Reflective Journal

I had never really thought about the philosophies of the animal rights movement before taking this class; all I knew was that I was an animal rights activist because it’s what I believed in. Humans shouldn’t exploit animals, who are often helpless against us, because they have lives too; and as humans are animals ourselves, we should treat other animals like we’d want to be treated. This is what I always believed, but reading from The Animal Ethics Reader, I have been able to analyze my views and add to them more reasons to support the animal rights movement. All of the different possible philosophies about animal rights really interest me, and now I feel like I have even more evidence to back up my reasoning when arguing a case for animal rights.

For example, I had never before considered moral value as a platform for basing one’s views on animal rights. Regan’s essay introduced me to this idea, and now I see that this is a very logical way to think of animal rights. A completely different way to look at the animal rights issue is through the feminist care theory that Donovan discusses in her essay. Donovan mentions moral status, but her idea is different from Regan’s in that she believes moral status “should be granted to living creatures with whom one can communicate cognitively and emotionally as to their needs and wishes” (49). This is a bit different from Regan’s definitions on moral status, such as subject-of-a-life, which is a wider classification of beings than Donovan’s classification.

Reading these essays has opened my mind to how many different views of the animal rights movement there really are. I find it very interesting to study the philosophies of these views, and they are definitely helping me build even better arguments.