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Rights of Animals

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The Rights of Animals For as long as humanity has been around so has its pursuit of dominion over other kinds of animals remained. Humans have used the animal as resources in many ways. Early humans have been documented to have domesticated dogs to aid in hunting—an implicit contract with us wherein they will obey our demands in exchange for food and shelter as hunting provided fur for clothing and food for both parties. How do we justify, from this simple early collaboration to the massive meat industry our modern society has been arguably dependent on, to the animal exploitation industry in zoos and amusement parks to the animal research and testing labs, the damages and benefits from our monopoly of animal governance? In Steven M. Wise's article “Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights”, he seeks to find the reasoning behind how we distinguish ourselves and our own rights from those animals who are intrinsically unable or unwilling to operate under humanity's rules. The question asked is whether animals "need legal protection", not whether "animals have rights". Those are two different questions, and an affirmative answer to the first does not imply an affirmative answer to the second. I find Wise's proposal vague and lacking in solution, yet the basis of under in which he arrived I find fairly sound. The problem with his conclusion is that most animals are simply unable to interact with a human-based legal system with regularity so rather than the issue be that of the legality of animal rights it is the responsibility of humans within each other to regulate animal welfare because there is no other viable alternative. In his article, Wise suggests that there is something beyond the physical that entitles us humans to rights. Western Christian ideology has long claimed that man was made in God's image, but one can assert that this comparison is perhaps made more in

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