organisms to
acquire would be the ability to avoid aspects of the environment which would reduce their chances of survival and reproduction.
Pain, we might suppose, plays this adaptive role by compelling organisms to avoid situations in their world which might harm them.
This view of the matter receives some measure of support from cases of individuals born with a congenital insensitivity to pain. Such
unfortunate people frequently injure themselves quite severely in their early childhood, and must be taught how to avoid inflicting
damage upon themselves. That such a condition can lead eventually to permanent disability or death would suggest that pain has
considerable adaptive value for human beings at least)4 Animals which were similarly insensitive
to damaging
stimuli, we might reasonably infer, would have little chance of survival. Yet there are difficulties with this
interpretation. Strictly, it is not pain (real or imputed) which is the adaptation, hut the behaviour which is
elicited when the damaging stimulus is applied. Those who are insensitive to pain are not disadvantaged by the
absence of unpleasant mental states, but by a lack of those behavioural responses which in others are prompted by pain. We tend to
lose sight of the primacy of behaviour because we get caught up in the con notations of expression. That is to say, we consider some
animal behaviours to be expressions of a particular mental state. Even Darwin, who should have known better, was guilty of this
infelicity when he spoke of the expression of the emotions in man and animals. Such locutions are misleading because they suggest
that certain aspects of animal behaviour are arbitrary outward signs which signify some conscious state. But the simplest application
of the theory of natural selection would only allow that such
behaviours as violent struggling, grimacing and

crying out, serve some more direct purpose in enhancing an animals chances of survival and
reproduction. (Darwin admittedly stressed the communicative aspects of these signs.) To exploit another example which I have
drawn upon in another context, a wildebeest which is being torn apart by dogs will die in silence, while a chimpanzee will
screech out in response to some trivial hurt like a thorn puncturing its foot.5 It seems that the chimp
gives expression to its pain, whereas the wildebeest does not. Yet neither expresses its pain.
Rather, each behaves in a way likely to enhance the survival of the species . The chimpanzee
communicates either to warn its conspecifics, or to summon aid . The wildebeest remains silent
so that others will not be lured to their deaths. It is the behaviour, rather than some hypothetical mental
state, which adapts the organism. Another linguistic usage which holds us in thrall is the language of detection. We
assume that detection entails conscious awareness of. This leads us to believe that an animal cannot respond to a stimulus unless
in some sense it consciously knows what it has encountered. The reason such insectivorous plants as the venus fly trap capture our
imagination is that they behave as if they are aware. How, we ponder, do they know that the fly is there? Again we need to remind
ourselves that the simplest of organisms are able to detect and respond to stimuli, yet we are not thereby committed to the view that
they have knowledge or beliefs. The same is true of more neurologically complex organisms. There is an important truth in that
litany of behaviourists: animals
acquire behaviours, not beliefs. If it is granted that the behaviour rather than
some postulated mental state is what adapts an organism, we are next led to inquire whether
organisms might exhibit pain behaviours without that attendant mental state which we call
pain. As we noted at the outset, many invertebrates to which we do not generally attribute feelings of pain exhibit pain
behaviour. In higher animals too, as we have already seen, it is possible that relevant behaviours might be performed in the absence
of any conscious experience. But is it probable? Must pain be introduced to cause the behaviours, or might these be caused more
directly by the stimulus, or perhaps by indifferent conscious states? We might at this point simply opt for the most parsimonious
explanation. This is in fact the upshot of Lloyd Morgans famous dictum: in no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the
exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the
psychological scale.6 We
must ask, in other words, if we can explain all animals reactions to noxious
stimuli without recourse to particular mental states. Our blindsight examples show that it is possible for
organisms to respond appropriately to stimuli in the complete absence of mental states. If the
general case is true, then the same might be said for the specific performance of pain behaviours in the
absence of pain. The thrust of Morgans canon can he reinforced epistemologically with the arguments of Descartes. As we
know, Descartes radical doubt led him to propose that all we can know for certain are the truths of logic and the existence of our
own mental states.7 Fortunately one of the truths of logic was the existence of a God who could guarantee, to some extent, the
veracity of perceptions of the world. Yet strict application of the criterion of doubt permits us to ascribe minds to other creatures
only if they demonstrate (verbally, by signs, or by rational behaviour) evidence of mental activity. From the lack of such indications
from animals, Descartes concluded that we have no evidence which would enable us legitimately to infer that animals have minds.
Not having minds, they cannot feel pain. Descartes thus provides epistemological grounds for denying that animals feel pain.9 If we
adopt the conservative stance of Morgan or Descartes, then it seems that we have no grounds, scientific or philosophical , for
asserting that animals feel pain. Yet this is a much weaker claim than the positive assertion that we have good reasons for believing
that animals do not feel pain, or, to put it another way, that only human beings feel pain.2o Certainly a reasonable case could be
advanced that given our admitted ignorance, we have moral grounds for giving animals the benefit of the doubt. We shall return to
this point later. For the moment, let us consider the positive statement of the case. Do we have reasons for believing that only human
beings feel pain? Or, recasting the question in evolutionary terms, why should pain have adaptive value for the human species, if it
would serve no purpose in other species?
humans are better

To the brave and inquisitive scientists who advance
medical knowledge and better the human condition
2ac - humans are better

Human have more value to life than non-humans because of the
fullness of their life
Evaluating the Quality of Various Lives How might we defend the unequal value thesis? At least the beginnings of what I take to be
the most promising option in this regard can be briefly sketched. Pain
is one thing, killing is another, and what

makes killing wrong killing could he free of pain and sufferingseems to he the fact that it
consists in the destruction of something of value. That it is killing and the value of life seem
straight forwardly connected since it is difficult to understand why taking a particular life would
be wrong if ti had no value If few people consider animal life to be without value, equally few I think,
consider it to have the same value as normal (adult) human life. They need not he speciesist as a result: in my view, normal
adult human life is of a much higher quality than animal life, not because of species, but because
of richness; and the value of a life is a function of its quality. Part of the richness of our lives
involves activities that we have in common with animals but there are as well whole dimensions
to our liveslove, marriage, educating children, jobs. hobbies, sporting events, cultural pursuits,
intellectual development and striving, etc.that greatly expand our range of ab sorbingendeavors and so significantly
deepen the texture of our lives. An impoverished life for us need not be one in,-which food or sex or liberty is absent : it can
equally well he a life in which these other dimensions have not taken root or have done so only
minimally. When we look back over our laves and regret that we did not make more of them, we
rarely have in mind only the kinds of activities that we share with animals; rather, we think much more
in terms of precisely these other dimensions of our lives that equally go to make up a rich, full life.
The lives of normal (adult) humans betray a variety and rich ness that the lives of rabbits do not;
certainly, we do lot think of ourselves as constrained to Jive out our lives according to some
conception of al life deemed appropriate to our species, Other conceptions of a life for ourselves are within our
reach, and we can try to understand and appreciate them and to choose among them. Some of us are artists, others educators, still
others mechanics the richness of our lives is easily enhanced through developing and molding our talents so as to enable us to live
out these conceptions of the good life. Importantly, also, we are not condemned to embrace in our lifetimes only a single conception
of such a life; in the sense intended, the artist can choose to become an educator and the educator a mechanic. We
embrace at different times different conceptions of how we want to live.
can
Although nonhumans do have rights it is important to recognize that

humans have a higher value to life do to experiences
The question of who or what has moral standing, of who or what is a member of the moral community, has received wide ex- posure in recent years.
Various answers have been extensively canvassed; and though controversy still envelops claims
for the inclusion of the inanimate environment within the moral community, such claims on
behalf of animals br, at least, the higher animals] are now widely accepted, Morally, then, animals
count. I do not myself think that we have needed a great deal of argument to establish this point; but numerous writers, obviously. have thought
otherwise. In any event, no work of mine has ever denied that animals count. In order to suffer, animals
do not have to be self-conscious, to have interests or beliefs or language, to have desires and
desires related to their own future, to exercise self-critical control of their behavior, or to possess
rights; and I, a utilitarian, take their sufferings into account, morally. Thus, the scope of the moral Community, at least so far as [higher]
animals are concerned, is not something I contest. I may disagree with some particular way of
trying to show that animals possess moral standing e.g., by ascribing them some variant of moral
rights but I have no quarrel with the general claim that they posses such standing . Indeed, my reformist
position with respect to vegetarianism, vivisection, and our general use of animals in part turns upon this very fact. As I have indicated in my two books
[interests and Rights; The Case Against Animals 1980) and Rights, Killing, and Suffering (1983)] and numerous articles on animal issues, my
reservations come elsewhere. . . . There,
I have focused upon the comparetive value of human and animal

