Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Animal Rights A Case For Animal Intelligence - 1217 Words

Animal Rights: A Case for Animal Intelligence Starting in the 17th century, enlightenment philosophers contemplated animal consciousness and its subsequent implications on animal rights. Descartes viewed animals as a modern-day machine: organic beings that only act instinctually. Thus, Descartes critically distinguished humans and animals based on their respective capacity for reason: since animals supposedly lack the ability to learn, they forego fundamental human rights. However, animal mind philosophy gradually shifted towards the end of the 19th century as Charles Darwin recorded notes of various species around the world. For example, Darwin observed an earthworm consuming leaves in an intelligent, non-instinctual way that, to him,†¦show more content†¦So, Cartesian Dualism offers an empirical and partially objective way to measure animals, and will be the basis for a contemporary test to assess an animal’s abilities. Clearly, animal intelligence clearly cannot be measured simply, since each animal must be in spected individually to assess its competency. Therefore, animals should be considered intelligent if they meet a majority of the following requirements: an ability to communicate and understand, self-consciousness, high relative size of brain to body mass (= ~2% of total mass), an ability to solve new problems using reasoning without relying on instinct, a desire to seek pleasure and avoid pain, and an ability to act empathetically. Of course, there will always exist animals that almost meet these requirements, but do not quite fulfill a majority, so animal intelligence must be viewed in terms of relative intelligence. Ultimately, although some animals today lack a mind capable of creating solutions to novel problems and sensing oneself (self-consciousness), several animals today, including dolphins, parrots, and chimpanzees, meet these requirements to be considered intelligent beings and thus should be entitled to the same inalienable rights as humans proportionally to their intel lect. Dolphins exemplify high animal intelligence because of their unique levels of self-awareness and ability to learn and teach each other. For instance, dolphins, like humans, can look at a mirror, recognizeShow MoreRelatedThe Difference Between Animals and Humans Essay1485 Words   |  6 PagesAnimal rights are an important topic to discuss and review. The trouble is the vast diversity of how people see humans and animals and how they are different and yet the same. Animals are in every aspect of our lives in how they are utilized to make our lives easier, to sustain us, or as a pet. 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