Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Human/Non-Human Animals
I personally believe that the only difference between human animals and non human animals is the way in which we communicate. While non human animals are unable to communicate verbally, they still have their own ways of communicating, we simply however overlook it at times. Non human animals feel pain and many believe other emotions just as we human do. Many humans however no longer view themselves as animals because of our advancements in communication that set us apart from every other species of animal. We are in fact however, just like them.
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Non-human animals differ from human animals in more ways than communication. Two ways in which the species differs are cognitive and emotional capabilities. Bermond states in his essay “Neuropsychological and Evolutionary Approach”, “According to de Waal, Gallup compared self recognition to higher cognitive capacities like language, knowing what is going on in the mind of others, deceit, reconciliation, and empathy, and came to the conclusion that humans and anthropoid apes have cognitive powers which set them apart from other animals” (Bermond 109). Bermond also discusses the differences in emotional suffering in animals and humans. He talks about a lioness that will mate with a lion that killed her cubs a few days prior. This account speaks of the difference in humans and animals emotional periods. He states, “Such an extension of the emotional period is absent in most animal species” (Bermond 103).
There is certainly more than one difference between human animals and non-human animals. Although there is a distinct difference in the ways humans and animals communicate, it is not the only thing that separates the two. Another key difference between animals and humans is that humans posess both superior cognition and abstract reasoning as well as a concious. This means that humans are aware of themselves and their actions and understand the consequences attached to those actions, where as animals do not. Tom Regan distinguishes this difference through the concept of moral agents(humans) and moral patients(animals). Regan contends, "In contrast to moral agents, moral patients lack the prerequisites that would enable them to control their own behavior in ways that would make them morally accountable for what they do"(Regan 19). In other words, animals lack the ability to make decisions based on reasoning and therefore can not be right or wrong in their actions. Because humans are concious of what they do and how it will effect them, they are different from non-human animals.
I disagree with the statement that the only thing that separates human from non-human animals is the way in which we communicate. I believe that the main idea that separates us has to do more with the values which different human and non-human animals hold, and not physical processes such as communication. Regan claims that there is a "relevant similarity between moral agents and patients [...] [and] why we have duties to both" (Regan 22). Much unlike moral agents who are the humans in this though process, moral agents are unable to make proper moral decisions for themselves. Moral Agents must not hold moral agents responsible for their choices since they truly do not know what they are doing. Although some animals are able to be trained to know some things that may be right or wrong they will not know whether every decision they make is morally correct.
I disagree that the only difference between humans and animals is the ways that they communicate. In his essay Cohen states " Nonhuman creatures may have subjective interests like ours in survival and reproduction, and they may be supposed to have subjective experience of some sort. But from these interests moral rights cannot be inferred." (p.27) This quote shows animals have some things in common with people but not everything in common. People can create things like cars and make decisons like what clothes do they want to wear the next day. Animals can't do that.
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