life; I have taken the notion of autonomy to be central to this issue , since the exercise of autonomy by normal
adult humans is the source of an immense part of the value of their lives. Here, I want to sketch one way this concern with the comparative value of
Those
who concern themselves with the moral considerability of animals may well be tempted to
suppose that their work is finished, once they successfully envelop animals within the moral
community. Yet, to stop there is never per se to address the issue of the value of animal life and so never to engage the position that I, and others,
hold on certain issues. Thus, I am a restricted vivisectionist, not because I think animals are outside the moral community but because of
views I hold about the value of their lives. Again, I think it is permissible to use animal parts in human
transplants, not because I think animals lack moral standing but because I think animal life is
less valuable than human life. [As some readers may know, I argue that experiments upon animals and the use of animal parts in
human transplants are only permissible if one is prepared to sanction such experiments upon and the use of certain humans. I think the
benefits to be derived from these practices are sometimes substantial enough to compel me to
endorse the practices in the human case unless the side Effects 0f any such decision offset these
benefits I have written of views that t hold; the fact is, I think, that the vast majority of people share my view of the differing
value of Human and animal life. This view we might capture in the form of three propositions: l. Animal life
has some value; 2. Sot all animal life has the same value; 3. human life is more valuable than
animal life. very few people today would seem to believe that animal life is without value and
that, therefore, we need not trouble ourselves morally about taking it. Equally few people. however, would seem to believe that all animal life
human and animal life comes to have importance and to interact with the charge of speciesism. Animal Life Is Less Valuable Than Human life
has the same value. Certainly. the lives of dogs, cats, and chimps arc very widely held to he more valuable than the lives of mice, rats, and worms and
the legal protections we accord these different creatures for example. Reflect this fact. Finally,
whatever value we take the lives

of dogs and cats to have, most of us believe human life to be more valuable than animal life. We
believe this, moreover, even as we oppose cruelty to animals and acknowledge valuein the case of some animals, considerable valueto their lives. I
shall call this claim about the comparative value of human and animal life the unequal value thesis. A crucial question. obviously is whether we who
hold this thesis can defend it. Defending the Unequal Value thesis Many animal rightists themselves seem inclined to accept something like the
unequal value thesis. With respect on the oft- cited fait example. in which one can save a man or a dog hut not both, animal rightists often concede that,
other things being equal, one ought to save the man .
To be sure, this result only says something about our

intuitions and about those in extremis: yet, what it is ordinarily taken to say about themthat
we take hoe man life to be more valuable than animal lifeis not something we think in extreme circumstances
only. Our intuitions about the greater value of human life seem apparent in and affect all our relations with animals, from the differences in the ways we
regard. treat, and even bury humans and animals to the differences in the safeguards for their protection that we construct and the differences in
penalties we exact for violation of those safeguards- ii a word, the unequal value thesis seems very much a part of the approach that most of us adopt
towards animal issues. We oppose cruelty to animals as well as humans, but this does n lead us to suppose that the lives of humans and animals have
the same value. Nor is there any entailment in the matter: one can perfectly consistently oppose cruelty to all sentient creatures without having to
suppose that the lives of all such creatures are equally valuable. We
might note in passing that if this is right about our

intuitions, then it is far from clear that it is the defender of the unequal value thesis who must
assume the burden of proof in the present discussion. Our intuitions about pain and suffering
are such that if a theorist today suggested that animal suffering did nn count ,nnraljv then he
would quickly find himself on the defensive, If I am right about our initiations over the compare tive value of human and
animal life, why is the same not true n the case of the theorist who urges or assumes that these lives are of equal value? 1f, over suffering, our intuitions
In any
event, I have not this matter of the burden of proof lo chance in any other world where I have
cngi-.d for the unequal value thesis, Here. want only to stress that our in tuitions do not obviously crores, as it were, a startingpoint of equality of value in the lives of humans and animals. On the strength of this consideration alone, we seem
justified in at least treating skeptically arguments and claims that proceed from or implicitly rely
upon some initial presumption of equal value, in order to undermine the unequal value thesis
from the outset.
force the inclusion of the pains of animals to be defended. why, over the value of life, do they not force an equal value thesis to he de fended?
Emotions are necessary but not sufficient to grant rights- autonomy is key
Fox 78 [ "Animal Liberation": A Critique* Michael Michael Fox taught nineteenth-century
philosophy, existentialism, environmental ethics, and other courses in the department from
1966 to 2005 Ethics, Vol. 88, No. 2 (Jan., 1978), pp. 106-118
http://aeitis.org/temp/2379979.pdf]
There are numerous flaws in this argument. First of all, if
all talk about interests (in the moral sense) is meaningful

only in relation to the capacity to enjoy and suffer, then it now appears that the ethical idea of
equality does rest upon an assertion of factual equality after all-namely, the fact that all human
beings have this capacity. But if one factual consideration is relevant to assigning rights to beings, then others may be as
well, and the question of the other capacities which beings must have to be proper subjects of mo-rality becomes important to
consider. Singer and Regan insist that any characteristic which is used as a basis for assigning moral rights to human beings must be
universal, that is, pos-sessed by all humans without exception. This
is why they fasten onto the capacity to enjoy

and suffer, with the totally unsurprising result that we cannot find anything else that fits this
extreme requirement. But even if we play by their rules, it can be doubted whether any
characteristic is really universal in so strong a sense, the capacity to enjoy and suffer included. To
begin with, as physiologists well know, there is a rare but thoroughly docu-mented condition called "congenital universal
indifference (or insensitivity) docu-mented condition called "congenital universal indifference (or insensitivity) to pain,"5 which is
characterized by complete absence, throughout life, of any pain-sensing capability .
But if the capacity to experience

pain is missing, any rights predicated on it must vanish as well. In addition, completely
anesthetized, hypnotized, or deeply comatose human beings lack the capacity in question and
hence, too, any corresponding rights. If this is an unaccept-able conclusion, however (as I think everyone would agree
it is), it is in-structive to see why. The reasons are: (1) that basic moral rights arise from other
criteria than the capacity to enjoy and suffer (this capacity being a necessary but not a sufficient
condition for the granting of the rights in question);6 and (2) that what counts in establishing
rights are the charac-teristics that a certain class of beings share in general, even if not
universal-ly. The search for attributes that all humans, without exception, share in common and which are
supposed to furnish the grounds for the assigning of moral rights to them, as well as to any sufficiently similar beings, is bound to be
futile; for even the capacity of humans to experience pain and pleasure falls short of complete universality, as we have just seen.
But then if we shift our attention instead to capacities that are nearly or virtually universal
among humans, as we are forced to do, it will be seen that humans generally possess them and
(probably) no animals do and, hence, that the concept of a moral right to equitable treatment
makes no sense except as applied to humans. Regan challenges the assertion that humans are different from
animals in morally relevant ways by declaring that the opponents of his position bear the onus of providing adequate empirical
evidence to support their claim and that such evidence does not at present exist. It seems to me, however, that (as I think most
people would agree on the basis of experience) all
ani-mals-whatever their place on the evolutionary scaleare prima facie significantly different kinds of creatures from humans, in morally relevant as
well as other ways, and that the onus of proof is therefore on those who would hold otherwise.
Further, though experimental psychology, compar-ative anatomy and physiology , and the biological
and ecological sciences are far from being able to yield all the evidence Regan demands, it is surely naive in the extreme to blithely
brush aside as of no consequence (R. p. 191) all the data on the important differences between animals and humans which have been
gathered to date. Let us assume, for
the sake of argument, that it could be shown to everyone's

satisfaction that animals experience pleasure and pain in the same way and to the same degree
as humans and, further, that many also reason, have emotions, use some form of symbolic
commu-nication, and have a sense of self-identity. It still would not follow that these facts would
qualify such animals to be recipients of moral rights. For, as H. J. McCloskey has recently
pointed out,7 to appreciate (1) that the existence of certain higher animals is intrinsically valuable because they
possess some capacities (like sentience, intelligence, emotionality), the exercise of which enables them to enjoy a quality of life that
humans can recognize as of value, (2) that
they are capable of suffering psychologically as well as

physically, and, (3) that as a consequence of 1 and 2, good reasons are required to be given for
killing such beings is not tantamount to, and does not entail, as-signing animals moral rights.
What other characteristics, then, that humans share in general should be cited in order to give an adequate account of the reasons
why they have, and animals lack, moral rights? A complete list of these would have to include at least the following: the capacities to
be critically self-aware, manipulate concepts, use a sophisticated language,8 reflect, plan, deliberate, choose, and accept
responsibility for acting. In a similar vein, McCloskey suggests that the crucial morally relevant characteristicso f humansw hich we
are seeking here are those which manifest the attributes of truly autonomous beings, where this entails being capable of acting
freely, choosing and deciding ra-tionally in the fullest sense, creating,a nd self-making( self-realizing).9I have drawn attention to
certain cognitive capacities (critical self-awareness, concept manipulation,a nd the use of a sophisticatedl anguage)b ecause these
are the essential tools or vehicles by means of which an agent's autonomy is evolved, made
known to himself reflexively, and manifested or expressed. The possession of these cognitive
capacities, therefore, is a necessary pre-prequisite for autonomy, which is the capacity for selfconscious, voluntary, and deliberate action, in the fullest sense of these words. Autonomy, which thus
entails certain cognitive capacities, is necessary (and, together with the capacity to enjoy and suffer, sufficient) for the possession of
moral rights. It follows that all (and only) those
beings which are members of a species of which it is true in

general (i.e., typically the case at maturity, assuming normal development) that members of the species in
question can be con-sidered autonomous agents are beings endowed with moral rights.
Importance is given to animals through the use of human culture

