| Liberation | Specialized texts, professional approach. Interviews |
Introduction
| Versão em Português |
As all social movements, that of the animal rights is sustained rationally from the philosophical-legal standpoint. Its foundations cover also multidisciplinary approaches whose common idea is to put an end to the prejudice and the discrimination based on an arbitrary feature. In 1970 the English psychologist Richard Ryder called this discrimination based on the species "speciesism", describing a similarity with racism and sexism. In his own words: "Speciesism” means hurting others because they are members of another species". [The Animals' Agenda, Jan/Feb 1997]. Legally, this barrier allows separating humans from all other non-human animals.
On one hand the most trivial matter concerning a species is safeguarded. On the other hand, the whole animal world lacks protection even for the most basic and fundamental interests. Their lives, their pain and their freedom are ignored intentionally. As well as nature as a whole, the treatment is of 'thing' for the benefit of the human species. The twenty first century shows the real cost of that so-called “benefit”.
In order to justify the exploitation of animals, to take billions daily to a life of suffering, to destroy them every day and to transform them into food that isn’t necessary for the survival of the human species, to treat them as slaves, to reduce them to things, there was a search for " defects " that would place the humans in a “superior” category. They lack communication skills, said Descartes. They lack abstract thought, Locke pointed out. Lack of rationality, according to Aristotle’s idea. These great philosophers lacked knowledge of animals. All mammals have their own means of communication and their reasoning ability is enough for its species to be what it has to be. Big apes said how they feel and think after learning sign language. Many animals are more intelligent than a number of humans. The superiority is not a scientific reality but a cultural construction.
To take animals seriously means to stop considering them as being means for ends and to include them in the sphere of human ethical considerations. In the words of Ursula Wolf: " ...moral objects are simply all those beings in need of protection, that is to say those with whom it is possible to have consideration, and they are so as long as they are vulnerable. At the same time, the object for moral consideration would be the different forms of vulnerability and suffering". Through philosophy, law, gender studies, anthropology, ethology, literature and other disciplines, it is possible to perform a deep analysis of the causes that originated and maintained slavery and injury to animals. Ethics based on life, sustained in the capacity of sentient beings that share with humans the enigma of life, finds in turn intellectual support in all these disciplines. But although the basis of animal liberation avoids reference to sympathy, the daily relationships with animals are imbedded with cultural and personal emotions, so that the application of abstract thought coexists with getting used to the devaluation and the ignorance of its lives. Precisely, to move away from the living animal to consider only the finished product that is derived from it, is one of the reasons why we can’t measure the scope of our daily choices.
Many times, unless the human being goes through an intense situation of suffering and/or near-death experience, he is unable to pity the Other suffering, of any species. For those who argue that they “don’t know if an animal suffers”, we not only recommend scientific readings but a sensitive and real approach to the nearest animals. The suffering and killing of millions of animals is a pain and harm in present continuous. And there is not reason that can justify it.
In this section you will find material specially written or translated for this site by members of Ánima and its contributors. The Scribe contains writings in either informal, or literary style, and narrative texts as well. Approaches, which appeared in the year 2000 with basic texts, is now a Center for Studies of theory and practice of Animal Rights. The section Animals has some works that were distributed in various ways; it includes interviews, 'music papers', music and videos.
2007
