Peter Singer: The Mistreatment Of Animals

Many decades ago, animal rights was seen as nonexistent to humans. Animals were not considered as important creatures as humans, as their existence was solely recognized for human use only. Unfortunately, the actions of humans have led to immoral behavior and mistreatment towards animals, which have resulted to neglect, starvation, physical abuse, and participation of animal fights for money, just to name a few. With help of the formation of Animal Rights group such as PETA, created a form of social movement to help protect the rights of animals, as well as views and philosophy of Peter Singer who proclaims animals should be “liberated”. The mistreatment of animals by humans have brought worldwide attention and disgust. Neglect and starvation towards animals have been seen as immoral and considered as selfish behaviors by humans. In the views of Singer “where the interests of animals and humans conflict, the special properties of being human such as rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness accord higher consideration to the interests of human beings”. This statement reflects on the rationality and self-interest of human beings due to their indifferences of properties. However, animals are creatures who breathe and eat just like humans; therefore
They have the right to be loved and cared for just as humans. It is known that some animals such as dogs are “a man’s best friend”. They have a heart to love, protect, and care for their own, as well as towards humans. Therefore it is morally right for humans to equally treat animals with the same love, protection, and care towards them. Animals feel pain, happiness, sadness, fear, frustration, and motherly love, which is referred to as “negative and positive valence awareness of sentiments” based on Singer. He believes that animals have the right to live freely from any pain and suffering that may be caused by