Engelhardt 01, Professor of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, Professor of Philosophy at Rice University, and Member
of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Baylor College of Medicine. (H. Tristram, JR., Why Animal
Experimentation Matters: The Use of Animals in Medical Research, ed. E.F. Paul & J. Paul, p. 176)//dodo
Second, I will argue that the
self-conscious experience of pleasures and pains by humans achieves a

richness and depth not available to animals. This argument involves a quasi-phenomenological defense of the
qualitative priority of human pleasures, pains, and experiences over those of animals; by a "quasiphenomenological defense," I mean
a defense based on a description of the greater moral significance and complexity of the pains
and pleasures experienced by moral agents. By being placed not just within the self-conscious memory of a moral
agent, but also by being nested within moral life projects and within narratives generally, human experiences take on a
depth and undergo a qualitative transformation. Through this transformation, human pains and
pleasures are reflectively anticipated, recalled, interpreted, placed within moral contexts, and
given a quality of significance unavailable to animals. This transformation finds its full
realization when all pains and pleasures are regarded within the perspective of a culture . Insofar as
this culture is sustained by and/or derives goods from the use of animals, that use will have a
positive significance. This leads to a presumptively positive moral assessment of all nonmalevolent
uses of animals, whether as experimental subjects, objects of the hunt, or as denizens of wildlife areas. The embrace of a
culture also makes it licit to affirm what will appear to many to be a form of speciesism . One can
give preference to humans simply because they are humans. One can give preference to humans who are not moral agents (e.g.,
human fetuses and infants) over animals that are cognitively more able (e.g., adult great apes) simply because the members of the
former group are human, because of their role in human culture, and because of their importance for humans who are moral agents.
humans are better

Autonomy is key to vtl
The Importance of Autonomy Autonomy is an important part of the human case, By exercising our Autonomy we can mold
our lives to lit a conception of the good life that we have decided upon for ourselves we can then
try to live out this Conception with all the sense of achievement self-fulfilling and satisfaction
that this can bring Some of us this pursue athletic or cultural or endeavors some of us are good
with our hands and enjoy mechanical tasks and manual labor; and all of us see a jobbe it the one we have or the
one we should like to haveas an important part of a full life, [This is why unemployment affects more than just our in comes] The emphasis is upon
agency: we can make ourselves into repairmen, pianists, and accountants by exercising our autonomy we can impose upon our lives a conception of the
good life that we have for the moment embraced. We can then try to live out this conception with the consequent sense of fulfillment and achievement
that this makes possible. Even
failure can be part of the picture: a woman call try to make herself into an
Olympic athlete and fail; but her efforts to develop and shape her talents and to take control of
and to mold her life in the appropriate ways can enrich her lite. Thus, by exercising our
autonomy and trying to live out some conception of how we want to live , we make possible further, important
dimensions of value to our lives. We still share certain activities with rabbits, but no mere record of those activities would come anywhere near
accounting for the richness of our lives What is missing in the rabbits case is the same scope or potentiality for enrichment: and lives of less richness
have less value. The kind of story that would have to be told to make us think that the rabbits life was as rich as the life of a normal adult human is one
that either postulates in the rabbit potentialities and abilities vastly beyond what we observe and take lite have, or lapses into a rigorous scepticism. By
the atter. I mean
that we should have to say either that we know nothing of the rabbits life and so
can know nothing of that lifes richness and quality) or that what we know can never be
construed as adequate for grounding judgments about the rabbits quality of life, such sceptical claims
particularly after Ryle and Wittgenslein on the one hand and much 5cjcfltific work on the other, may strike many as misplaced, and those who have
recourse to them at least in my experience, have little difficulty in pronouncing pain and suffering, stress, loss of liberty., monotony and a host of other
things to be detrimental to an animals quality of life. But
the real puzzle is how this recourse to skepticism is

supposed to make us think that a rabbits life is as varied and rich as a humans life. If I can know
nothing of the rabbit life, presumably because I do not live that life and so cannot experience it
from the inside this whole way of putting the matter sets ill with a post-Ryle. post-Wittgenstein
understanding of psychological concepts and inner processes ). then how do I know that the rabbits life is as rich as a
humans lite? Plainly, if I can not know this, L must for the arguments sake assume it. Rut why should I do this Nothing I observe and experience leads
me to assume it: ail the evidence I have about rabbits and humans seems to run entirely in the opposite direction. So,
why make this

assumption? Most especially, why assume animal lives are as rich as human lives, when we do
not even assume, or so I suggest, that all human lives have the same richness?
human morals
Humans are the only being who cares for other species
Research, ed. E.F. Paul & J. Paul, p. 164)//dodo
From our perspective as biologists, we do not believe that proving the moral superiority of
humans over other animals is necessary to justify our exploitation of them. Nevertheless, we do
acknowledge that there are some uniquely human characteristics that tend to be ignored by the
ALARMists. The human animal is unique in showing concern for the welfare of other species,
and this concern extends beyond the realm of domestic animals. Consider the effort and
resources being expended to prevent many species of animals-and even plants-from becoming
extinct. Although many species live in symbiotic relationships-that is, the living together of two
dissimilar organisms in a mutually beneficial relationship- there are no societies of nonhuman
predators that promote the minimizing of the suffering of prey animals when they are killed.
Human concern for animal welfare probably arose when the symbiotic relationship between
humans and canids was first established some 12,000 years ago.68 People in agrarian cultures,
as well as those who remained in hunter-gatherer societies, were not only dependent on animals
for their survival, but they also had a high regard, or even a reverence, for them. Evidence for
this respect is seen in the earliest human artwork and in the totemic figures of virtually all
primitive human cultures. 69 As we stated above, the human animal is the only species whose
behavior is (or can be) judged against moral standards, especially in our treatment of our own
kind and of other animals. We are also alone in being the judges of such behavior. More
differences between other animals and ourselves are discussed below.
Animals become morally important because of the importance given

to them from humans
Experimentation Matters: The Use of Animals in Medical Research, ed. E.F. Paul & J. Paul, p. 175-176)//dodo
Animals acquire their moral significance from humans because morality that is, secular morality- is
articulated by humans. In a number of obvious and straightforward ways, morality is human-ce-ntered. It does
not descend from the heavens, but is constructed from the perspective of human persons within the
epistemic capacities of finite, human moral agents. Morality offers an account, developed by humans, of how
humans should regard right- and wrong-making conditions; it is a human account of the right and the good.1 As
such, morality provides an understanding of the good that humans ought to pursue regarding
animals. Even when it concerns the good of animals from an "animal point of view," morality always provides a human moral
account. The morality of everyday life is human in its origin and is justified in terms of human
concerns. It must motivate humans, not animals. It is not just that it is humans alone who write
books on morality and moral philosophy, or who discuss the morally appropriate uses of
animals. It is humans alone who are held to be blameworthy if they do not act in
accordance with morality, giving humans (at least those humans who are moral agents) a moral status not
possessed by animals. Because morality is an account defended in discursive rational terms,2 it can be regarded from a
perspective that need not be human: the perspective of self-conscious rational beings who are
moral agents.3 However, humans are the only known animals who can act as persons by
engaging in the practice of morality in the strong sense. That is, only humans can make judgments
as to when actions are praiseworthy or blameworthy , and only humans reflectively advance
grounds to justify one view of the good in preference to others . This moral superiority of humans is therefore
morally decisive, but because it does not give an unjustified priority to humans ,
it is not improperly "speciesist."4

Animals are inevitably at the disposal of humans because as persons, humans have the authority
to put animals in their moral place, a place that is appropriately one of subservience to humans. In this
essay, I develop three clusters of arguments for this conclusion. The first explores the moral centrality of persons, which arises from
the challenge of resolving moral controversies in a world marked by moral pluralism. Against an irresolvable pluralism of religious
and secular views regarding the nature of the good and the ordering of right- and wrong-making conditions, moral authority is, by
default, drawn from persons. This moral pluralism is not just a fact; more significantly, it is a function of the limitations of our moral
knowledge. Content-full, canonical, morally normative conclusions cannot be secured from sound rational arguments unless one
grants initial premises or moral perspectives that can only be secured by engaging in question-begging or in an infinite regress.
Given these circumstances, general secular moral authority must, by default, be drawn from the consent of persons, from their
agreement as to how they will collaborate. There is no other generally available source of secular moral authority. This gives persons
the authority to construe the moral worth of animals in terms of their contributions to humans. In general secular moral terms,
there are no higher moral judges than persons.
Humans are the end, while animals may be used as a means to the end
Finally, I will develop the argument for the special status of humans as moral agents by using a
quasi-Kantian exposition of the centrality of moral agents; this centrality, I argue, provides
humans with a moral priority not enjoyed by animals. Persons are ends in themselves, in the
sense that they are able, by use of consent, to ground a general practice of secular morality.
Because of this, persons may not be used merely as means-that is, one may not use them,
without their free choice, in order to realize a good. Since animals are not ends in themselves,
using them as mere means does not violate the Kantian wrong-making condition of using them
without their consent. Furthermore, the dignity of humans as moral agents would be violated if
they were forbidden to use their own animals in nonmalevolent ways. It is not simply that
humans, as moral agents, are the only definitive secular moral judges. In addition, moral agents
constitute a moral domain grounded in the authority of consent, in which it is possible to act
with common agreement and to hold those who act against this possibility as blameworthy. In
this domain, only moral agents can be ends in themselves.
Human morals key to structure, animals dont work within a moral

