Peter Singer's All Animals are Equal - Essay Example

In Peter Singer’s influential essay, ‘All Animals are Equal,’ he advances a valid and important theme that humans have a moral obligation to act compassionately towards animals, but his logic in describing why this is so historically is often flawed. Singer begins by making relations between the animal rights struggle and people’s rights struggles as for example with Black Panthers, anti-Colonialists, and Women’s Rights movements. “My aim is to advocate that we make this mental switch in respect of our attitudes and practices towards a very large group of beings: members of species other than our own—or, as we popularly though misleadingly call them, animals. In other words, I am urging that we extend to other species the basic principle of equality that most of us recognize should be extended to all members of our own species.” (Singer, 1989) In my opinion, Singer would better communicate his point if he preached on the necessity of compassion for animals, but in this instance he suggests an equality of rights with humans. To show how quickly Singer’s logic contradicts itself or quickly spirals to the absurd, we can begin with the innumerable treaties that exist in international law that define the extent of Human Rights as decided among humans themselves at the United Nations and other locations. First, we must ask ourselves – can even one animal read the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”? We can accept that any human being, in any human culture on the planet, generally save instances of abnormal injury, can learn to read and understand the document. In comparison, of what may be anywhere from 30 to 230 million different species of animals on the planet, depending on the number of insects, and the number of individual animal beings literally exponential and uncountable to human mind or science – not one of these animals can read. In recognizing that some higher mammals can be taught, should one extend the right of education and free speech to insects? It is not in my interest to encourage in any way cruelty to animals, nor to belittle animal intelligence, and dismiss animal culture. I understand the ways in which speciesism may unfold, as defined by Skinner, and support vegetarianism. However, I would suggest that Singer spend years in a jungle or forest location and teach vegetarianism to animals. It may be possible, and I have seen cats for example raised as vegetarians by their owners but not renounce killing by their own choice. Some animals live without killing, existing on plants, nectars, algae, etc., from evolutionary adaptation to the environment, some kill other animals indiscriminately in a hunt for food, but few animals display any type of the awareness of a concept of rights that Singer suggests, and without a human understanding of a rights it is impossible to grant human rights to animals, which would be required were animals and humans really equal in the manner posited and argued by Singer. On the contrary, we can work actively for animal rights, animal welfare, and animal rescue, not only as activists or in official organizations, but every second of our lives, with every breath. In ancient India, Jains were famous for wearing masks so that they would not even kill one insect when breathing, and carried fans of grass to literally sweep the path before themselves as they walked to avoid stepping on even the smallest insect. As they practiced compassion for even the smallest insects they could identify, so too they practiced compassion for all humans, higher mammals, and even prayed for beings in hells or suffering as ghosts. Thus, I would ask Singer if he has studied Jainism and found answers to his questions, for in many ways what he is suggesting is a mass conversion of humanity to the Jain point of view. Yet, animal protection, compassion to animals, non-violence, and even teaching to animals is found in other religions as well. The Buddhists hold views on non-violence similar to the Jains, and Gandhi’s non-violence was very influenced by Jain religion even in the context of Hinduism. In Christianity, we have still less inclination to vegetarianism, in fact the Judaeo-Christian religions including Islam are often more specific about the way animals are slaughtered than in their protection, and insect protection is not a high issue. Yet, one still has examples of St. Martin de Porres, a Catholic saint who was known to have taught the animals as equal beings. Thus, I have no real disagreement with Singer even over the tenets to protect even the smallest insect or animal from violence. However, I believe it is a religious and moral question for the individual and not one of rights, or the extension of equality of human rights to animals. To continue, the example of religions teaching animal protection and religious teachers giving instruction on enlightenment to animals is part of nearly every religion in some manner, or can be found in that religion if the human has the interest to look for those tenets. Essentially what religions do is teach humans a moral standard that leads to the kind of compassion to all beings that Singer is advocating. If we accord the Jains, for example, a high level of