Šis ir mans esejas darbs LU kursam-Introduction to Environmental Law. Mācos LU psiholoģijas fakultātē pirmo gadu, kā arī pirmo reizi rakstu tik apjomīgu eseju par šādu tēmu. Ieliku,lai redzētu atsauksmes,kritiku un varbūt uzsāktu diskusiju..
Eseja acīmredzot ir angliski,bet ceru,ka tas jums problēmas nesagādās. :)
Are animals ethically relevant? Or in other words, what are the moral, ethical grounds on which we, humans, can exploit other species of animals? Are we in some way superior, better or higher than other life forms on this planet we share? I believe not. To even begin this interesting and seemingly complicated issue, we must first understand our role on this planet. Conclude if we have the moral ground to treat other animals as lesser beings. Find out weather we are better than other animals in the sense of intelligence and are homo-sapiens threatening this world with our human-centered lifestyles. Furthermore, it is important to acknowledge things we have already done to improve welfare and security for not only humans, but equally to other species of animals. And lastly we must come to a conclusion to what we should logically do next to improve, change and broaden our understanding of us as a part of this wonderful web of life.
It comes to me as no surprise that we think of ourselves as better, higher, more intelligent and overall superior to other animals. But in reality, is there any logical evidence to support this claim? Some might consider that our huge, complex structures, the development and use of tools are sufficient evidence to prove our superiority. While other animals are able to live long and prosper lives in harmony with nature, we strive to conquer and rebuild nature on a massive scale in a way that is suitable to our lifestyles. That to me seems like a work of an animal not build for this planet, because we change the basic structure of it to please ourselves. So other species are able to successfully live in the planets original environment and we are not. Also, our society has developed in such a way that human-animals are used to valuing virtual profit and symbolic material goods instead of things like the future promise of health, clean food and even the well being of this planet we live on. I must also mention, that our most valued tools are weapons, which are now able to destroy huge populations of our own species, as humans have done in the past, and other animals and of course irreversibly damage the environment. This, to me, does not sound like an intelligent being, but is considered to be by many modern humans. So we are building weapons able to destroy earth and everything on it, exploiting resources to their limits and reducing the guarantee of future necessities to elevate our statuses in the eyes of other so called modern humans. Another point on human superiority could be made by mentioning reasoning. But if we think about it, we can easily understand that we are not the only species who can reason and think logically. Of course our reasoning is used to be beneficial to our species, but that does not mean that it is not true for other types of animal just because we do not understand the logic of their reasoning from our point of view. Why would we, we live in our own little environments with our own expectations and goals which might be illogical to them. The use of written, verbal and non-verbal language is seen as a sign of superiority by some. We are the only animals with such advanced language skills, so many names for objects and ways to describe the world around us. That is true, but it is the same for many animals. They are also able to communicate and give basic information, teach their young and learn new things, elevating their abilities if necessary, similarly to us.
We have all been taught that there is such a thing as a food-chain in which we are on the top, because obviously no one eats humans, except of course trillions of microorganisms living inside of us, but talking about “eating humans” we most often think about lions and other animals like that, who normally do not have the chance to do so anymore, so they are lower on the food-chain hierarchy. But what we do not consider is that the hierarchy may be more like a foot-web in which we are all interconnected and interdependent, simply speaking we cannot live without other living beings, for example, cows cannot survive without plant life and wolfs can’t survive without their pray, so we are all dependent on other animals. And if the animal of pray is suffering it means the consumer is also suffering equally. It is estimated that for a consumer to survive on a species of pray, the prays total bio-mass needs to be ten times greater that it’s consumers at all times. So if humans depended only on fish, there should be about 80 billion fish on earth at any given time.