standing
Moral philosophy explores what it means to act rightly and to pursue the good . It must determine how
one can be sure that one knows rightly what one ought to do. In approaching such challenges, it is persons as moral agents
who must determine the appropriate balancing of goods and harms, pleasures and pains . Due to
the plurality of visions of the right and the good, and because of the need to reflect on how appropriately to weigh competing moral
sentiments, intuitions, appeals, visions, and projects (including different approaches to the proper use of animals), a general secular
morality that is rationally justified has an unavoidably second-order character. Philosophical moral reflection addresses, criticizes,
and arranges the various claims of the various competing moralities. It reflectively determines which moral claims govern, when,
and how. The
results of such reflections about morality are grounded in moral agents as final
adjudicators of competing moral understandings. Persons have their cardinal place in secular
morality, in part because of the controversies at the roots of secular morality . These moral
controversies include disputes regarding the moral standing of animals as well as the comparative
standings of various species. For instance, how does one compare the moral standings of gorillas, dolphins,
whales, pigs, rattlesnakes, and roaches? Humans, and humans alone, can assess all arguments and
reflections concerning the moral comparability of humans and animals . Human primates have
the capacity, self-consciously, to advance arguments about the moral life and to act on an
examined understanding of moral probity. In contrast, other animals (such as nonhuman

primates, whales, dolphins, etc.) may in some sense be self-conscious, but nevertheless give no
clear evidence of the ability to frame a reflectively articulated understanding of moral probity .
Morality is articulated from the perspective of reflective, self-conscious moral agency, a perspective that even higher-order animals
cannot realize. It is from this perspective, enjoyed by humans, that the use of animals must be assessed.
answers to
k2 human nutrition
Animals are key to researching vitamin deficiencies
Kiple & Ornelas 01, Professor of History and a Distinguished University Professor at Bowling Green State University &
sociologist and anthropologist who has written essays on the "Columbian Exchange" of plants, animals, and diseases between the
Old and New Worlds. (Kenneth F. & Kriemhild Conee, Why Animal Experimentation Matters: The Use of Animals in Medical
Animal experiments were useful for more than just the study of diseases transmitted by pathogens. They also played a
vital role in our understanding of human nutrition. In the nineteenth century, dogs figured prominently
in investigations by French and German researchers that worked out the principles of energy
and protein metabolism.20 In the twentieth century, the rat was the animal that contributed most to the
discovery of vitamins and the deficiency diseases brought on by their dietary absence, although guinea pigs,
pigeons, pigs, mice, dogs, and chickens were also important subjects . In fact, the story of the role of
animals in the discovery of vitamins might be said to have begun with chickens in 1890, when Christiaan Eijkman, a prison medical
officer in Java, the Dutch East Indies, noticed that a paralytic disease could be induced in these fowl by feeding them polished rice. A
decade later, he and his successor Gerrit Grijns discovered that the disease could also be cured in chickens by feeding them rice bran.
The disease was beriberi-caused in both animals and humans by a dietary lack of thiamine. Beriberi has been especially prevalent
among people whose diets center too closely on polished rice; this is because the polishing or milling process strips away the rice's
bran, which contains thiamine. The disease is characterized by both paralytic and cardiac symptoms in humans, and these were
especially widespread in the Philippines, where, in 1910, Edward Vedder, a U.S. Army medical officer, began the successful
treatment of human beriberi cases with an extract of rice bran. It
was not until1933 that thiamine was discovered

to be the anti-beriberi factor, but by then, thanks to the animal model worked out by Eijkman and Grijns, the
disease had been successfully treated for almost two decades, and thousands of lives had been
saved. 21 Meanwhile, at the University of Christiana (in Oslo, Norway), scientist Axel Holst was working on "ship beriberi," a
disease we know as scurvy. He had visited Eijkman's laboratory in Java to learn more about his pioneering use of chickens, but back
in Norway, Holst utilized pigeons (because they were cheaper and smaller) to repeat Eijkman 's studies. Not satisfied that he was
closing in on ship beriberi, Holst decided to experiment with a mammalian species. Fortunately-perhaps even incredibly-he chose
guinea pigs, which constitute one of the few species other than humans that cannot synthesize their own vitamin C: this means that
guinea pigs can, and do, develop scurvy. After switching from fowl (which do synthesize their own vitamin C), Holst was rewarded
with the discovery that the diet that produced beriberi in fowl provoked scurvy in his guinea pigs. Following his report of these
results in 1907, it began to seem even more clear that scurvy,
a disease that had killed more than one million

sailors between 1600 and 1800-one that had generated more deaths among them than had
shipwrecks, naval warfare, and all other diseases combined- was definitely caused by some
deficiency in the diet. 22 The nature of that deficiency was later made apparent with the isolation (in 1927)
and synthesis (in 1932) of vitamin C, achievements that emerged from a series of animal experiments begun
during World War I at the Lister Institute in London. The discovery of the individual vitamins might be dated to 1906, when
researcher Frederick G. Hopkins embarked on his famous nutritional studies using rats. Working at the University of Cambridge, he
elaborated his concept of "accessory foodstuffs" (later called vitamins) after learning that young rats stopped growing when fed only
purified protein, fat, carbohydrate, and minerals, but quickly began growing again when small amounts of bovine milk were added
to this diet. In 1912, Casimir Funk, at the Lister Institute named these as yet unknown accessory foodstuffs "vitamines" (later
changed to "vitamins") when he made the startling proposal that scurvy, beriberi, pellagra, and rickets were all the result of dietary
deficiencies of factors he called "vital amines."23 The isolation of the complex organic substances known today as vitamins A
through K quickly followed. Elmer Verner McCollum, a biochemist at the University of Wisconsin, looked over the literature of
experiments using mice that had been fed restricted diets such as those Hopkins had employed, and set about discovering what
caused the animals' inability to grow (or, in some cases, their rapid decline and death). Like Hopkins, McCollum decided to use rats
in his experiments. However, he got no encouragement from the dean of the university's College of Agriculture, who refused to
provide the money to purchase the rats; at the time, though guinea pigs and even mice were regarded as cute, furry creatures, rats
were perceived to be vicious and dangerous disease-carriers. Consequently, McCollum allegedly wound up personally catching his
first seventeen rats in a horse barn at the Wisconsin Experiment Station Farm. 24 In fact, he got little financial help at all with his
rats for fully six years, during which he devoted much of his own time to his rat colony and was assisted only by an unpaid volunteer.
This situation changed, however, after he noticed that even on whole-cereal diets, his rats
required something else for

survival. That "something else" seemed to be provided by butterfat, but not by lard or olive oil .
When McCollum announced the discovery of vitamin A and explained his experiments, the dean
brightened considerably. The news, in 1913, that McCollum's rats had proven butter to be superior to lard and olive oil was
also warmly received by Wisconsin's dairy farmers (who doubtless collectively wished that oleomargarine had also been included in
the experiment and shown to be an inferior food).25 Three
years later, McCollum's rats pointed the way to the
discovery of vitamin B; the following year, McCollum moved to Johns Hopkins, taking his rat colony with him. There he
followed up on experiments by English physiologist Edward Mellanby, who had used puppies to provide the first convincing
evidence that rickets was a deficiency disease. 26 The
result of McCollum's follow-up work was the discovery

of vitamin D; the large-scale elimination of rickets soon followed. These are but a few of the highlights of the early years of
research that employed animals in the service of human nutrition. Such experimentation (which focused on minerals as well as
vitamins) not only led to an alleviation of much human misery; it also cleared the way for still more research. Breakthroughs in
vitamin research helped to demolish the prevailing notion, generated by germ theory, that all disease was the result of microbial
action. 27 As a consequence of such breakthroughs, the field of nutrition became attractive to more and more investigators.
Researchers in the field soon broke vitamin B down into different elements; others discovered
vitamins C, E, and K. Animals figured prominently in all of these achievements. In the case of vitamin
K, the dietary production of a bleeding condition in chicks pointed the way for the biochemists Henrik Dam of the University of
Copenhagen and Edward Adelbert Doisy of St. Louis University to jointly announce the discovery of the vitamin in the mid-1930s.
28
The agriculture industry is not as bad as it appears- of course some

