America Animal Enterprise Protection

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Animal Rights
Animals have long been viewed as man’s entitled possession and property given impetus by the creation theory in the biblical book of Genesis. Ever since the 6th century BCE, the mythical biblical story of Adam who was purportedly created in the image of God and given ownership of all animals and everything else on earth has prevailed in the popular Christian world. Animals have been subject to all manner of use and cruelty from human beings including being used as food (Singer 18). This belief was enunciated by Aristotle, the renowned student and scientist of philosopher Plato in 384–322 BCE who systematically classified and arranged living things according to importance of being. Human beings were top of this hierarchy because presumably, they had a soul, followed by animals, plants, and lastly microscopic beings. Aristotle perceived animals as lacking reason (logos), belief (doxa) or thought (dianoia, nous) when compared to humans (Francione 33).
However, even during this era, there existed rare opposition towards animal cruelty such as from Theophrastus, who ironically, was a student of Aristotle. He rebutted Aristotle’s claim that animals had no reasoning and he had resolved to avoid eating meat to this effect. His voice, nonetheless could not prevail over Aristotle’s who was profoundly revered during his time and his ideologies and beliefs were adopted by the Christian religion, which at the time, had an extremely powerful influence. It is a common understanding that they are answerable for perpetuating the attitude towards animals in our time.
Animal rights are gaining impetus in the contemporary times with the emergence of animal rights groups that clamor for animal rights and their welfare. Such nascent groups or movements include the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, abbreviated as PETA. This precedence was set in the early 17th century when the first law on animal rights was enacted in Ireland in 1635 imposed against pulling off wool sheep and affixing ploughs on horse’s tails. These laws were adopted and animal rights reverberated across Europe and North America and expanded broadly to the ultimate 2006 Congress law in America Animal Enterprise Protection Act (Singer 56).
The big question nonetheless that lingers and nags is whether animals have rights and if so, which is the appropriate and ethical way to treat animals? According to philosopher Peter Singer, buoyed by the Sentiocentrism theory that animals too are sentient, he adopted 1981 R. M. Hare preference utilitarianism model and was emphatic particularly on animal’s interests of non- suffering. As explicated in his book Animal liberation, Singer implores humans to grant equal consideration to animals in their capacity to feel pain and pleasure, motherly love and fear as a human moral obligation. According to him, the human society infringes on animal rights in numerous ways. These are cladding in leather clothes, eating meat, conducting or attending animal circuses and zoos, just to mention a few (Singer 67).
Others ways in which animals’ sentient values are disregarded according to animal rights groups, is their use for experimental purposes in science, their subjection to hard labor and animal hunting. Animal rights groups also disparage selective breeding of animals to serve human purposes. PETA’s staunch proponents and a group branding itself as Animal Liberation Fr...