The most obvious and undeniable difference between homo-sapiens and other animals is our intelligence. It has made us who we are today. We have populated the world, made ourselves independent of the animal kingdom with our advanced minds with whom we have dominated other species, cultivated foods where and when we need them and made the human race the rulers of this world with no regard to other life forms. We feel stronger and superior. But that is such a foolish though that our intelligence is in any way more useful than, for example, the incredible sense of smell of a dog, from dogs perspective we are all inferior to them, because we cannon use our sense as well as them. Dr. Stephen Hawking, who might be one of the most intelligent people on this earth said: “I believe intelligence is overrated, it’s not necessarily a good thing for a species survival.” So we should begin to understand that the traits that might be useful to us, are irrelevant to others. Even more so, they could be completely useless in the environment they live in. The answer is as simple as that – discrimination. Similar to racism and sexism in our own society .We simply do not want to be considered as equals, so we put our traits (intelligence), above others, like, incredible sense of smell, incredible speed, the ability to fly, strength, so we can justify our actions of seeing them as inferiors and using their skills, just because they lack the one trait we have. So I conclude that superiority is an opinion made by man on which traits are more useful to the exclusive lifestyle of a species, therefore we cannot base the overall success of a species on characteristics of one particular species. Along this topic of intelligence comes another, the question of consciousness and weather other animals are self-aware, feel pain in the same sense we do. And obviously, it seems, they do. For the same reasons humans do, other animals have similar nervous systems, similar chemicals are made in their bodies and overall every part of their body works like it should, so it is logical that the brain does as well, that means that not only can they feel pain, but even process emotions. This is one of the most important points I wanted to make, because it does not matter if they can’t talk or process information like we do, if they can feel pain then the differences are morally and ethically irrelevant.
As far as I can tell, people do not perceive animals as equals, even though scientific evidence suggest that there are no significant differences in our biological or physiological bodies in the sense of feeling pain, discomfort and sadness in general. Having said that, I sadly have to say that there are no international agreements that ensure the welfare and treatment of animals. There are not even any international standard that regulates and defines the acceptable treatment of animals. The lack of these agreements is the reason for the current mistreatment of animals around the world. Although, some States have adopted serious laws for dealing with animal issues, for example, back in 1991, Compassion in World Farming (CWF) submitted a petition to the European Parliament, calling for animals to be recognized as sentient beings, capable of suffering. Then, in 1997 with the Treaty of Amsterdam, it became a Protocol, with legal status, these were the first steps to make the new Lisbon Treaty, in force from December 1st 2009.A quote from this treaty states: “In formulating and implementing the Union's agriculture, fisheries, transport, internal market, research and technological development and space policies, the Union and the Member States shall, since animals are sentient beings, pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals, while respecting the legislative or administrative provisions and customs of the Member States relating in particular to religious rites, cultural traditions and regional heritage.” This sufficiently helped to improve the welfare of millions of farm animals all over the UN. Others have laws but inadequate enforcement resources or political will to carry out their laws and some states have neither laws nor interests. There are, of course, a lot of people determined to make a change in this area, for example, The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) established regulations to prevent over-exploiting plants and animals listed as endangered in appendices to the Convention. By the end of November 1999, 146 countries adopted the Convention. After this, in the year 2000 this committee published an article on the necessity to make an International Convention for the Protection of Animals (ICPA). In the published statement they say: “There is the need for a mechanism under which progress for animals can be realized as fast as moral persuasion, technology, economic development and political support will accommodate it. The adoption of a Convention for the Protection of Animals can be one important legal and political tool in the process of progress.” This seems to be exactly what we need, clearly stated, law binding rules and regulations on what is acceptable and what kind of conditions are required to the welfare of animals. Of course, even though this seems to be a great concept, the non member States would still be able to do what is necessary for the growth of their country, because no country has the right to enforce their standards. That is fair and understandable. But if a International Convention cannot enforce animal welfare on a global scale, then what else can we do? Maybe limit the trades of goods of unethically treated animals. According to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) there are no exceptions and arguments that can be made, that the welfare concerns may qualify to justify limitations of trade between countries. So, if and international convention cannot be made and limitations are not justifiable, the only other option I can think of is to increase awareness and education on this topic.
Ethical treatment of animals is a serious issue in today’s modern world, politicians and world leaders are more concerned about profit, but we , the people, should be concerned about where we are going as a species, are we growing in intellect and losing our moral ground? It seems that is the problem here. We have put ourselves on the top, valuing only what is necessary to us and forgetting that we are as much a part of this earth as any other animal. We are more similar than different, but we cannot or do not want to see these similarities. We are basing every other animals relevance on how human-like they appear to be. Are we the superior human? If I look at this word “superior” from a Darwinian evolutionary point of view, it could mean species ability to survive and procreate. From this meaning, we are most likely somewhere in the bottom. We have been on this earth for only 200’000 years, compared to other species that is but a fraction of time. And to think what we have done already and what we will do next. Lets see how long we can survive in this human race for survival.
Latviski.