farmers are in the wrong but hardly all of them
Animal agriculture is definitely two things. and for some. they may at first appear to be contradictory. First
U.S. livestock
and poultry producers are the best in the world, the model by which other industrialize and
developing countries pattern their industries. Second there is, and likely always will be room for
improvement. If anyone in animal agriculture stood before an audience and attempted to
convince them otherwise, theyd be silly. That message ignores the basic nature of the industry .
There is no one tougher on a new system or product than a farmer. If the animals dont prosper, the farmer doesnt
prosper, and the systern is dumped in a heartbeat. There are bad players in farming and ranching, just as
there are bad players in animal rights, politics or journalism However, to paint an entire
industry with a brush dipped in the sins , of one, or even a handful of producers, is unfair .
Increasingly, the good players are working to either improve the bad guys or get them out of the business. All it takes is one
bad apple. Unfortunately, the public is ripe for this type of propaganda. Now two or three
generations away from the farm, the average urban consumer does not relate to life on the farm.
If anything they hold an overly romantic notion of rural life. They see farming as the last bastion of solid values left in America , but
at the same time, prod a yuppie and youll likely find a notion that folks out there in the country arent quite as
sharp as go-getters in the city. Even President Clintons chief science advisor has fallen for the message. In a recent
Associated Press interview, he was adamant that he did not eat veal, because the animals were 11force fed . . . raised in a cage. This
man is a physicist who used to raise cattle. This is why farmers must begin to market themselves
anj their contribution to the urban quality of life as actively as they market their products.
Consumers must be reassured their collective confidence in farmers and ranchers and the
products they produce is not misplaced.
The agriculture industry is constantly improving its practices
eastern Kentucky University, Animal rights opposing views 129]
If farmers routinely abused animals, or raised animals in environments unsuitable for healthy
growth, the death loss among production animals would be astronomical, youd have one heck
of a lot of bankrupt farmers, and food costs would be closer to 20 to 25 percent of disposable .
income based simply on supply and demand. The food production miracle in this country did not come
about at the sacrifice of animal welfare. 1f anything, science. engineering and producer experience
have combine to provide the most advance animal production systems in the world U.S. animal
disease rates are lower, birth rates are higher and farm income is relatively higher than
elsewhere. And much the same can be said for the population that consumes the meat. milk and eggs from these animals. 1f
there is a positive effect on the animal rights movement in the United States, it is greater
introspection and analysis by producers. Not to appease some sign-waving activist, but because there is the
understanding that production practices and the product they sell is under increased public
scrutiny. Farmers are learning to challenge the traditional. They know that just because they were taught to do
it one way, does not mean there is not a better way that can be adopted to possibly benefit the animal, and increase their efficiency
and profit. National groups, notably the National Pork Producers Council, the Animal Industry Foundation, the American Veal
This
doesnt count the millions in federal and private corporate dollars spent on the same goal. If
theres a better way, this industry will find it.
Association and Southeastern Poultry & Egg Association collectively spend more than $1 million in production research.
k2 biology
Animals are key to find vaccines to diseases, help human nutrition
studies, and ensure a global food supply to the growing population
The basic point of this essay has been that, at least since the ancient Greeks, experimental
animals have been vital to

our understanding of the biological processes that make life possible on the one hand and threaten it on
the other. The compilation of this knowledge was slow at first. Indeed, it took some two millennia of observation and tinkering with
the bodies of experimental animals, as well as those of humans, to cobble together the understanding of human anatomy and, then,
physiology that let Harvey publish his 1628 treatise on the circulation of blood. After Harvey's discovery, it took a mere two hundred
years before scientists began the research that, with the use of animal models, resulted by the end of the nineteenth century in the
establishment of germ theory. Then, with the beginning of the twentieth century, medical research using experimental animals
shifted into high gear on a number of fronts- among them that of nutrition. Animals
helped to unravel the etiologies

of a number of heretofore elusive diseases that turned out to be caused by nutritional
deficiencies; animals were thus instrumental in the discovery of the various vitamins and
minerals. Moving back to infectious diseases, germ theory shed light on the causes and courses of illnesses
triggered by most known microparasites, save the viruses; yellow fever research, with its
wholesale employment of monkeys and countless other experimental animals, represented the
beginning of an endeavor aimed at discovering the etiologies of viral diseases, many of which
have tropical and subtropical origins. The yellow fever work represented a major success; however,
efforts in discovering the origins and sources of a host of other mysterious viral killers that have confronted us more recently have
thus far proven unsuccessful. The Marburg, Lassa, Ebola, and (of course) HIV viruses are the most prominent, but there are a good
many more for which there are, as yet, no vaccines and no cures. What all of these viruses
seem to share is that they are

hosted by a variety of animals, ranging from monkeys to rodents and bats to birds, which means
that experimental animals will be absolutely indispensable to understanding and, hopefully,
conquering these viruses in the new century. In a world with a population now standing at six billion individuals,
the inevitable globalization of business, science, agriculture, and even cuisines has also meant
globalization of disease environments. AIDS serves as a nasty reminder of the new perils posed
by pathogenic propinquity and underscores the importance of scientific research to head off, or at least tame, the plagues
that seem sure to follow in the wake of AIDS. Of course, animals are equally indispensable to the study of
chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer, and despite jokes that everything these
animals are exposed to either gives them cancer or elevates their lipids, such research is paying
huge dividends. It was not all that long ago that cancers and "hardening of the arteries" were viewed as death sentences. Now
such conditions (at least in the developed world) are routinely cured, reversed, and treated, so that patients can resume a normal
life. Finally, in the matter of cuisines, their globalization
demands successful research in areas such as food

biotechnology, food additives, substitute foods and ingredients, and food toxins and poisons.
Success in such research is now-and will continue to be-greatly determined by laboratory
animals. It is probably no accident that over the course of close to two centuries, upsurges in the activities of animal rights
activists have tended to coincide with upsurges in crucial scientific investigations that have employed experimental animals.
Fortunately, the activists' efforts-thus far-do not seem to have significantly slowed the progress of biomedical and pharmacologic
in nature,
little remains static, and the relationship of humans with their epidemiological and nutritional
environments most certainly does not. Consequently, in a world growing more complex daily, laboratory
animals are needed more than ever to help in the discovery of vaccines and cures for the plagues
of today and those to come, not to mention in both alleviating the burden of chronic diseases
and ensuring humans a safe food supply. To oppose the use of these animals seems benighted in the face of so many
research, with the result that today humans in the developed world enjoy unparalleled health and longevity. However,
epidemiological and nutritional challenges. We live in a world in which people should be as concerned about what nature can do to
them as they are about what people can do to them through crime, terrorism, government regulations, and aggressive military
action. This makes any agenda aimed at shutting downor even hindering-the use of animals in biomedical and biotechnological
research seem fanatical, even suicidal.
Using non-humans for medical testing is necessary- the test save lives
and with human subjects the reaches cannot control critical
environmental factors
A basic assumption of all types of research is that man should human and animal suffering. One
objection to the use of animals in

biomedical research is that the animals are used as surrogates for human beings. This objection
presumes the all forms of life; animal rights advocates argue that if the are for the benefit of
man, then man should serve as the subject of the experiments. There are limitations. however to the
use of human subjects both ethically, such as in the testing potentially toxic drug or chemical, and in terms of what can be
learned. The process of aging, for instance, can best be observed through experiments with rats,
which live an average two or three years, or with some types of monkeys, which 15 to 20 years.
Some experiments require numerous subjects of the same weight or genetic makeup or require
special deities or physical environments; these conditions make the use of human subjects difficult
or impossible. By using animals in such tests researchers can observe subjects of uniform age and ground in
sufficient numbers to determine if findings are tent and applicable to a large population . animals are
important in research precisely because they have complex body systems that react and interact with stimuli
much as humans do. The more true this is with a particular animal the more valuable that animal is for a particular type of research one
important property to a researcher is discrimination to the extent to which an animal exhibits the particular quality investigated . The greater
the degree of discrimination, the greater the reliability and predictability of the information
gathered from the experiment.
Non-humans are critical to biomedical research

Newton 13 [2013 The animal experimentation debate DAVID E. NEWTON is the author of
more than 400 textbooks, encyclopedias, resource books, research manuals, and other
educational materials. He taught math and physical sciences in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for 13
years 126-127]
No other scientific discipline makes as intimate an impact on average people as does biomedical
research. From flu vaccines at the pharmacy to checkups at the doctors office, the effects of
biomedical research percolate throughout everyday life. Why? Because it has produced a practice of
medicine that actually works. Modern medicine would not work, however, without the use of
animals in biomedical research. Since the dawn of scientific medicine, animals have served as invaluable partners to
researchers seeking to understand the nature of disease and develop prevention methods, treatments, and cures. Think of
taking away animals from biomedical research as removing the wheels from a car mid-drive:
medical progress would screech to a halt, leaving generations of patients neglected and, most
importantly, sick. Those who are serious about answering clinically relevant Questions such as Will this drug have the desired
benefit? or How do people contract that illness?appreciate the necessity for animals in biomedical research. They, like
medical society around the world, undersand that animal systems have a lot to teach us about
the human system.

