Animal Rights and Being Gracious to All Creatures

 

Animal rights are as vital and valuable as human rights. Therefore, we need to be caring and gracious to all animals. We should remember that Gautama Buddha once said, “Non-violence and love to all living beings is the greatest act to do.” This saying by Gautama Buddha lays emphasis on the importance of loving all creatures. People should keep away from hurting animals without appropriate reasons.

According to Wikipedia, animal rights is the idea in which some, or all, non-human animals are entitled to the possession of their own existence and that their most basic interests—such as the need to avoid suffering—should be afforded the same consideration as similar interests of human beings. That is, animals have the right to be treated as the individuals they are, with their own desires and needs, rather than as unfeeling property.
World Animal Day is observed every year on 4th October but this day is hardly known in some countries including Bangladesh.

Its advocates opposing the assignment of moral value and fundamental protections on the basis of species membership alone—an idea known since 1970 as speciesism, when the term was coined by Richard D. Ryder—arguing that it is a prejudice as irrational as any other. They maintain that animals should no longer be viewed as property or used as food, clothing, research subjects, entertainment, or beasts of burden. Multiple cultural traditions around the world such as Jainism, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism and Animism also espouse some forms of animal rights.

In parallel to the debate about moral rights, animal law is now widely taught in law schools in North America, and several prominent legal scholars, such as Steven M. Wise and Gary L. Francione, support the extension of basic legal rights and personhood to non-human animals. The animals most often considered in arguments for personhood are hominoids. This is supported by some animal rights academics because it would break through the species barrier, but opposed by others because it predicates moral value on mental complexity, rather than on sentience alone. As of November 2019, 29 countries have currently enacted bans on hominoid experimentation, and Argentina has granted a captive orangutan basic human rights since 2014.

Critics of animal rights argue that nonhuman animals are unable to enter into a social contract, and thus cannot be possessors of rights, a view summed up by the philosopher Roger Scruton, who writes that only humans have duties, and therefore only humans have rights. Another argument, associated with the utilitarian tradition, is that animals may be used as resources so long as there is no unnecessary suffering; they may have some moral standing, but they are inferior in status to human beings, and any interests they have may be overridden, though what counts as "necessary" suffering or a legitimate sacrifice of interests varies considerably. Certain forms of animal rights activism, such as the destruction of fur farms and animal laboratories by the Animal Liberation Front, have also attracted criticism, including from within the animal rights movement itself, as well as prompted reaction from the U.S. Congress with the enactment of laws allowing these activities to be prosecuted as terrorism, including the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.

Aristotle stated that animals lacked reason (logos), and placed humans at the top of the natural world, yet the respect for animals in ancient Greece was very high. Some animals were considered divine, e.g. dolphins. In the Book of Genesis 1:26 (5th or 6th century BCE), Adam is given "dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." Dominion need not entail property rights, but it has been interpreted, by some, over the centuries to imply ownership.

Contemporary philosopher Bernard Rollin writes that "dominion does not entail or allow abuse any more than does dominion a parent enjoys over a child." Rollin further states that the Biblical Sabbath requirement promulgated in the Ten Commandments "required that animals be granted a day of rest along with humans. Correlatively, the Bible forbids 'plowing with an ox and an ass together' (Deut. 22:10–11). According to the rabbinical tradition, this prohibition stems from the hardship that an ass would suffer by being compelled to keep up with an ox, which is, of course, far more powerful. Similarly, one finds the prohibition against 'muzzling an ox when it treads out the grain' (Deut. 25:4–5), and even an environmental prohibition against destroying trees when besieging a city (Deut. 20:19–20). These ancient regulations, virtually forgotten, bespeak of an eloquent awareness of the status of animals as ends in themselves", a point also corroborated by Norm Phelps.

The philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras (c. 580–c. 500 BCE) urged respect for animals, believing that human and nonhuman souls were reincarnated from human to animal, and vice versa. Against this, Aristotle (384–322 BCE), student to the philosopher Plato, said that nonhuman animals had no interests of their own, ranking them far below humans in the Great Chain of Being. He was the first to create a taxonomy of animals; he perceived some similarities between humans and other species, but stated for the most part that animals lacked reason (logos), reasoning (logismos), thought (dianoia, nous), and belief (doxa).

Theophrastus (c. 371 – c. 287 BCE), one of Aristotle's pupils, argued that animals also had reasoning (logismos) and opposed eating meat on the grounds that it robbed them of life and was therefore unjust. Theophrastus did not prevail; Richard Sorabji writes that current attitudes to animals can be traced to the heirs of the Western Christian tradition selecting the hierarchy that Aristotle sought to preserve.

Plutarch (1 C. CE) in his Life of Cato the Elder comments that while law and justice are applicable strictly to men only, beneficence and charity towards beasts is characteristic of a gentle heart. This is intended as a correction and advance over the merely utilitarian treatment of animals and slaves by Cato himself.

Tom Beauchamp (2011) writes that the most extensive account in antiquity of how animals should be treated was written by the Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry (234–c. 305 CE), in his On Abstinence from Animal Food, and On Abstinence from Killing Animals.
The animal protection act which was passed in 2019 will hopefully raise awareness among the grassroots people of Bangladesh and will motivate people to look after animals in a generous way.

Animals are sometimes slaughtered for religious purposes. This thing should not be done in public. Even one animal should not be slaughtered in front of another creature. It looks inhuman. The government should specify certain locations or buildings inside which animals can be slaughtered. Animals should not be slaughtered in presence of children or people with weak hearts.

There are several literary masterpieces which characterize animals and birds from which we can learn precious lessons. Wild creatures are the most vital part of natural environment. In the present world most of the countries are working hard to protect wild animals to preserve ecological balance. So, safeguarding domestic as well as wild animals is indispensable to ensure the smooth living of human beings on earth.


Mahfuz Ul Hasib Chowdhury is a
contributor to different English
newspapers and magazines.