Research Paper on:
Moral Standing of Animal Rights

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
or anyone it considers inferior to himself. While many argue that the distinction between species is a cognitive one, others argue that if a distinction should be made it should  be in a species capacity to feel pain in which case animals are equivalent to humans and should not be treated poorly. Additional arguments show that humans are hypocritical in  their actions. While many humans treat their domestic animals well and they fight for the protection of these animals, they still allow for inhumane treatment of animals to occur in  regards to agriculture, medical experimentation and entertainment environments. Morally and ethically, humans do seem to believe in animal rights; however their actions do not reflect their morals ideals. By all  accounts, non-human animals should have protection rights and should be morally equivalent to humans in nature but however sound the argument may be, the utilitarian aspect of the human actions  seem to override this conclusion. In the United States alone there live over 60 million domestic dogs with an equally large number of  domestic cats. These household pets are treated well and given elaborate gifts within their lifetimes and the families who own these pets largely protect them from pain and suffering. Animal  rights advocates argue that because of this many American live hypocritical lives as while they treat and believe their domestic animals should be treated well, they at the same time  allow for many other animals to be treated poorly and have short lives and painful deaths (Sunstein, 2001). In this way, animal rights need to be viewed from a moral  and/or a utilitarian perspective on order to understand how this cross purpose treatment of animals occurs. Many philosophers, such as Kant, believed that animals were "mans instruments" and deserved only