http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1382&context=ealr&sei-
redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2Fscholar%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3D
If one analyzes the notion that animals should have rights separate and distinct from those
protections they have incident to the economic, esthetic, and humanitarian interests of human
beings, the following four questions must be kept in mind: (1) against whom will such rights exist?; (2) when and
how will such rights be invoked?; (3) who will enforce such rights?; and (4) who will decide what the boundaries of such rights
are? Reason, history, and an entire intellectual tradition compel a conclusion that any notion
that the interests of animals either warrant or can have expression in a constitutional
democracy, wholly independent of human interests, risks casting fundamental freedoms on a
devious course. Thomas Paine once commented that "[c]ivil rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being a member of
society."56 Paine also wrote the following at the time of the American and French Revolutions: "All power exercised over a nation, must have
some beginning. It must be either delegated, or assumed. There are no other sources. All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is
usurpation. Time does not alter the nature and quality of either."57 Power that arises out of, as opposed to over, the people arises out of the
consent of the governed,58 and the limits of such delegation are carefully defined in a constitution such as ours: The fact therefore must be, that
the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, "entered into a compact with each other" to produce a government: and
this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.59 Paine defines civil
rights as rights with a foundation in "some natural right pre-existing in the individual." 60 Civil rights in a constitutional
democracy are those rights the individual reserves to himself after delegating to the government
those powers necessary to the orderly functioning of society. 61 The question which must arise in the context of any
proposal that the government endow rights on animals is how such a notion can be reconciled with the very definition of "rights" in a
constitutional democracy. Any real acceptance of the notion must mean reposing in the government a wholly new and undefined set of powers,
presumably to be exercised on behalf of an entirely new and vague constituency. The notion contemplates the creation of a
vast, unprecedented, intrusive, and uncircumscribable jurisprudence in which the government

erects barriers to human conduct on the strength, not of competing human interests-be they
economic, esthetic, or humanitarian-or the delegation of power to it by individuals, but of
assumptions about the interests of animals assessed by the government apart from human
interests or experience. Not only may this be impossible, but in the contemplated nonspeciesist world, where there would be no
hierarchy within the animal kingdom just as there would be no hierarchy between humans and animals, the "rights" of individual animals would
exist in competition with the rights of individual humans. Thus, no rat could be harmed, chicken cooked, or rabbit
dissected without government permission or the prospect of government scrutiny. If some

government agency were given the power to act in the interest of animals, the result would be
the creation of a vast, intrusive structure which would erect barriers to human conduct on the
strength, not of competing human interests, but of assessments of the interests of animals
conducted without reference to human interests or experience. What sort of fearsome bureaucracy would purport
to institutionalize, standardize, and write regulations pertaining to animals' rights and interests implicated by all legislation? What kind of freeranging commissions of inquiry would courts become if the requirements of human standing62 were removed and any advocate or group of
advocates purporting to speak for any animal were entitled judicial access to press the animal's rights and to argue the animal's case? The only
measure-true north, the touchstone-must be human interests. These interests could be aesthetic or humanitarian and
could seek to weigh all the factors the range of human dialog about animals includes. But it is
human interest, whether it be in the environment, the need to show compassion, or the need to
advance science, that must be weighed, not any supposed interest in an anthropomorphized rat
or a Disneyfied rabbit. When overpopulation of deer threaten a water supply the deer must be culled, and without due process for the
deer.63 When rabbits ruin vital crops the rabbits must be exterminated .64 When human medical
advances require vivisection, vivisection may continue without unnecessary harm but with such
harm as may be necessary for its purpose.65 We do not see how a legal system in which human
rights are enshrined could approach these matters differently. Our moral and legal systems
cannot accommodate a theory that purports to detach decisions as to how we should treat
animals from an anthropocentric reference point and have these decisions revolve around some
other concept, such as that of "civil rights" for beings that cannot articulate their own interests
and about whose true sapience, awareness, knowledge of death, and value of life we know so
little.
solves disease
Animals have been proven key to solve for disease and keep vaccines
Turning from nutrition back to the history of employing animals to eradicate infectious diseases, we might first note that between
1835 and 1935, animal
research played a major role in most of the discoveries of the causes of fifty
major human diseases. 29 In fact, such research was fundamental in investigating diseases that are
intimately bound up with animals; these include rabies and anthrax, both noted above, as well as dengue
fever, trichinosis, schistosomiasis, filariasis, glanders, brucellosis, bubonic plague, sleeping
sickness, tick-borne relapsing fever, influenza, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, typhus,
leptospirosis, and yellow fever. Of these animal-related illnesses, yellow fever kindles symptoms at least as appalling
as any of the rest, and it joins smallpox and bubonic plague as one of the most lethal epidemic killers of all time.
Spread by mosquitoes, yellow fever is an illness whose etiology involves monkeys. Although monkeys had been used on occasion in
nutritional and medical research (especially notable was Austrian immunologist Karl Landsteiner's successful transmission of
poliomyelitis to monkeys in 1908, and his isolation of the virus the following year30), it
was during the Rockefeller

Foundation's effort to eradicate yellow fever that monkeys became key to an understanding of
an illness. Interestingly, however, in the initial yellow fever research, monkeys showed how animal experiments can mislead
experimenters. Beginning with the Reed Commission in Cuba, and continuing with the Rockefeller Foundation-sponsored efforts in
Africa at the start of the 1920s, investigators, unable to find an appropriate animal model, had in their frustration either voluntarily
or involuntarily become experimental subjects themselves, sometimes with fatal results. 31 One says "appropriate" because although
the researchers had plenty of monkeys at hand, and monkeys, as primates, were regarded as the best experimental subjects aside
from humans, all attempts to induce yellow fever in African monkeys failed, convincing investigators that these primates simply
could not host the disease. It was only after rhesus monkeys-brought to Africa from India in 1927- proved extraordinarily susceptible
to yellow fever that it dawned on Rockefeller investigators that African monkeys were immune to the disease because they had
already hosted and survived it. With
the use of the susceptible rhesus monkeys, researchers were quickly

able to confirm that the yellow fever pathogen was a .filtrable virus (an ultramicroscopic agent able to pass
through filters that would retain the smallest known bacteria), and that it could be transmitted from monkey to
monkey directly through inoculation or via the Aedes aegypti mosquito vector. 32 About three years
after research using the rhesus monkey had begun, microbiologist Max Theiler, working at Harvard in 1930, discovered that white
mice could also be employed to study yellow fever; as mice were considerably more convenient for laboratory purposes, they joined
monkeys in the effort. Next, Theiler demonstrated that if
the virus was transmitted from mouse to mouse, it

could be weakened and used to immunize monkeys against yellow fever, thereby providing a
realistic hope of finding a vaccine for humans. 33 The employment of mice in yellow fever research also led to the
development, by the Rockefeller Foundation's laboratory, of the "mouse protection test" whereby blood samples from humans could
be tested for their ability to protect mice from injections of the yellow fever virus. This test made it possible for researchers in the
field to "map" human populations that had hosted the disease and to thereby determine regions of yellow fever's endemicity.34
Monkeys, however, continued to figure prominently in the study of yellow fever, for the very good reason that yellow fever turned
out to be a disease of monkeys. 35 There were several clues to this, such as the African monkeys' immunity to yellow fever in areas
Where the disease was endemic, the extreme susceptibility of the rhesus monkeys from India (an area that had always been free of
yellow fever), and the susceptibility of New World monkeys (which helped convince epidemiologists that the cradle of yellow fever
was in Africa). However, it was not until the rnid-1930s that Rockefeller researchers in Brazil came to the realization that the yellow
fever virus was very much alive in the bodies of monkeys in the jungle treetops of South America, and that humans were not needed
to perpetuate it. 36 Finding the virus in these monkeys led researchers to the understanding that yellow fever could not be
eradicated after all. Fortunately, by the late 1930s, Theiler
and his coworkers had managed to attenuate the

virus by successively passing it through chick embryo tissues to the point where it could serve as
a vaccine for humans. Called the 17D Valline strain, this vaccine, which has afforded yellow fever immunity
to millions of people in Africa and the Americas, derives from a blood specimen taken in 1927 from a West African
native. From that native, the vaccine has been "carried down ... from one laboratory animal to another,
through repeated tissue cultures and enormous multiplication," to our present day, in which we
now produce it in embryonated chicken eggs. 37 Despite the enduring endemic presence of jungle yellow fever,
success in eradicating the Aedes aegypti mosquito vector (by destroying its eggs) made it seem that at least epidemic yellow fever
had been eradicated. After the tum of the twentieth century, mosquito control meant that the virus no longer leapfrogged across the
Caribbean and into U.S. coastal cities, where, from 1693 to 1905, it had caused upwards of 150,000 deaths.38 In 1954, however,
there was an epidemic in Trinidad, and howler and cebus monkeys native to the island were called into medical service by
investigators, who slaughtered selected bands of the animals and then conducted systematic serological studies that indicated that a
large proportion of the monkeys had developed immunity to yellow fever. Clearly, the virus was present in the island, a fact
documented by its reappearance in 1959, and again in 1979-80, among portions of the population that had not been vaccinated
against it. Monkeys were subsequently employed in Trinidad as sentinels to warn humans of the approach of yellow fever, just as
they had been used by Rockefeller researchers in Brazil after the discovery of the jungle form of the disease. 39
The use of non-human testing is necessary it has developed cures for diseases and enhanced
quality of life
The arguments advanced by animal rights activists in opposition the use of animals in biomedical research . . are scientific
Emotional and the philosophic. The
scientific challenge raised by animal rights activists goes to the heart

of the issue by asking whether animal experiments are necessary for scientific and medical
progress and whether all the experiments being performed and all the animals being used are
justified and required. Scientists insist that they are; animal rights activists insist that they are not. Scientists
justify use of animals in biomedical research on two grounds: the contribution that the
information makes to human and animal health and welfare, and the lack of any alternative way
to gain the information and knowledge. Animal rights activists contest experiments that utilize animals on both these
grounds and assert that this practice no longer is necessary because alternative methods of experimentation exist for obtaining the
same information. In an appearance on the Today show in 1985, Ingrid Newkirk, representing People for the Ethical Treatment of
This statement
is similar in spirit to one made in 1900 by an antivivisectionist who stated that, given the
number of experiments on the brain done up to then, the insane asylums of Washington, D.C.,
should be empty. Scientists believe that such assertions miss the point. The issue is not what has
not been accomplished by animal use in biomedical research, but what has been accomplished.
A longer life span has been achieved, decreased infant mortality has occurred, effective
treatments have been developed for many diseases and the quality of life has been enhanced for
mankind in general.
Animals (PETA) stated: If it were such a valuable way to gain knowledge, we should have eternal life by now:
testing ( generic )
Non-human testing has benefited humanity in many ways and cant be
replaced by humans due to complex physiology
Newton 13 [2013 The animal experimentation debate DAVID E. NEWTON is the author of
more than 400 textbooks, encyclopedias, resource books, research manuals, and other
educational materials. He taught math and physical sciences in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for 13
years 126-127]
Take a group of 30 childrena typical school class size. One
or two will he or become diabetic. Two or three will

