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Persuasive Animal Rights and The Importance of Treating Animals with Respect

• Categories: Animal Cruelty Animal Ethics

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Words: 1394 |

Published: Jan 28, 2021

Words: 1394 | Pages: 3 | 7 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, works cited.

• American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). (n.d.). Animal cruelty laws in Canada. Retrieved from https://www.aspca.org/animal-cruelty/canada
• Animal Equality. (n.d.). Animal testing. Retrieved from https://www.animalequality.org/issues/animal-testing
• Animal Welfare Act. (1966). 7 U.S.C. § 2131 et seq.
• Bekoff, M. (2013). The emotional lives of animals: A leading scientist explores animal joy, sorrow, and empathy — and why they matter. New World Library.
• Cartmill, M. (1996). A view to a death in the morning: Hunting and nature through history. Harvard University Press.
• Dawkins, M. S. (2006). Through our eyes only? The search for animal consciousness. Oxford University Press.
• Francione, G. L. (1995). Animals, property, and the law. Temple University Press.
• Herzing, D. L. (2010). Dolphin communication: A window into the complexity of human language. In S. M. Reader & K. Laland (Eds.), Animal social complexity: Intelligence, culture, and individualized societies (pp. 293-311). Harvard University Press.
• Regan, T. (1983). The case for animal rights. University of California Press.
• Singer, P. (2009). Animal liberation. Harper Perennial.

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Animal Rights Persuasive Essay Sample, with Outline

Published by gudwriter on November 23, 2017 November 23, 2017

Animal Rights Essay

Animals have a right to be free of human use and exploitation. They have an inherent worth and moral rights that should be respected. To have the best grades on such kind of essays, essay writing services for MBA will write them for you.

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Animal Rights Essay Outline

Introduction.

Thesis: People should consider giving animals the same rights as human beings because they deserve it.

Paragraph 1:

Animals should be granted the same rights as humans first because just like humans, they have the capacity to suffer.

• They feel motherly love, loneliness, frustration, fear, and pleasure depending on the situation they find themselves in.
• It should be the moral obligation of humans to take this fact into account whenever they consider undertaking actions that would interfere with the needs of animals.

Paragraph 2:

Human beings should also consider that animals have an inherent worth which in itself is completely separate from the usefulness of animals to humans.

• Being living beings capable of moving, all animals have the right to life and therefore have every right not to be subjected to any kinds of pain.
• It is wrong on the part of humans to presume that the sole reason for the existence of nonhuman animals is for them to be used by humans.

Paragraph 3:

Another consideration that humans should make is that their infringement of animal rights is based on prejudice that they can easily put an end to.

• Only prejudice pushes a person into denying another person the rights that they expect to have for themselves.
• Prejudice is morally unacceptable whether it is based on species, sexual orientation, gender, or race.

Paragraph 4:

There is no any morally relevant difference between human beings and non-human animals.

• If humans are entitled to their rights, it is only fair that animals too are allowed to enjoy their own rights.
• It makes no sense when human animals are granted their rights but non-human ones are denied theirs.

Paragraph 5:

Animals have a culture to preserve and thus killing or caging them amounts to an erosion of this culture.

• All species suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
• Not justifiable to subject another species to an experience one would not wish for themselves.

Paragraph 6:

It is the belief of some people that because animals are not humans, they should not have the same rights as humans.

• However, it should be noted that adult mammals and human animals have no morally relevant difference between them.
• They are both animals and they deserve to be treated the same.

It is true that animals are not human beings and that is not up for debate. However, they deserve to have the rights granted to humans because they suffer like humans. They have an inherent worth given that they are animals like humans save for the difference in their species.

Animals Should Have the Same Rights as Humans

Human beings continue to go to zoos and circuses, wearing leather, and eating meat; activities all of which involve either caging or killing of animals. Animals are also kept as pets by humans and this involves the selling of animals and constructing cages for them so they may not escape. Noteworthy, all these actions have to do with the infringement of animal rights in one way or another. It is however interesting that humans never consider the impacts that these actions have on animals presumably because animals, to them, have no rights. This disregard for animal rights has even attracted court cases some of which sought to have animals viewed as persons just as humans. People should consider giving animals the same rights as human beings because they deserve it.

