Animals are part of the world’s creation and preserving them should be the priority of any human being. They are part of the ecosystem and therefore frustration that would jeopardize their existence should not take place. An imbalance in the ecosystem of the human environment would significantly affect the food chain and therefore forcing some living things to go extinct (Rachels, 1990).
It through organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) that such perspectives are expressed to the society. They work together with the police to ensure their policies are enforced in the society. Through monitoring of animals, they manage to make sure that people treat them well without causing unnecessary pain. Domestic animals which include both pets and animals for meat are entitled to food and water. They are required to undergo fair treatment and mistreatment would be an offense (Rachels, 1990).
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On the other hand, it does not make sense to treat animals as a human whereas they are different. Animals initially lived in the wild where everything is cruel including the weather. They should continue living in such conditions for it is their original type of environment. There are those who claim that both humans and animals share some genetic composition and therefore should be treated the same. How sure are they that the animals prefer better treatment than the wild? Some claim it is because they show a positive response to good treatment but at the same time there is the adaptive nature of all animals and therefore may be they are just adjusting and not that they like it (Portaluppi, Smolensky, & Touitou, 2010).
It is seen that there are pros and cons of supporting the fair treatment of animals just as humans. For pros, animals will survive longer because they have a short lifespan. It would be helpful to pets especially because they are kept for pleasure by human beings, and therefore their survival is their priority. Most families that possess pets tend to love them as their children and therefore will treat them the same. There is a con where it feels like an insult to claim that animals are similar to humans whereas there is a time where fellow humans treated each other worse than animals during slavery. They had to fight for liberation and freedom whereas animals are being considered as people (Rachels, 1990).
On the other hand, there are also pros and cons of accommodating cruelty of animals. Animals are seen to have a biological composition that is likened to that of a human being and therefore experience at most of what is experienced by people. Such experiences include pain, whereby they are hurt when treated with cruelty. Hence the rise of utilitarianism where they encourage the eradication of suffering in the world that may be caused by cruelty. Peter Singer is an author of the book Animal Liberation talks of how animals also feel pain, and it is the obligation of human beings to ensure that minimum and unnecessary pain is avoided. There are also cons for such a perspective where people will become uncontrollably cruel to animals. As much as animals are inferior to human beings, it does not mean that they should be treated wrongly. An example is seen where people are found hunting wild animals. Some animals need to be treasured because of their numbers in the world. They should be preserved and not hunted, and therefore such animals should be protected from such cruelty that will destroy the beauty of wild animals (Portaluppi, Smolensky, &Touitou, 2010).
The differed opinions are seen because the love for nature and animals vary among people giving them different justification as to treatment towards animals. It is therefore important that all humans are guided by standard policies that would satisfy both arguments. Animals can still experience fair treatment without being equated to people (Rachels, 1990).
References
Portaluppi, F., Smolensky, M. H., & Touitou, Y. (2010). Ethics and methods for biological rhythm research on animals and human beings. Chronobiology international , 27 (9-10), 1911-1929.
Rachels, J. (1990). Created from animals. The Moral Implications of Darwinism .
