The Animal Manifesto Read Online Free PDF Page B

Dictionary defines speciesism as “discrimination against or exploitation of certain animal species by human beings, based on an assumption of mankind’s superiority.” Terry Tempest Williams, in Finding Beauty in a Broken World, poignantly notes: “To regard any animal as something lesser than we are, not equal to our own vitality and adaptation as a species, is to begin a deadly descent into the dark abyss of arrogance where cruelty is nurtured in the corners of certitude. Daily acts of destruction and brutality are committed becausewe fail to see the dignity of Other.” Truth be told, the obliteration of animal dignity happens more than daily —every second of every day a mouse or a rat is used in research, and a nonhuman primate is used about every seven and a half minutes.
    Regardless of the differences among species, how we treat our fellow animals always comes down to individuals. In his book Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism, the late philosopher James Rachels presents the important notion of moral individualism, which is based on the following argument: “If A is to be treated differently from B, the justification must be in terms of A’s individual characteristics and B’s individual characteristics. Treating them differently cannot be justified by pointing out that one or the other is a member of some preferred group, not even the ‘group’ of human beings.” According to this view, careful attention must be paid to individual variations in behavior within species. It is individuals who personally feel pain and suffer, not species.
    Even further, leaving aside morality and simply peering into the biological mirror, the reflection shows that it’s misleading to separate humans from other animals in an “us” versus “them” framework. Our reactions to animals are often contradictory: we are attracted to them, and wonder if we see thoughtful sentience in their behavior, while at the same time we push them away and emphasize our differences as a way to establish our superiority. When describing a deplorable act, how often have you heard someone say that the person “acted like an animal”? However, variations among species don’t arrange themselves into a neat self-evident hierarchy from dumb to smart, from vicious to kind. Variations among species should be embraced and cherished rather than used to justify human dominance. If we instead focus on the numeroussimilarities among species, we see clearly that “we” are “them” and “they” are “us” in many ways. The borders are indeed blurred. Tool use, consciousness, rationality, morality, humor, language, culture, and art are shared among animal species to varying degrees and can no longer be used as the defining difference between humans and other animals.
    Many of the differences between other animals and humans are differences in degree rather than differences in kind. Charles Darwin stressed this in his theory of natural selection in which he discovered evolutionary continuity in the anatomy, behavior, and mental lives — including thinking, consciousness, and emotions — of a wide variety of animals. Species that at first and superficial glance seem to be radically different from our own are actually not so different after all. This surely isn’t a radical notion — if humans possess some skill or attribute, more than likely, other animals must possess it, too. If not, where did our intelligence, sentience, emotions, and morality come from?
    Not only is the notion of a hierarchy of species used to justify our inhumane treatment of other animals, it is practically meaningless when comparing other species. For example, when chimpanzees do something that birds don’t do, such as using joysticks and computers to negotiate mazes, people say, “See, chimpanzees are smarter than birds.” However, when birds make and use more complex tools than chimpanzees, few if any say, “See, birds are smarter than