Rough Draft 1

Emily Montgomery

Exposition and Argument Section HM

Erin Kelly

Research Paper Rough Draft #1

17 November 2016

The essential difference between humans and all other animals is human ability to self-reflect and recognize one’s own existence. Why, then, do humans treat different animals differently. Animal welfare is a major ethical issue in society and there are many areas in which conditions for animals should and can be improved. Humans are capable of thinking of themselves as humans and also thinking about the consequences of their actions on others. Therefore, humans are consciously treating some animals much better than others. We treat our companion animals as part of our families, some pets even live better lives than many humans. Contrastly, we treat livestock as if they were not even alive, with cruel and inhumane techniques in order to maximize profit and time. These conditions are described by Peter Singer and Jim Mason in “Meat and Milk Factories”. Additionally, as Charles Siebert exemplifies in “An Elephant Crackup?”, our wild animals are captured or disrupted rather in many cases rather than protected or left alone. What causes this discrepancy between treatment and type of animal? Humans feel more ethically responsibility toward animals they perceive as more human-like but these human-like characteristics can also be overlooked to fulfill another purpose, such as monetary gain. The treatment of animals is entirely reliant on an individual’s ethical morals and ability to recognize the animal as a living thing much like oneself. Many factors contribute to a person’s individual ethical views. The reasons for animal abuse and mistreatment can be used to combat the problem. In order to lead people to respect and proper treatment of all animals, the people must see the animals as similar to themselves. This is important because animals deserve fair and humane treatment just as humans do.

Humans feel more inclined to treat beings that they relate to better than those that they do not relate with. Humans are inherently selfish beings, as all organisms are, which leads us to care predominantly about ourselves and others similar to us. This causes a stronger ethical responsibility toward animals that we associate with and a separation from animals that may not be as obviously similar to us.

Humans treat companion animals so well because we attribute human-like qualities to them. We regard our pets as members of our families with individual names, personalities, and lives. We treat our companion animals as if they were humans. Pet humanization is extremely populars, especially among the more fortunate and wealthy. This trend is transforming the pet product industry. A PR Newswire article discusses how “Humanization is a natural expression of the "pets as family" trend, whereby pet owners treat their pets like children and are highly receptive to products similar to the ones they use for themselves”. Because our pets live with us and are such an integral part of our life, they are treated as if they are humans and given human-like characteristics that they may not even possess. Dogs are often described as loyal, and unconditionally loving. In studies regarding the bond humans and dogs feel between one another, it was revealed that dogs experience a rise in oxytocin when interacting with humans and wolves, dogs closest wild relatives, do not experience this. As Nagasawa and others note in the study, “dogs show distinctly different behavior toward caregivers as compared with hand-raised wolves” (Nagasawa et al. 334). Wolves are wild animals which do not develop a chemical bond with humans while our pet dogs demonstrate this rise in oxytocin from gazing into human’s eyes.

Humans do not treat wild animals as well because they do not relate to their way of life. Humans do not develop a mutual bond with wild animals, nor do they interact with them regularly which leads most people to simply not care much about animals in the wild. Siebert discussed something known as the the “Human-Elephant Conflict” which is basically the increase in elephant aggression due to the disruption of familial bonds from poaching, habitat loss, and other human-caused factors. Elephants exhibit familial bonds comparable or even greater than many humans. They also mourn their dead similarly to humans. Siebert explains how “elephants of decimated herds, especially orphans who’ve watched  the death of their parents and elders from poaching and culling, exhibit behavior typically associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and other trauma-related disorders in humans” (Siebert 530). The aggression and damage in elephants is directly caused by humans. Additionally, the elephants are demonstrating characteristics similar to a human that had gone through the same kind of trauma.

Humans do not treat farm animals well at all because they deliberately de-animalize them to justify mistreating them in order to efficiently produce cost-effective products. There is evidence that many livestock species display just as much intelligence and compassion as companion animals, mainly dogs. As Singer explains in his essay “Pigs are affectionate, inquisitive animals… capable of doing everything a dog can do…” (Singer 546). He goes on to explain how pigs have even been trained to operate video games and that they are fast learners. Despite all of this, the treatment of pigs is entirely unethical when compared to the way we treat dogs. There are no laws regulating livestock welfare while on the farm and there are exemptions in the laws that do exist for “common farming practices”. The farming industry is no doubt important and essential, but it is not ethical to place the efficient production of food over the basic welfare of animals. Even the terminology used in the farming industry is aimed at distancing humans from livestock. Instead of saying give birth we label it farrowing and animals are not referred to as pregnant, but instead they are “gestating”. Workers at factory farms are shown to completely remove themselves from the idea of killing a living thing and simply think of the animals as a commodity rather than an animal like oneself. In “It’s Just a Jobs” Hamilton and McCabe describe how factory farm inspectors also look past the ethics of factory farming and “displayed an intriguing, apparently unemotional and almost ‘mechanized’ disregard for the chickens they were indirectly involved in killing.”

There are exceptions to each claim, but the general trends in animal welfare in relation to species is an important issue that needs to be resolved. While there are cases of animal abuse in companion animals, and there are farm sanctuaries where livestock species can live happily, these are the outliers not the norms, which is why we need to work toward the humane treatment of all animals.  

The best way to change people's view of animals and thus, the mistreatment of animals, is to portray them as relatable to humans. Humans will be more inclined to treat all animals with kindness and humanity if they are able to see how alike we are to them. The de-animalization of farm animals leads to the masking of the human-like characteristics they possess, such as intelligence and compassion. Additionally, animals in the wild are similar to humans in more ways than many think. They have complex societies and relationships. In order to promote animal welfare, humans need to stop considering animals as products for human use and consumption and just recognize them as animals just as we are.