Peer Responses
Peer Reply 1 - David Velazquez
According to Regan (1985), to be an experiencing subject of life simply means that someone has lived and experienced life. To further explain, it means that the subject has lived through emotions, suffered physically or mentally, felt pain, been happy and sad, and essentially everything that comes along with those things. He argues though that animals also have the same experiences, they just arent able to express them through a type of human form of communication that we would understand (Regan, 1985). In other words, the animals cant tell the story like we can. I do agree that by simply living you have the inherent right to live. I think where the waters get muddy is when you have someone for instance, that is maybe considered brain dead because of an illness or injury. In those cases, they are arguably not living any more in terms of what Tom Regan has outlined here. That said, Tom Regan believes that animals have these same rights as we do in terms of the inherent right to live because they to experience the same physical, emotional, and mental things that we do as humans. Although I do agree with this to an extent, I also see the other side of it and believe that if we are taking an animals life for the purpose of eating it, then that would be the exception. This does bring up an interesting point though to tie in from last week, which would make this merely relative vs. absolute. This is because even if you dont believe in hunting for food to feed your family, the majority of society will still buy meat at the store. Another point is that people will also put their pets down when they get to a point where they are ill or old and suffering. I look forward to your responses!
The fragility and status of life is indeed complex. The demarcation between animals and humans has a lot of layers to it. You state a few of them. However, there are clearly others. For example, there are some jurisdictions where suicide due to a terminal medical condition et al is acceptable and actively permitted (e.g. Oregon) (Oregon, 2018). However, that decision is made by the patient himself/herself rather than someone else, unless one counts people that are brain dead, under power of attorney, on life support only and so forth. Thats just one difference. A related difference would be the fact that the complexity of human emotion is much more beyond what animals can fathom. For example, any human of sound mind knows what sarcasm is. However, an animal would not be able to comprehend that. If they see a negative emotion (which is the way sarcasm is often presented), the animal will only perceive the negative part of it and not its true meaning. Another example is breeding. Non-human animals do not have to pay child support, get a job that pays money to buy food and so forth. Their procreation and family habits are all based on nature, instinct and so forth. By contrast, humans are expected to control their inhibitions, have children only when that is the intent and when they are actually able to support the child(ren) in terms of presence and money. Even so, there are some emotions that are common to all animals, at least in most cases, Contentment, anger, fear and happiness are just a few of those. Dogs wagging their tail and cats purring are no less happy than humans who are enjoying their personal activities.
Oregon. (2018). Oregon Health Authority : Death with Dignity Act : Death with Dignity Act :
State of Oregon. Oregon.gov. Retrieved 10 February 2018, from http://www.oregon.gov
/oha/PH/PROVIDERPARTNERRESOURCES/EVALUATIONRESEARCH/DEATHWITHDIGNITYACT/Pages/index.aspx
Peer Reply 2 - Albert Hollis
I believe experiencing subject of a life means that an individual (whether your human or animal) is able to be conscious, physically breathe and be alive. In which being able to be alive allows us to experience a life. I fully believe that if one is capable of experiencing life that all have equal inherent value. If one is put on earth to be alive and experience...
…said we are all created equal.
I know that many have the argument that a non-human animals life is just as valuable as a human just doesnt ring true for me. This is not to suggest that humans should have complete and unfettered dominion over animals, their habitat and so forth. It does not give people the right to abuse animals just because they are lesser than. I would also concede that there are certain parts of the world that should not be the site of development, residences, businesses and so forth. There is a place for nature reserves, zoos and other untouched land. The animals should be allowed to survive and thrive rather than have their habitat destroyed. Im just a little concern about the absolutist language that is seen on both extremes of the argument. Its true that non-human animals should not be completely disregarded. However, to suggest that humans should never take precedence over non-human animal is simply not true. An example I used in another post was the shooting and killing of Harambe at the Cincinnati Zoo. I know that there was debate about whether the shooting was really necessary. Let us assume it was. Let us assume that it was either let the gorilla kill the child or shoot the gorilla.and you have to choose one. I would choose the formerwithout apology. I would like to see someone say the opposite. Yes, it is unfortunate that the gorilla had to die because a parent was not doing their job and/or that the zoo did not have the proper barriers in place. However, letting the child die (or simply risking the same to save the gorilla at all costs) was a non-starter. Period. I would suggest blaming who is really at fault for that situation (e.g. the zoo, the parent(s), etc.)but dont blame the idea that saving the childs life was more important than that of the gorillaat least thats my take. I would love to hear an alternate argument if anyone thinks it exists.
Chamary, J. (2016). Cincinnati Zoo Was Right To Kill Harambe The Gorilla.…
