E-Paper
The need to treat animals ethically
Permission for animal testing or experimentation is blindly based on the cognitive and physical differences between humans and animals.
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The ministry of fisheries, animal husbandry and dairying's revised draft on the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, concerning experimentation and testing, has caused chaos among animal activists, academics, and laypeople. Permission for animal testing or experimentation is blindly based on the cognitive and physical differences between humans and animals. Humans are rational, autonomous, moral, intelligent tool-making agents; nonetheless, animals are considered deprived of all these dispositions. Unlike animals, humans have agency and can make prudential decisions. Animals, compared to humans, have minimal agency and better capacities for sniffing, flying, swimming, jumping, and sensing; nevertheless, all these are in vain because no one recognises them. Similarly, the revised draft fails to signify the plausible similarities in disposition of animals that they share with humans. This, thus, undermines the lives of an important segment of the natural world. Accordingly, the entire condition can be divided into three categories that need to be observed.
First, if those revised rules ultimately are enacted, the enhancement of cruelty will be unprecedented. It will minimise restrictions on animal experiments in academic, drug, and cosmetic laboratories. The number of animals used and abused will spike, potentially threatening their lives, especially those of stray animals. It might lead to instability in the environment.
Secondly, animals are not rocks or dry wood. Animals are also naturally created in their own ways, just as differences also exist among various human beings. The values of animals are determined rationally, grounded in their capabilities. As Peter Singer claims, animals' value can be assessed based on their sentience—the capacity to feel pain. Animals feel pain and undoubtedly suffer as well, which should be addressed. Animals also have unique life processes. Accordingly, inherent value can be extended to animals. In this line, it is argued that we should consider animals experience a subject of a life—they have emotions and feelings, and good and bad things happen to them. Thus, how far the exploitation of animals is rationally acceptable needs to be pondered. Animals possess inherent value because they have a teleological centre of life—they survive themselves, pursuing their own good in their own way. Animals also possess certain capabilities, which they pursue. We, humans, should create conducive environments for the pursuit of their (animals') capabilities. Animals also flourish according to their capacity, just as humans do. The flourishing of animals may not be possible without sufficient nourishment and care. The flourishing feature leads us to attribute intrinsic value to animals and demand fair treatment.
Thirdly, these considerations warrant an ethical scrutiny of the use and abuse of animals. The moral constraint prevents excessive, incessant exploitation of animals, which may lead to a slippery slope. The neglect of various animal interests entails humans' failure to fulfil their duty towards them, including nature. It is obvious that humans have a prior duty towards each other; however, it does not imply that they are completely devoid of duty towards animals. They have indirect duties towards non-human fellow beings. Caring about animals may fulfil two objectives: Animals can lead safe, secure lives, and humans can maintain a balanced ecosystem, at least on purely anthropocentric grounds. Strictly, caring must involve duty, not only contingent emotion and feeling, because there are cases where some humans may feel animals' pain and others may not; similarly, some may be sympathetic towards them and others may not. Nonetheless, duty makes it an obligation for every human to be considerate about animals' suffering. Let's ask ourselves: Do we justify our actions by destroying and harming those innocent creatures? Further, should all those innocent beings sacrifice their lives solely for humans' advantage? If, at all, we are sensible beings, we expect justice to be done to those innocents; we are bound not to fail in performing our duties towards them, at least the minimal duties expected. Moreover, caring is possible if and only if animals are revered wholeheartedly. The origin of the sense of respect for animals stems from recognising them as a significant part of nature. Accordingly, their interests and rights can be protected.
Therefore, the draft proposed needs further review. Duty and sympathy, in terms of abolishing cruelty, should come first when making any laws.
(The views expressed are personal)
This article is authored by Nibedita Priyadarshini Jena, assistant professor, department of philosophy, School of Humanities, University of Hyderabad.