At the same time Gudwriter’s also provides essay on argumentative essay on animal rights with examples.

Animals should be granted the same rights as humans first because just like humans, they have the capacity to suffer. They feel motherly love, loneliness, frustration, fear, and pleasure depending on the situation they find themselves in. As such, it should be the moral obligation of human beings to take this fact into account whenever they consider undertaking actions that would interfere with the needs of animals. As pointed out by Bennett-Jones (2015), “Factors to consider would include the degree of an animal’s autonomy, sensitivity to pain, level of sentience, self-awareness and ability to hold preferences.” It is well deserving for animals to lead their lives free from being exploited or being subjected to sufferings. As a matter of fact, when deciding on the rights of any being, the question should be whether they can suffer and not whether they can talk or reason.

Human beings should also consider that animals have an inherent worth which in itself is completely separate from their usefulness to humans. Being living beings capable of moving, all animals have the right to life and therefore have every right not to be subjected to any kind of pain. In this regard, it is wrong on the part of human beings to presume that the sole reason for the existence of nonhuman animals is for them to be used by humans. Animals attach immense value to their lives just like humans do, and rightly so. This is why they will always try to evade danger either by defending themselves or running away from sources of danger ( Smith, 2012 ). It is also why they go about looking for food to fend for themselves and their young ones, much like humans.

Further, there is no any morally relevant difference between human beings and non-human animals. If humans are entitled to their rights, it is only fair that animals too are allowed to enjoy their own rights. It makes no sense when human animals are granted their rights but non-human ones are denied theirs. Moreover, being ‘subject-of-a-life,’ both the human and non-human animal species have many attributes in common. They are for instance alive to the fact that they live (“Animal Rights,” 2014). There is thus no justification whatsoever why animals should be denied the rights they deserve. This point leaves human beings with no valid reason to continue trampling upon the rights of non-human animals.

Another consideration that humans should make is that their infringement of animal rights is based on prejudice that they can easily put an end to. As it is, only prejudice pushes a person into denying another person the rights that they expect to have for themselves. As noted by Smith (2012), prejudice is morally unacceptable whether it is based on species, sexual orientation, gender, or race. If humans would not eat a dog for instance, why should they eat goats? The capacity to feel pain is inherent in both dogs and goats. However, out of prejudice, humans consider one as food and the other as a companion.

Further, animals have a culture to preserve and thus killing or caging them amounts to an erosion of this culture. Just like humans, “Elephants that have witnessed the slaughter of their parents by poaching or culling and lost the support of their extended family group exhibit the same erratic and often detached behaviors…” (Siebert, 2014). Their fate resembles that of orphans of war who after losing their families and witnessing the destruction of their villages, remain to wallow in miser. In other words, all species suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Why subject another species to an experience you would not wish for yourself?

It is the belief of some people that because animals are not humans, they should not have the same rights as humans. However, as already seen, adult mammals and human animals have no morally relevant difference between them ( Cavalieri, 2003 ). They are both animals and they deserve to be treated the same. No matter how humanely animals may be treated, killing, confining, breeding, buying, and selling them invade into their rights. It is unjust to subject one species to sufferance while fighting for the rights of another species yet morally; they both deserve respect and freedom. It is thus dishonest to assume that humans can do whatever they like with animals.

It is true that animals are not human beings and that is not up for debate. However, they deserve to have the rights granted to humans because they suffer like humans. They have an inherent worth given that they are animals like humans save for the difference in their species. They have the will to organize their life according to their culture which is unfortunately interfered with by humans. It amounts to prejudice to subject them to untold sufferings in the name of being turned into food or being kept in cages for whatever purposes. In this respect, it is high time humans considered championing for animals to have the same rights as humans.

Animal Rights. (2014). In BBC . Retrieved July 10, 2020 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/rights/rights_1.shtml

Bennett-Jones, O. (2015). Should animals be given human rights? . BBC News . Retrieved 22 November 2017, from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-32854504

Cavalieri, P. (2003). The Animal Question: Why Nonhuman Animals Deserve Human Rights . Cary, NC: Oxford University Press, USA.

