Argumentative Essay On Non Human Animals

It is no secret that over the course of many years, medical techniques, resources and knowledge has advanced greatly. What some people may not realize is that a lot of this knowledge has come from the use of non-human animals in experimentation and research. Whether the use of non-human animals is warranted for such experiments or not, is a large topic of debate, and has many different positions, ranging from opposition, to agreement, to somewhere in between the two extremes. Disregarding of position, one notion that typically arises is that of the similarities (and by extension, differences) between non-human animals, and incompetent humans. The topic of this essay is to determine how alike or dissimilar non-human animal medical experimentation, …show more content…
The people that argue in agreement with non-human animal experimentation state that because equality is about being equal in rights, opportunities and status, then equality cannot surely be made to encompass non-human animals. Humans have the ability to experience opportunities such as voting (and the right that comes with it), falling in love, and making autonomous decisions, while also having the capability to move forward in life whether that be via career advances, pursing their passions, and so forth. However, as Peter Singer states, “the extension of the basic principle of equality from one group to another does not imply that we must treat both groups in exactly the same way, or grant exactly the same rights to both groups. Whether we should do so will depend on the nature of the members of the two groups” (Singer - “All Animals are Equal”, page 20 of course pack). This quote from Singer not only expresses how many people, whom oppose non-human animal experimentation, may think, but also how this can relate to incompetent humans. Non-human animals do not have the capability of experiencing the life in the same way as humans, nor can do they get the same significance out of life as humans, but that does not make them morally lesser than us. These two concepts can be equally applied to severely incompetent humans. Although still human, their disabilities render them less able to undergo the same …show more content…
The people opposed to non-human animal experimentation typically use this argument, because the idea is that if an animal, of any kind, is sentient, or is able to feel pain and pleasure, it is unmoral to provide such cruel acts upon them. Since moral equality based on rights is that of “equality of consideration” as Peter Singer puts it, and cannot be judged evenly, the capacity for suffering is the basis of which equal consideration can be founded on. If an animal, human or non-human, has sentience, they can feel both pain and pleasure, and from there, interests are derived. The sentient animal will, accordingly, take the course of action that provides pleasure, rather than pain, which makes this path of pleasure and interest to them. The use of interest, in this sense, is less about a wanting or learning for something, and more about the benefit to the animal with the interest. If someone is to base moral standing off of sentience, than it is needless to say that anything that can feel pain is equal, and there is no justification to inflicting suffering upon said animal. The non-human animals (which more often then not mammals) that are used in experimentation have the same general central nervous system as us humans and therefore, it can be reasonably assumed that they can feel pain just as equally as any human can. Therefore, if it can be assumed that the non-human animals feel