Ethical Treatment of Animals

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The Ethical Treatment of Animals Alyssa Taylor SOC 120 Instructor David Strand July 15, 2013 Even though they are not able to communicate and speak out against the way they may or may not feel about the way they are treated, people should take notice that animals are loving creatures too. An animal is able to feel pain justr as well as any human being. When someone hits a dog, they cry out. When someone starves a cat, they cry out and then usually die. Anything someone can do to physically hurt a human being, that same act can physically hurt an animal as well. There are still many people around the world that do not treat animals ethically. They are treated as objects and not living creatures. The main reason that people do not treat animals the same way that they would treat a human being is because they feel that animals are not equal to humans. “If equality is granted on the basis of creatures' capacity to feel pleasure and pain, to pursue their goals and enjoy their lives, how can we confine that equality to humans?” (White, 2002, para. 9) An animal has the capacity to feel pain and pleasure. Anyone can see this by watching dog play fetch with its owner or hearing the painful cry of a cat when it is hit by a car. They are also very capable of enjoying their lives. This alone should give some reason for why they should be treated ethically. “THE QUESTION is not, Can they reason? Nor Can they talk? But, Can they suffer?" (Benton, 1995, para. 1) The treatment of animals has been compared to the Holocaust recently after eminent Jews and actual Holocaust survivors brought to light how animals have been oppressed by some of the owners of animals. One of the victims of the Holocaust scrawled on his hospital wall the reasoning for not being able to eat animal meat. He stated that he couldn’t bring himself to nourish himself by the deaths and sufferings of

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