Siebert, C. (2014). Should Animals Have The Same Rights As People? . Popular Science . Retrieved 22 November 2017, from https://www.popsci.com/should-animals-same-rights-people

Smith, W. J. (2012). A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement . New York City, NY: Encounter Books.

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136 Speech Topics About Animals [Persuasive, Informative]

Jim Peterson has over 20 years experience on speech writing. He wrote over 300 free speech topic ideas and how-to guides for any kind of public speaking and speech writing assignments at My Speech Class.

Our list of persuasive and informative topics about animals.

In this article:

Informative

List of speech topics about animals.

• The life of deep sea fish.
• How to train your dog .
• Why are monkeys so good at climbing trees?
• The breeding of elephants and hippopotamuses.
• Do penguins have long legs?
• Why gods shiver.
• What alligators eat.
• How elephants swim.
• Dangerous exotic pets you should not keep at home.
• Ancient and Asiatic horse breeds.
• The different types of whales.
• How animals survive the extreme cold of Antartica.
• The difference between dolphins and porpoises.
• Why all kids should have pets.
• Why snakes are good pets.
• Have your pet spayed or neutered.
• Why you should own a horse.
• Why should you own a dog?
• We need to protect dolphins better.
• Wild animals should stay wild.
• Why save endangered animals?
• People should be allowed to own exotic animals like tigers and monkeys.
• In order to save the orangutans, we should say “no” to palm oil.
• A vegetarian diet is unhealthy for cats and dogs
• Should people have pet monkeys?
• Children should be taught to take care of pets
• Animal health is useless and expensive
• Performance animals have a risk of death
• We should be aware of pros and cons of a pet before adopting it
• Animal testing – vicious or beneficial
• Are circus animals respected and appreciated?
• Venomous and poisonous looking spiders are often harmless.
• The use of animals in medical research is a necessary evil.
• Not all species belong in marine aquariums.
• Sharks don’t attack tourists all the time.
• Pets deserve a Bill of Rights.
• Forbid the wearing of fur coats.
• Purchasing animal tested cosmetics is wrong.
• Ban animal fight games.
• Animals do not belong in zoo’s.
• Animals don’t belong in circuses or folklore events.
• Animal sports banning campaigns are not effective enough.
• Cats should get annual vaccinations.
• A pet is not a child’s birthday present.
• Effective animal conservation laws and other legal regulations are improving.
• Food production livestock should be welfare protected till the end.
• Is rooster fighting fun?
• Monkeys are more intelligent than other mammals
• Giving drugs to cows to increase their milk is advantageous – right or wrong?
• Should dogs be outdoor pets?
• Is it right or wrong to use pig’s skin for making cosmetics?
• Should pet birds have a right to fly?
• Fishes are great for relaxation, everyone should have an aquarium
• Should animal breeding be banned?
• Should cats be treated humanely?
• Painting cattle for a trademark should be banned
• We should not be kind to snakes
• Why poisonous insects should be killed
• Animal extinction caused by humans should be stopped
• Hybrid animals – natural or not?
• Reforesting the world is the most effective way to save the animals from becoming extinct
• Extinction of rhinos for selling their horns is inevitable
• Should the hunting of wild animals be banned?
• Trading animals-made products is a good way to earn money – right or wrong?
• Should the hunting of seals for fur be banned to avoid their extinction?
• Euthanasia is ethical for animals – right or wrong?
• Should lonely people have companion animals?
• Should fish be kept in goldfish bowls without filters or temperature control?
• Conserving some endangered animals is more important than conserving other animals – right or wrong?
• We should not be afraid of spiders since most of them are harmless
• Factory farm treatment of animals is inhumane