develop asthma. Many will need a blood transfusion at some point. Most will receive anesthetics
during their lifetime (around 6 million general anesthetics are administered each year) (Aitken,
Rerndt, and Curler 2009). All are likely to be prescribed antibiotics at some time (around 40 million prescriptions are issued per year) (Laxminarayan
and Malanj 2007, 30). Almost
all will be vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus, polio, and meningitis C,

but even a child whose parents refuse such vaccines will benefit from the immunity through the
vaccination of other children. Next time you go to the doctor, consider those numbers and spare
a thought for the animals that made it possible for those 30 people to lead healthy lives. The
history of scientific discoveries made possible by animal research is exemplary: insulin (dogs
and rabbits), polio vaccine (monkeys), anesthetics (rabbits) blood transfusion (monkeys, dogs),
antibiotics to cure tuberculosis (guinea pigs), asthma treatment (frogs and guinea . pigs)
meningitis vaccine (mice), deep brain stimulation for Parkinsons (monkeys), penicillin (mice) . .
. the list goes on. You might notice that many of the developments mentioned are decades old . So
what has animal research done for us recently? Herceptin, originally developed in mice, has had a significant
impact on the survival rates for breast cancers. As a mouse antibody (now harmonized) it would not have come about without
the use of animal research. Mice fir and away the most common animals used in scientific research, have also been used in conjunction with stem cell
research to create a treatment for macular degeneration (one of the leading causes of blindness). Such
research, pioneered in mice,

has now been used successfully to treat humans. Nonetheless, animals are an imperfect model
for humans, but so are cell cultures, computer models, microdosing, and every other
complementary method we care to name. Even results from one human will not necessarily
apply to the next. We have an incredibly complex physiology, and it often requires a similarly
complex physiology to understand what goes on in our bodies; this makes animal research
invaluable. And it is not just humans who benefit from animal testing; almost all human diseases have a similar or equivalent disease in another
species. Ninety percent of veterinary medicines used to treat animals are the same or very similar to those developed to treat human patients. Surgical
procedures, such as the removal of tumors and other intrusive procedures, are used in humans as well as animals and tend to be developed and refined
in animals. Recently,
studies on wild squirrels have discovered a virus that may be responsible for
the decline in red squirrel populations in Europe. Hopefully, this may also lead to treatments
being found Benefits or no, there are some who believe that animals have equal moral status to humans. I believe this view
is indefensible but let us explore it further. What would it mean? Some Conclusions are easy to
drawwe must all stop wearing leather and become vegetarian. Yet this would not be enough to
satisfy moral equivalence. You must not kill a mosquito; you must not cure your childs
tapeworm; you must not accept the use of mice to eradicate polio from the face of the planet. In
truth, few would agree with the demands and limits that moral equivalency would bring.
Scientists do not research using animals simply because they can. It is the human ability to empathize with others
and to have the ability to confront disease by means of scientific research that calls for us to act H die face of so much suffering. It is a moral dilemma
that must be confronted.
speciesism =/= racism

[racism/sexism] cant be equivalent to speciesism -- its worse
Placing [racism/sexism] on the same level as humans makes it worse -- degrades the struggle it
takes to achieve equality
Some advocates for animals, including Singer, do not believe that animals deserve to have rights in the same sense that we accord
them to humans. so Instead, they argue that because animals meet their criteria of "moral relevance," they are entitled to equal
moral consideration with human beings. If we are willing to exploit animals in any way, we should be willing to do likewise to people
since humans are not more "morally relevant" than animals. When we regard animals to be less than our moral equals, we are
practicing a kind of interspecies discrimination that these advocates call "speciesism," an attitude they analogize to types of
intraspecies discrimination such as sexism and racism. Richard Ryder claims credit for coining the term "speciesism" in 1970.51 In
1985 the term was defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as "[d]iscrimination against or exploitation of certain animal species by
human beings, based on an assumption of mankind's superiority."52 Singer has stated that "[s]peciesism ... is a prejudice or attitude
To support
the correctness of their opinion about the immorality of speciesism, animal activists claim that it
is comparable to discrimination on the basis of sex or race. We object strongly to this kind of
equation. To quote Cohen again, "[t]his argument is worse than unsound: it is atrocious."54 Sexism and racism are not
justifiable because normal men and women of all racial and ethnic groups are , on average,
intellectually and morally equal, and their behavior can be judged against the same moral
standards. Animals do not have such equivalence with humans. To deny rights or equal
consideration on the basis of sex or race is immoral because all normal humans , regardless of
sex, ethnicity, or race, can claim the rights and considerations that they deserve , and they know
what it means to be unjustly denied them. No animals have these abilities. Speciesism, as defined by
Ryder and Singer, is a normal kind of discrimination displayed by all social animals, but racism and sexism
are widely considered to be morally indefensible practices. By equating racism and sexism with speciesism,
Ryder and Singer degrade the struggle to achieve racial and sexual equality . 55 In addition to having this
of bias in favor of the interests of members of one's own species and against those of members of other species."53
ethical problem, the concept of speciesism is also biologically absurd; we consider this below.
misc
alt fails
The alt is utopian- even if sounds like a good idea the amount of
changes that would have to occur make it impossible
The term "animal rights" poses vexing definitional issues, and these issues are complicated by
the imprecision with which the term is so often used. Many people loosely associate "animal
rights" with the idea that people have a moral, legal, or custodial duty to treat animals
humanely. Such a gloss allows the notion of rights for animals to appear mainstream and to
elicit support across a broad spectrum. Peter Singer, who first articulated the ethical basis upon which much of the
contemporary animal rights movement rests, prefers to avoid the use of the word "rights" altogether. "The language of rights is a convenient
political shorthand[,]" Singer wrote in his seminal book, Animal Liberation.2 "It is even more valuable in the era of thirty-second TV news clips
than it was in [Jeremy] Bentham's day;
but in the argument for a radical change in our attitude to animals, it

is in no way necessary."3 Lawyers, however, in analyzing issues of animal ''liberation'' (Singer's
preferred term), often find "rights language" indispensable. In an article advocating rights for natural objects, Professor Christopher Stone
articulates his common understanding of the meaning of "rights" in this context. 4
Professor Stone argues that animals

should be "holders of legal rights" and that an entity cannot be said to hold legal rights unless a
public authoritative body is prepared to review conduct inconsistent with those rights.5 Further,
each of the following three additional criteria must be satisfied: "[F]irst, that the thing can institute legal actions
at its behest; second, that in determining the granting of legal relief, the court must take injury to it into account; and, third, that relief must run to
the benefit of it."6
Radical changes in our legal institutions would be necessary if animals were to be

"holders of legal rights" as so defined. Proponents of animal rights strongly advocate just such
changes and an outcome in which our legal institutions would serve the perceived interests of
animals as readily as legal institutions presently serve human interests. As one commentator has
explained: Time and time again, without exception, animals are denied the independent jural standing they deserve and are, instead,
systematically treated as if they deserve the law's attention or [protection] only if some human interest is harmed or benefited-for example, our
interests in property, or our recreational or aesthetic interests. Thus does existing law continue to foster the no longer tenable moral belief that all
our duties to animals are indirect duties. In doing so, the law continues to perpetuate a system that is, in this respect, unjust to the core. For the
justice of how animals are treated by us must be fixed by how they are benefited or harmed, not by whether we care about this.7 To
facilitate the idea of animals as "jural persons"8 and to shift the focus to the harm or benefits to
animals, numerous commentatorsand some lawyers in cases in litigation-have recommended
the creation of guardians hips for animals.9 Some people have also advocated a shift in the focus
of legal proceedings from the impact on humans to the impact on animals .
Some exploitation is inevitable- the only pure human being is a dead

one
In the end, however, it is the aggregate of these characteristics that does render humans
fundamentally, importantly, and unbridgeably different from animals, even though it is also
beyond question that in individual instances-for example , in the case of vegetative individuals- some animals
may indeed have higher cognitive skills than some humans. To argue on that basis alone,
however, that human institutions are morally flawed because they rest on assumptions
regarding the aggregate of human abilities, needs, and actions is to deny such institutions the capacity to draw any
distinctions at all. Consider the consequences of a theory which does not distinguish between animal life and human life for purposes of
identifying and enforcing legal rights. Every
individual member of every species would have recognized

