Every year, millions of animals are slaughtered brutally for their skins and hides. They have inevitably endured all the cruel treatment in the fur factory, from confinement to execution. In order to keep their pelts intact, bullet holes or slits from knives are undesirable, and therefore the fur farms or factories would end the animals’ lives by beating, electrocuting or poisoning them. In the worst case, the animals might not have ended their lives yet while they are skinned. Issues regarding skinning animals have raised the public awareness for decades. There are basically two main focuses surrounding the debate on whether skinning is unethical, and both of them are closely related to determining whether animals have rights just as humans
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In 1975, the renowned Australian moral philosopher Peter Singer had brought public awareness to the issue with his book, Animal Liberation. In his book, he argued that animal rights should be based on their capacity to feel pain instead of their intelligence. Singer reinforced that giving lesser consideration to beings based on their species is no more justified than discrimination based on skin color (Singer, 2002). The libertarian science fiction author L. Neil Smith, however, once addressed in his essay that “Animals are groceries. They’re leather and fur coats. They’re for medical experiments and galloping to hounds. That’s their purpose” (Fellenz, 2007). Smith, as oppose to Singer, believed that humans could do what they like to animals, including skinning. He simply based his argument on humans having a higher intelligence than that of animals, which gives them the right to use animals in any ways they want. Although intelligence in some sense may determine one’s ability, it does not provide a basis for giving nonhuman any less consideration than human. Singer highlighted that even animals show lower intelligence than the average human, many severely intellectually challenged humans show equally diminished mental capacity as well. In addition, some animals are on a par with or even ahead of that of a human infant in terms of intelligence. In other words, if humans of low intelligence are respected, animals should be respected likewise. As a result, animals are not inferior to humans at all, and they deserve to be free from being
In 1975, the renowned Australian moral philosopher Peter Singer had brought public awareness to the issue with his book, Animal Liberation. In his book, he argued that animal rights should be based on their capacity to feel pain instead of their intelligence. Singer reinforced that giving lesser consideration to beings based on their species is no more justified than discrimination based on skin color (Singer, 2002). The libertarian science fiction author L. Neil Smith, however, once addressed in his essay that “Animals are groceries. They’re leather and fur coats. They’re for medical experiments and galloping to hounds. That’s their purpose” (Fellenz, 2007). Smith, as oppose to Singer, believed that humans could do what they like to animals, including skinning. He simply based his argument on humans having a higher intelligence than that of animals, which gives them the right to use animals in any ways they want. Although intelligence in some sense may determine one’s ability, it does not provide a basis for giving nonhuman any less consideration than human. Singer highlighted that even animals show lower intelligence than the average human, many severely intellectually challenged humans show equally diminished mental capacity as well. In addition, some animals are on a par with or even ahead of that of a human infant in terms of intelligence. In other words, if humans of low intelligence are respected, animals should be respected likewise. As a result, animals are not inferior to humans at all, and they deserve to be free from being