• Chaining or tethering dogs outside is unethical, inhumane, and a form of animal neglect
• Zoos should be big enough for wild animals
• Strays should be eliminated to make the environment healthy
• Should foxes be bred into companion animals?
• Primates and other sophisticated vertebrates should not be used in laboratory research?
• Should pets be spayed and neutered to prevent overpopulation?
• Genetic modification of livestock is unethical and potentially dangerous for humans – right or wrong?
• Why female lions are more dangerous than male lions?
• Is animal dissection justified as a learning tool for students?
• Should we adopt new pets from a shelter instead of buying them from a shop?
• Should we get our pet microchipped?
• Should we use animals to test beauty products?
• Is it right or wrong for circuses to use animals in their shows?
• Is deforestation leading to loss of diversity in wildlife?
• Should we make use of reward and appreciation to train our pet?
• Is “dogs breeding” ethical to create mixed hybrids?
• Should a dog be euthanized if it bites someone?
• Poaching affects the economy and should be banned
• Why you should avoid eating pork?
• A natural disaster caused dinosaurs to become extinct – right or wrong?
• Is smog dangerous for animals’ health?
• Why you should get your pet insurance?
• Should we be more tolerant of spiders, ants, and flies?
• Should animal rights be limited – right or wrong?
• Should we eat healthy snakes?
• Why is it unethical to keep birds in cages?
• Should we use animals to make future predictions?
• Rats and mice affect us badly and should be killed
• Building bonds between children and pets is important – right or wrong?
• Why are flies important to the ecosystem?
• A dog is the best service animal – right or wrong?
• Why should you own an eagle as pet?
• People should not be allowed to keep exotic animals like chimpanzees or tigers?
• Why a wagging tail should not be considered as a sign of happiness in dogs
• A nose is a dog’s “fingerprint” – right or wrong?
• Why zoos are important and necessary sources of conservation and research on exotic animals?
• Dogs are better pets than cats – right or wrong?
• Should we use animals for entertainment purposes?
• Why you should stop your kids to ride elephants?
• Does petting and talking to animals lower stress in people?
• Why pet’s hair should be brushed each evening?
• The main cause of animal abuse is irresponsible and uneducated owner – right or wrong?
• “The Animal Welfare Act of 1966 (AWA)” is outdated and should be revised
• Why you should own a parrot as a bird pet?
• Should we build awareness to animal abuse in Puppy Mills?
• Why hamsters are best pets for kids?
• Committing an immoral act against animals is justified – right or wrong?
• Does your pet dog help you make new friends?
• Why we should know about animals’ thinking and feeling?
• Should we make use of TISSUE ENGINEERING to get leather and meat without killing animals?
• Should we revive extinct species by recovering their ancient DNA?
• Why you should be thankful for your cat, dog, or other pets?
• Why you should own a cat?
• Why we should feed wildlife?
• Is it right or wrong to test antibiotics and cures on animals?
• Why animals should not be kept in captivity?
• Why domestic pigeons and doves make great pets?
• Why you should not own exotic pets?
• Should there be harsher laws for animal cruelty?
• Why you should prefer keeping more goldfishes in an aquarium than other fishes?
• Humans are affecting wildlife – right or wrong?
• Why polar bears should not be kept in zoos?
• Why you should prefer goat milk to cow milk?
• Dogs have better eyesight than human – right or wrong?
• Why wearing fur or leather is unethical and is a sign of animal neglect?
• Why you should own a horse for riding?
• Why busy people should not adopt fishes as pets?
• Why you should own a raven as a pet?
• Owning pets reduces your risk of various diseases – right or wrong?
• We should adopt friendly attitude to train our pet dogs quickly
• Why you should own pigeons?
• Should marine mammals be kept in captivity?
• Animal abuse should be stopped in zoos.

