The words in the title are from Peter Singer who wrote the acclaimed book, Animal Liberation, published in 1975. In the book he argued that humankind had a tendency toward speciesism meaning that humans attach far greater importance to themselves than they do to other species of animal. Singer asked that people should ‘expand their circle of moral concern’ to ‘all sentient beings, everywhere’. What he is saying is that people should expand their thoughts to other species. This should also include other races of people. Humans have a tendency to only be concerned about peoples who live close by and with whom they have an emotional, historical and geographic connection.
“Pain is pain; and pain is equally bad, whether it’s the pain of a human, or a dog, or a [cat]” – Peter Singer (modified slightly!)
Look at the difference in the reaction of Europe to the Ukraine war and the Syrian war. In Europe there has been a great response to supporting Ukraine in the defence of Russia and in taking in millions of refugees. Poland is a good example. They have an attachment to the Ukrainians. But when it comes to Syria and that remote war there was very little sympathy or concern by Europeans. There is a need to expand the circle of moral concern to include other races.
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In expanding the circle of our concern, humankind should include animals. Animals in a strict sense are another species of animal to the human-animal. Yes, humans are animals but we call ourselves humans perhaps also in an effort to differentiate us from ‘them’ i.e. animals, a lesser species in the eyes of humankind.
He was asked in a Malta Today interview as to whether he thought that animals should be treated as entirely equal to humans at every level. Peter Singer disagreed with that. He said: “Not entirely, no. First of all, the animal liberation viewpoint is not one that says: ‘there are no differences at all, between humans and other animals’. It simply says that it is wrong to give greater weight to interests, on the basis that those interests belong to members of the species ‘Home sapiens’… as compared with similar interests among non-humans, in cases where such comparisons can be made.”
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Singer also stated that as, “Pain is pain; and pain is equally bad, whether it’s the pain of a human, or a dog, or a pig, or a chicken, or anything, that has the capacity to feel pain”, there has to be an equality of treatment by people towards animals and other people. The equality between animals and humans comes about because we feel pain equally. And I believe that Mr Singer is speaking about the ability to detect pain when for example injured but I would like to add in the fact that animals, being sentient beings, can also feel emotional pain. Perhaps they don’t have the capacity to experience the higher emotions but they certainly do experience emotions of depression, sadness, contentment and joy. They feel anger and calm. Animals share with us a number of emotions which demands that humans treat animals with equality to humans under many more circumstances than is currently the case.
On this basis, referring back to Peter Singer’s concept, humans need to “expand the circle of moral concern; to include humans, animals and all sentient beings everywhere”.
In all the best family homes where there is a resident domestic cat, the cat is treated equally to other family members most of the time. This is good but, in my mind, inside the home, cats should have completely equal rights to humans.
Below are some more articles on animal rights.
