Animal Ethics

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Approaches to animal ethics

Animal ethics is the field of ethics that deals with how and why we should take nonhuman
animals into account in our moral decisions. The fact that we are taking them into account
reflects on the value they hold in our day to day lives. Therefore, I would like to begin by
establishing,
WHY DO WE VALUE ANIMALS?
The reasons are many, the most prominent ones are listed here.
What is one result, or rather a common utility that can be inferred from all these areas?
They satisfy human needs.

There are majorly two approaches that we can use to analyze animal Ethics :
1. Anthropocentric
2. ‎Non-Anthropocentric

The use and treatment of animals is a function of how they impact the lives of other humans.
This approach to animal ethics, which focuses on human need and satisfaction is characterized
as ANTHROPOCENTRIC.

(1) Anthropocentric approach says that our concern for the health and welfare of animals stems
from the potential profit we bear from their possession, processing and sale. In other words,
animal welfare is more favourable to economic interests as opposed to animal cruelty.

(2) Another human oriented perspective to the anthropocentric approach is the idea that
learning to care for animals and treating them well is a natural part of the human experience. It's
a course of developing important virtures without which, we construct "callousness and
indifference", as put by Immanuel Kant.

A Non-Anthropocentric approach on the other hand, concerns itself with the interests of the
animals apart from the humans.

(1) Sentience, is one of the branches of this approach which preaches that animals can feel
pleasure and pain just like we do and they display emotional reactions very similar to ours.
Sentience, for example, reduces the set of justifications an industrial farmer or an animal
experimenter may be able to offer. This approach is founded on ground of consequentialism or
utilitarianism. As this is based on utilitarianism, application of theory could still result in
inhumane killing of animals for urgent causes.

According to Peter Singer,as any being is  sentient, he or she is worthy of our moral attention
and we must give its interests equal consideration.

(2) Another parallel approach based on non-consequentialist or deontological theories, outlines


that animals are individuals who have interests and rights, just like we do.

Regan argues that individuals who are “subjects-of-a-life” are moral rightholders;  It does not
matter what species one belongs to, how close we are to this individual, and so forth.  Rights do
not literally equate to equivalency but aim at protecting serious rights of animals being harmed
against mere human wishes or desires.
Both these perspectives differ in their degree of duty to animals although they both are very
much rooted in consideration of animal rights apart from the ones only concerning us.

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