Entertaining Speech Topics [195 Ideas To Keep Audience Engaged]

143 Family Speech Topics [Persuasive, Informative]

15 thoughts on “136 Speech Topics About Animals [Persuasive, Informative]”

history of tomato

Why you should never leave your goldfish alone for more than 1 day.

History of christmas

History and develeopments of book publishments

How to help shelters

Why Canada is the best country in the world (cuz it is)

Canada is not the best in the world ( cause its true )

the history of yarn

I want an speech of animals struggle

pros and cons of organic farming

Cats should have the same laws that dogs have.

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What Would It Mean to Treat Animals Fairly?

By Elizabeth Barber

A few years ago, activists walked into a factory farm in Utah and walked out with two piglets. State prosecutors argued that this was a crime. That they were correct was obvious: The pigs were the property of Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer in the country. The defendants had videoed themselves committing the crime; the F.B.I. later found the piglets in Colorado, in an animal sanctuary.

The activists said they had completed a “rescue,” but Smithfield had good reason to claim it hadn’t treated the pigs illegally. Unlike domestic favorites like dogs, which are protected from being eaten, Utah’s pigs are legally classified as “livestock”; they’re future products, and Smithfield could treat them accordingly. Namely, it could slaughter the pigs, but it could also treat a pig’s life—and its temporary desire for food, space, and medical help—as an inconvenience, to be handled in whatever conditions were deemed sufficient.

In their video, the activists surveyed those conditions . At the facility—a concentrated animal-feeding operation, or CAFO —pregnant pigs were confined to gestation crates, metal enclosures so small that the sows could barely lie down. (Smithfield had promised to stop using these crates, but evidently had not.) Other pigs were in farrowing crates, where they had enough room to lie down but not enough to turn their bodies around. When the activists approached one sow, they found dead piglets rotting beneath her. Nearby, they found two injured piglets, whom they decided to take. One couldn’t walk because of a foot infection; the other’s face was covered in blood. According to Smithfield, which denied mistreating animals, the piglets were each worth about forty-two dollars, but both had diarrhea and other signs of illness. This meant they were unlikely to survive, and that their bodies would be discarded, just as millions of farm animals are discarded each year.

During the trial, the activists reiterated that, yes, they entered Smithfield’s property and, yes, they took the pigs. And then, last October, the jury found them not guilty. In a column for the Times , one of the activists—Wayne Hsiung, the co-founder of Direct Action Everywhere—described talking to one of the jurors, who said that it was hard to convict the activists of theft, given that the sick piglets had no value for Smithfield. But another factor was the activists’ appeal to conscience. In his closing statement, Hsiung, a lawyer who represented himself, argued that an acquittal would model a new, more compassionate world. He had broken the law, yes—but the law, the jury seemed to agree, might be wrong.

A lot has changed in our relationship with animals since 1975, when the philosopher Peter Singer wrote “ Animal Liberation ,” the book that sparked the animal-rights movement. Gestation crates, like the ones in Utah, are restricted in the European Union, and California prohibits companies that use them from selling in stores, a case that the pork industry fought all the way to the Supreme Court—and lost. In a 2019 Johns Hopkins survey, more than forty per cent of respondents wanted to ban new CAFO s. In Iowa, which is the No. 1 pork-producing state, my local grocery store has a full Vegan section. “Vegan” is also a shopping filter on Sephora, and most of the cool-girl brands are vegan, anyway. Wearing fur is embarrassing.

And yet Singer’s latest book, “ Animal Liberation Now ,” a rewrite of his 1975 classic, is less a celebratory volume than a tragic one—tragic because it is very similar to the original in refrain, which is that, big-picture-wise, the state of animal life is terrible. “The core argument I was putting forward,” Singer writes, “seemed so irrefutable, so undeniably right, that I thought everyone who read it would surely be convinced by it.” Apparently not. By some estimates, scientists in the U.S. currently use roughly fifteen million animals for research, including mice, rats, cats, dogs, birds, and nonhuman primates. As in the seventies, much of this research tries to model psychological ailments, despite scientists’ having written for decades that more research is needed to figure out whether animals—and which kind of animals—provide a useful analogue for mental illness in humans. When Singer was first writing, a leading researcher created psychopathic monkeys by raising them in isolation, impregnating them with what he called a “rape rack,” and studying how the mothers bashed their infants’ heads into the ground. In 2019, researchers were still putting animals through “prolonged stress”—trapping them in deep water, restraining them for long periods while subjecting them to the odor of a predator—to see if their subsequent behavior evidenced P.T.S.D. (They wrote that more research was needed.) Meanwhile, factory farms, which were newish in 1975, have swept the globe. Just four per cent of Americans are vegetarian, and each year about eighty-three billion animals are killed for food.

