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Ethics and Animals

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Submitted By tictacwhat
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Animals are continually being given unfair moral rights as seen throughout these horribly conditioned factory farms. Mark Rowlands see this and tries to explain his ideals that animals should be given same moral statuses as human beings. He reveals this kind of moral caste system where humans are on the top of the list whereas other species are on the lower rungs of this system. He gives immature reasoning to tell us that it is unfair that there is this sort of caste system as fundamentally we would want things all fair among us. I object his ideas as I feel as though he isn’t looking at it in the perspective of rational agents who happen to be human as they are the ones who decide this caste system through relationships formed either verbally or non-verbally based on biological and primal needs.

Rowlands explains throughout his novel, Animals Like Us, that all animals should have similar moral rights as humans do. He describes this visual picture where animals are within a lower class, a lower caste in a huge system that humans had created where humans have the highest moral grounds. Under his moral club theory, he tries to paint us all as hypocrites where if you do not follow his ideals then it would mean you are a hypocrite. To further explain this, he explains that everyone is born, and everything born will be different, whether that be hair color, gender, race, or even species. Thus since no one has control of what someone or something becomes, that must mean that there must be a reason to give everyone moral rights as that would be the ‘right’ thing to do. Ultimately, since we say that different race, gender, marginal human beings, and etc. have the same moral grounds, as we should, that should mean that since we accept these differences, then we should give animals these same moral class.
Rowland gives this perfect picture that morality should be based

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