The Rights of Animal by Brigid Brophy

 summary

 

In "The Rights of Animals" (1066) written by Brigid Brophy. She wittily argues that it is the responsibility of the human beings to behave decently towards the animals. She asserts (claims) that our relationship to animals is one of "unremitting (endless) exploitation" and argues that we are under moral obligation to respect their rights and spare them pain and terror (save them from pain and terror)

We employ their work, we eat and wear them, exploit them, sacrifice them to gods, kill them for scientific experiments, and put wild animals in prison i.e zoos and circuses.

 

Cranks and Kill animals

The essayist says that every new voice for rights seems cranky. Talking about the rights of slaves would have been crank in the ancient world similarly in the future it will seem unbelievable that we do not notice the immorality of our oppression of animals.

Animal exploiters justify themselves by saying that they are saving animals from winter and calve do not mind being tied up because they have never known anything else.

The writer is a vegetarian. She says we eat meat to get joy but by killing an animal we put an end to all the animals' joys along with its life.

 

Sentimentality

Here she rejects of being a sentimentalist and ignorant of economic realities. She says that she won't kill an animal in order to eat it, but she will willingly eat an animal which had died of old age and the body is kept in hygiene. In this sense, she is not a sentimentalist because she is no respecter of dead bodies whereas other never will eat a dead animal. In this sense, she can save the food that could go waste. It means she is well aware of economic realities than others.

According to her, it is our moral obligation not to give pain to domestic animals. They also feel hurt. Even if we save them from pain, we don't have the rights to kill them just only because we like their taste. 

 

The only genuine moral problem

If there is a direct clash between an animal's life and a human one then only we have the only genuine moral problem to choose human life over an animal's life. Meat is not essential to human life, our diet doesn't propose such clash.

Vivisection, hunting, and sacrificing activities are an atrocity (cruelty). One of the saddest and most foolish of our superstitious beliefs about sacrificing animals is our belief that by killing them we can somehow survive. If we ban animals acts from circuses many unemployed acrobats and jugglers will get jobs.

she does not keep animals superior or equal to human beings. She just wants that being superior species, rational beings who are capable of moral choice- it is our moral obligation and duty to recognize and respect the rights of animals.