It’s for these animals, Singer writes, “and for all the others who will, unless there is a sudden and radical change, suffer and die,” that he writes this new edition. But Singer’s hopes are by now tempered. One obvious problem is that, in the past fifty years, the legal standing of animals has barely changed. The Utah case was unusual not just because of the verdict but because referendums on farm-animal welfare seldom occur at all. In many states, lawmakers, often pressured by agribusiness, have tried to make it a serious crime to enter a factory farm’s property. The activists in Utah hoped they could win converts at trial; they gambled correctly, but, had they been wrong, they could have gone to prison. As in 1975, it remains impossible to simply petition the justice system to notice that pigs are suffering. All animals are property, and property can’t take its owner to court.

Philosophers have debated the standing of animals for centuries. Pythagoras supposedly didn’t eat them, perhaps because he believed they had souls. Their demotion to “things” owes partly to thinkers like Aristotle, who called animals “brute beasts” who exist “for the sake of man,” and to Christianity, which, like Stoicism before it, awarded unique dignity to humans. We had souls; animals did not. Since then, various secular thinkers have given this idea a new name—“inherent value,” “intrinsic dignity”—in order to explain why it is O.K. to eat a pig but not a baby. For Singer, these phrases are a “last resort,” a way to clumsily distinguish humans from nonhuman animals. Some argue that our ability to tell right from wrong, or to perceive ourselves, sets us apart—but not all humans can do these things, and some animals seem to do them better. Good law doesn’t withhold justice from humans who are elderly or infirm, or those who are cognitively disabled. As a utilitarian, Singer cites the founder of that tradition, the eighteenth-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who argued that justice and equality have nothing to do with a creature’s ability to reason, or with any of its abilities at all, but with the fact that it can suffer. Most animals suffer. Why, then, do we not give them moral consideration?

Singer’s answer is “speciesism,” or “bias in favor of the interests of members of one’s own species.” Like racism and sexism, speciesism denies equal consideration in order to maintain a status quo that is convenient for the oppressors. As Lawrence Wright has written in this magazine , courts, when considering the confinement of elephants and chimpanzees, have conceded that such animals evince many of the qualities that give humans legal standing, but have declined to follow through on the implications of this fact. The reason for that is obvious. If animals deserved the same consideration as humans, then we would find ourselves in a world in which billions of persons were living awful, almost unimaginably horrible lives. In which case, we might have to do something about it.

Equal consideration does not mean equal treatment. As a utilitarian, Singer’s aim is to minimize the suffering in the world and maximize the pleasure in it, a principle that invites, and often demands, choices. This is why Singer does not object to killing mosquitos (if done quickly), or to using animals for scientific research that would dramatically relieve suffering, or to eating meat if doing so would save your life. What he would not agree with, though, is making those choices on the basis of perceived intelligence or emotion. In a decision about whether to eat chicken or pork, it is not better to choose chicken simply because pigs seem smarter. The fleeting pleasure of eating any chicken is trounced by its suffering in industrial farms, where it was likely force-fed, electrocuted, and perhaps even boiled alive.

Still, Singer’s emphasis on suffering is cause for concern to Martha Nussbaum , whose new book, “ Justice for Animals ,” is an attempt to settle on the ideal philosophical template for animal rights. Whereas Singer’s argument is emphatically emotion-free—empathy, in his view, is not just immaterial but often actively misleading—Nussbaum is interested in emotions, or at least in animals’ inner lives and desires. She considers several theories of animal rights, including Singer’s, before arguing that we should adopt her “capabilities approach,” which builds on a framework developed by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, and holds that all creatures should be given the “opportunity to flourish.” For decades, Nussbaum has adjusted her list of what this entails for humans, which includes “being able to live to the end of a human life of normal length,” “being able to have attachments to things and people outside ourselves,” and having “bodily integrity”—namely, freedom from violence and “choice in matters of reproduction.” In “Justice for Animals,” she outlines some conditions for nonhuman flourishing: a natural life span, social relationships, freedom of movement, bodily integrity, and play and stimulation. Eventually, she writes, we would have a refined list for each species, so that we could insure flourishing “in the form of life characteristic to the creature.”