evolutionary thinking, in the Jain, Buddhist, or Hindu religion the human could be an animal in the next incarnation. These religions all share a belief in a type of transmigration of the soul. The Buddhists, who reject the formal concept of an everlasting soul, still posit that the Being cycles through incarnations from beginningless to endless time. During the course of a cyclical eternity, and our existence in it as autonomous beings, the Buddhists posit that each and every being, from the smallest insect to every being that exists – has at one point or another been out actual mother and father. Followers of these religions may practice non-violence towards all beings equally, but it is based on the philosophical foundation of universal Love, not one based in the extension of human rights to animals. Another example would be from the Bible, where Jesus teaches that God loves all beings equally, including all animals, with the example given of God’s love being like the sun, shining on all beings equally. So too, following the Golden Rule as taught on the Sermon on the Mount, one can build a philosophy of non-violence and equal love for animals based on the tenets of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. But animals must also learn and practice this for there to be equality as Singer posits it. Not that it is impossible – some Buddhists believe, for example, that they must work for countless lifetimes to teach enlightenment to all beings, even the smallest insects they believe have a mind essence that is capable of enlightenment. Thus, I would encourage Singer to study more in religion, and base his appeals for animals on grounds of compassion and not ridiculous arguments of equality between all species of animals and humans. Singer’s references to racism, sexism, and other prejudices and hates that exist among humans, then referencing their rights struggle, and extrapolating it to animals is an extremely superficial analysis. For example, he takes examples of human-defined problems and relationships that exist in human society, and then applies them to animals in general without really taking into consideration the vast diversity in the animal kingdom. If Singer were a preacher of love for all beings, I would be a supporter, but he couches his argument as a manifesto of liberty for animals where animals have been living in a natural state of freedom for billions of years. He suggests equality, but focuses the majority of his examples on higher mammals and primates rather than the literally millions of different living species on Earth. Thus, while Singer is accusing the world of speciesism, he is also practicing it himself in his logic and examples. Again, we see in the example of religion that universal compassion can be argued from other philosophical and moral bases without these logical inconsistencies. So, Singer’s essay is not well thought out and riddled with errors in reasoning and logic. This is what I object to even if his heart was good in the points he made. To assert something radically different from the established mainstream Western view is fine, but to do this on a flawed fundamental or moral basis is a mistake I do not wish to follow. If Singer could show examples of himself teaching large numbers of animals to read, to practice vegetarianism, to show political awareness of rights, or to teach them to teach other animals the principles of non-violence, I would be impressed. But if he could do this, the world would view him as a religious leader, a type of holy man. The earth’s history is filled with the stories of millions of human beings who followed the path of non-violence and practiced compassion in their lives. Holy beings do attain a type of equality of mind where they express love equally to all beings, yet it is still required to recognize their fundamental differences and teach to that, even as a species. Thus, while supporting a living and breathing compassion, minute to minute, and second to second in life that is founded on awareness of the issues of suffering as experienced by all beings and species, I feel this needs to be founded on a religious base and cosmology rather than a piecemeal argument which lacks clear analysis of the world’s philosophical contexts that have been discussing these issues in religious texts for over 10,000 years to the time of the Jain prophets, Buddha, and early Rishis of the Vedas. I would look to the example of these spiritual teachers and their words on animal protection and compassion over Singer, because I feel they are coming from a real basis of understanding from a different level. Nevertheless, I commend Singer for bringing awareness to valid and important issues concerning the suffering of animals as caused by man. Yet, when he discusses the problem of animal equality in moral and political philosophy on the same terms of human equality, he is making analogies akin to “because both man and women, black and white are equal, men should become pregnant and have babies” and this is not how it works in nature. Source: Singer, Peter. (1989). "All Animals Are Equal." TOM REGAN & PETER SINGER (eds.), Animal Rights and Human Obligations, New Jersey, 1989, pp. 148-162. Date accessed Dec. 10th, 2010: Read More