Animal Cruelty

René Descartes, a famous philosopher, once argued that, “animals are not sentient- they are machines, like mechanical clocks, devoid of feelings and incapable of experiencing pleasure or pain” (Vaughn). Today, unlike Descartes, most people believe that animals are intrinsically or instrumentally valuable, also, whether they have or deserve any rights. Defining what cruelty is has been very subjective. To some people. An animal is just property and they can beat it around as much as they want, to others, animals are part of their family and they would never lay a finger on them. There is legislation against animal cruelty but because there is so much subjectivity, the legislation fails to deter people from abusing their animals. For there to be equal justice for animal cruelty people must agree on a completely objective definition of what is cruelty and what is not. Legislation for animal cruelty varies state to stat. Ohio has laws for animal cruelty in general and a section for cruelty against companion animals. The law defines companion animals as “any animal that is kept inside a residential dwelling and any dog or cat regardless of where it is kept: (Ohio Cruelty). The law does not consider any livestock or wild animal as a companion animal. The legislation then goes into what it considers cruelty, torture, or neglect. The punishments outlined in the law include jail time, fines, and the removal of their animals. The one thing that is not counted for in this legislation is the emotional ties to the animal. Every person is emotionally attached to their animal in a different way. There is no real objective way to measure how much an animal means to a person. Just because a person is emotionally attached to their animal, that does not mean that they will not commit any act of cruelty against their animal. It is said that Michael Vick claimed to love his dogs even though he subjected them to fog fighting. It is possible that in him mind he truly believed he