Animal Torture

Final Essay

~Torture of Nonhuman Animals~

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Violence against defenceless animals has been practiced for approximately 50 years now. Unfortunately, this matter is not frequently discussed about in our society. Animals are used by human beings for food and clothing purposes. Some are brutally abused and tortured, for no reason, in most cases. These actions have become questionable nowadays. Do we have a moral obligation toward nonhuman animals? Should animals be at the service of human beings? There is a variety of beliefs concerning whether such practices against animals are right or wrong. In this paper, both sides of this matter will be analysed and explained in details. Afterwards, it will be demonstrated that even if using nonhuman animals brings many economic and personal advantages globally, it is important to consider the right of freedom and well treatment of animals.

From a Kantian point of view, Immanuel states that animals are not self-conscious and they can be used by human beings in anyway we please, because they have value only insofar as they serve human purposes. Moreover, animals do not have rights because they are not autonomous, they’re not members of our community and they don’t have the ability to respect the rights of others or possess a sense of justice [5]. The Kantian theory is based on moral reasons where consequences don’t matter. Therefore, human beings can feel free to torture animals for their own pleasure. Let’s consider the case of Fred, a chocolate lover. He was involved in a car accident which resulted in some head trauma, and damaged the godiva gland, which secretes cocoamone, the hormone responsible for the experience of chocolate. Desperate to find the taste of chocolate again, he found out that puppies who suffer produce cocoamone and he tortured 26 puppies between 1-6 months by keeping them in small cages the whole time [2]. Thus, if it is necessary to torture animals for our own...