claims against human beings and the state, and perhaps other animals as well. As the concept of
rights expanded to include the "claims" of all living creatures, the concept would lose much of its
force, and human rights would suffer as a consequence. Long before Singer wrote Animal Liberation, one
philosopher wrote: If it is once observed that there is no difference in principle between the case of dogs, cats, or horses, or stags, foxes, and
hares, and that of tsetse-flies or tapeworms or the bacteria in our own blood-stream, the
conclusion likely to be drawn is that

there is so much wrong that we cannot help doing to the brute creation that it is best not to
trouble ourselves about it any more at all. The ultimate sufferers are likely to be our fellow men,
because the final conclusion is likely to be, not that we ought to treat the brutes like human
beings, but that there is no good reason why we should not treat human beings like brutes. Extension of this principle leads straight to Belsen
and Buchenwald, Dachau and Auschwitz, where the German and the Jew or Pole only took the place of the human being and the Colorado
beetle.26 To some extent, it is a challenge to the value of civilization to dismiss the Judeo-Christian ethic as anthropocentric or speciesist27 and
thus deficient, and to minimize the significance of the capacity to express reason, to recognize
moral principles, and to plan for ordered coexistence in a complex technological society. "The core
of this book," Singer writes in Animal Liberation, "is the claim that to discriminate against beings solely on
account of their species is a form of prejudice, immoral and indefensible in the same way that
discrimination on the basis of race is immoral and indefensible."28 Such an equation, however,
allows Ingrid Newkirk, founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA ), to state that
"[sJix million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughter houses."29 The only "pure"
human being, Newkirk has theorized, is a dead one. "[O]nly dead people are true purists, feeding the earth
and living beings rather than taking from them .... We know it is impossible to breathe without
hurting or exploiting."30
Giving animals full rights would be net worse for society- part of being
human is recognizing that sometimes sacrifices have to be made for
the greater good
These forms of doctrinaire "animal rightism" ignore the value that society has placed on human
life which enables society to function in an orderly fashion . In effect, the extreme positions of animal rights activists
devalue human life and detract from human rights.3! "The belief that human life, and only human life, is
sacrosanct is a form of speciesism," Singer writes.32 But if the sacredness of all life equivalent,
what is one to make of animals that kill each other and the often arbitrary nature of life and
death and survival of the fittest in the wild? What is one to make of the conflict between the seeming arbitrariness of the
killing that takes place in nature and the ethical content of human existence that starts with the certainty that the life of every individual person is
uniquely sacred?
Sometimes the statements of contemporary radical environmentalists and animal

rights activists display a profound misanthropy . "If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human
population back to ecological sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS ," writes one author using the pseudonym
Miss Ann Thropy.33 "Seeing no other possibility for the preservation of biological diversity on earth
than a drastic decline in the number of humans, Miss Ann Thropy contends that AIDS is ideal
for the task primarily because 'the disease only affects humans' and shows promise for wiping
out large numbers of humans."34 Ingrid Newkirk has commented that even if animal research
resulted in a cure for AIDS, PETA would "be against it."35 The point is that reverence for human
life must be both the starting point and the reference point for any ethical philosophy and
system of law that does not immediately become unhitched from its moorings in civilization.
With respect to animals and their similarities to humans, Singer's dismissal of "fine phrases" notwithstanding, the
fact that debate exists about the ethical consequences of such differences is almost distinction enough. It is we-humans-who are
having the debate, not animals; and it is a unique feature of humankind to recognize ethical
subtleties. This ability to recognize gradations and competing interests is what defines the rules
that we live by and the system of rights and responsibilities that comprise our legal system.
Animals cannot possess rights because animals are in no way a part of any of these processes.
On the other hand, any duties we may have respecting our treatment of animals derive from the
fact that we are part of these processes.36
state good
Working with in the state solves- empirically legislation is the best
way to protect the rights of animals
State and federal legislation that presently regulates human interaction with animals is
consistent with the views that only humans possess rights and that animal suffering may be an
unavoidable consequence of some human activities. Such legislation does not address animals as beings with rights,
but rather as beings toward which humans have responsibilities. These responsibilities are
derived, not from some conception that animals possess claims against humans, but rather from
a recognition that human interests and esthetic sensibilities are impacted by our treatment of animals. The major
federal animal legislation, such as the Animal Welfare Act (AWA),66 the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA),67 and the Endangered
Species Act (ESA),68 are-like all legislation-products of a balancing of competing interests. The
interests in the balance are the

various human interests that may be affected by the way we interact with animals; the perceived
interests of animals are of importance only insofar as it is assumed that mistreatment of
animals, especially the gratuitous mistreatment of animals, is unesthetic and inconsistent with a humane view of our place in our
environment.69 Notwithstanding the above, animal rights activists invoke these statutes in support of their litigation agenda, which has as its aims
the enfranchisement of animals and the empowerment of people to assert the civil rights of individual animals and animal species.70 Fortunately,
courts most often reject the invitation of animal rights activists to analyze the issues raised in such cases beyond the confines of well-established
legal principles.71 A. State Animal Welfare and Cruelty Statutes
Most states possess animal cruelty laws that

prohibit wanton, purposeless conduct against animals such as torturing, starving, beating,
mutilating, and other inhumane acts.72 Such laws are premised on the idea that the humane treatment of animals is good for
people and rarely restrict "normal human activities to which the infliction of pain to an animal is purely
incidental or unavoidable .... "73 For example, state animal cruelty laws commonly exempt activities, such as farming,
pest extermination, fishing, and hunting, that have been fundamental aspects of human
existence for millennia.74 Some state animal cruelty laws also provide that the infliction of pain and death on
animals is justified in the name of education and scientific progress and expressly exclude
research and education from their scope. For example, California's health and safety code provides: The public health and
welfare depend on the humane use of animals for scientific advancement in the diagnosis and treatment of human and animal diseases, for
education, for research in the advancement of veterinary, dental, medical and biologic sciences, for research in animal and human nutrition, and
improvement and standardization of laboratory procedures of biologic products, pharmaceuticals and drugs.75 In addition, Idaho confirms the
human "right" to "destroy any venomous reptile, or animal known as dangerous to life, limb, or property ... [and] to kill ... all animals used for
food or with properly conducted scientific experiments or investigations .... "76 Such
statutes reflect the view that, while

inflicting pain on animals is inhumane in many circumstances, there are human activities, and
even human activities that go beyond those essential to human survival, that have benefits that
far outweigh the compassionate human impulse to stop pain wherever it is found.

Anthro Answers - Michigan7 2014

Diunggah oleh

Informasi Dokumen

Hak Cipta

Format Tersedia

Bagikan dokumen Ini

Bagikan atau Tanam Dokumen

Opsi Berbagi

Apakah menurut Anda dokumen ini bermanfaat?

Apakah konten ini tidak pantas?

Hak Cipta:

Format Tersedia

Anthro Answers - Michigan7 2014

Diunggah oleh

Hak Cipta:

Format Tersedia

anthro

[T]here can be no doubt that any useful knowledge in medicine or surgery

are in every case claims, or potential claims, within a community of

do not have such moral

give a certain natural reverence. But the possession of

does not follow

Impossible to evaluate all forms of life equally -- benefits of

to recognize the moral differences among species is a sure path

relying (however mistakenly) on animal rights may

of the benefits of their use is utterly beyond quantification . The elimination

The rights of animals cannot be compared to the civil rights

attitudes towards animals, the movement that seeks to

analysis that equates animal rights with the rights of

While we should avoid the unnecessary suffering of animals, we dont

to find moral justification for the use of animals on the basis

relationships that develop

are not capable of understanding the moral concepts needed to engage in a

animal have no rights

animals have no rights

is clear that animals cannot have rights: they cannot claim

There is an inherent difference between inherent value and the ability

or otherwise are subjects of a life and the more debatable claim

the case of most non-human animals , the corresponding

may regard them as having special rights by virtue of their relationship to us . We

extension of strong moral protections to infants

Discussions on animals rights are infinitely regressive no line as to

animals =/= human

ALARMists were genuinely

Animals are inherently different than humans -- complexity of minds,

Value to life are fundamentally different in humans and non-humans

eastern Kentucky University, Animal rights opposing views 28-29]

the unequal value thesis can provide

focus on how we use animals instead

cannot give full treatment to this important topic here,

conveniently leave the capacities I have mentioned

animals should not be maltreated. They should not be made to suffer

is not arbitrary to hold that the life of a self-aware being, capable of

it has already been conceded that

at: marginal cases

Mentally disabled human beings cannot be labeled equivalent to

for animals argue that we should give special consideration to animals

at: animals have feelings

is not the ability to communicate or to reason, or dependence on

Animal behavior doesnt correlate to pain -- self-preservation

might have sustained considerable tissue

Animals exhibit pain behavior -- method of survival

we attempt to substitute animals for the human

must ask: Do animals ever find pain unbearable ?, and, What

animal never has reasons either

wildebeest dies silently and does not

at: singer/rtc of -isms

argument is worse than unsound; it is atrocious. It draws an

at: nervous systems

argument could be made on this basis

we cross the species boundary and attempt to make projections about

might react to such stimuli by exhibiting pain behaviour and yet

at: evolutionary theory

behaviours as violent struggling, grimacing and

humans are better

2ac - humans are better

is one thing, killing is another, and what

embrace at different times different conceptions of how we want to live.

Although nonhumans do have rights it is important to recognize that

I have focused upon the comparetive value of human and animal