In imagining this better world, Nussbaum is guided by three emotions: wonder, anger, and compassion. She wants us to look anew at animals such as chickens or pigs, which don’t flatter us, as gorillas might, with their resemblance to us. What pigs do, and like to do, is root around in the dirt; lacquer themselves in mud to keep cool; build comfy nests in which to shelter their babies; and communicate with one another in social groups. They also seek out belly rubs from human caregivers. In a just world, Nussbaum writes, we would wonder at a pig’s mysterious life, show compassion for her desire to exist on her own terms, and get angry when corporations get in her way.

Some of Nussbaum’s positions are more actionable, policy-wise, than others. For example, she supports legal standing for animals, which raises an obvious question: How would a pig articulate her desires to a lawyer? Nussbaum notes that a solution already exists in fiduciary law: in the event that a person, like a toddler or disabled adult, cannot communicate their decisions or make sound ones, a representative is appointed to understand that person’s interests and advocate for them. Just as organizations exist to help certain people advance their interests, organizations could represent categories of animals. In Nussbaum’s future world, such a group could take Smithfield Foods to court.

Perhaps Nussbaum’s boldest position is that wild animals should also be represented by fiduciaries, and indeed be assured, by humans, the same flourishing as any other creature. If this seems like an overreach, a quixotic attempt to control a world that is better off without our meddling, Nussbaum says, first, to be realistic: there is no such thing as a truly wild animal, given the extent of human influence on Earth. (If a whale is found dead with a brick of plastic in its stomach, how “wild” was it?) Second, in Nussbaum’s view, if nature is thoughtless—and Nussbaum thinks it is—then perhaps what happens in “the wild” is not always for the best. No injustice can be ignored. If we aspire to a world in which no sentient creature can harm another’s “bodily integrity,” or impede one from exploring and fulfilling one’s capabilities, then it is not “the destiny of antelopes to be torn apart by predators.”

Here, Nussbaum’s world is getting harder to imagine. Animal-rights writing tends to elide the issue of wild-animal suffering for obvious reasons—namely, the scarcity of solutions. Singer covers the issue only briefly, and mostly to say that it’s worth researching the merit of different interventions, such as vaccination campaigns. Nussbaum, for her part, is unclear about how we would protect wild antelopes without impeding the flourishing of their predators—or without impeding the flourishing of antelopes, by increasing their numbers and not their resources. In 2006, when she previously discussed the subject, she acknowledged that perhaps “part of what it is to flourish, for a creature, is to settle certain very important matters on its own.” In her new book, she has not entirely discarded that perspective: intervention, she writes, could result in “disaster on a large scale.” But the point is to “press this question all the time,” and to ask whether our hands-off approach is less noble than it is self-justifying—a way of protecting ourselves from following our ideals to their natural, messy, inconvenient ends.

The enduring challenge for any activist is both to dream of almost-unimaginable justice and to make the case to nonbelievers that your dreams are practical. The problem is particularly acute in animal-rights activism. Ending wild-animal suffering is laughably hard (our efforts at ending human suffering don’t exactly recommend us to the task); obviously, so is changing the landscape of factory farms, or Singer wouldn’t be reissuing his book. In 2014, the British sociologist Richard Twine suggested that the vegan isn’t unlike the feminist of yore, in that both come across as killjoys whose “resistance against routinized norms of commodification and violence” repels those who prefer the comforts of the status quo. Wayne Hsiung, the Direct Action Everywhere activist, was only recently released from jail, after being sentenced for duck and chicken rescues in California. On his blog, he wrote that one reason the prosecution succeeded was that, unlike in Utah, he and his colleagues were cast as “weird extremists.”

It’s easy to construct a straw-man vegan, one oblivious to his own stridency, privilege, or hypocrisy. Isn’t he driving deforestation with all his vegetables? (No, Singer replies, as the vast majority of soybeans are fed to farm animals.) Isn’t he ignoring food deserts or the price tag on vegan substitutes, which puts them out of the reach of poor families? (Nussbaum acknowledges that cost can be an issue, but argues that it only emphasizes the need for resourced people to eat as humanely as they can, given that the costs of a more ethical diet “will not come down until it is chosen by many.”) Anyone pointing out moral culpability will provoke, in both others and themselves, a certain defensiveness. Nussbaum spends a lot of time discussing her uneasiness with her choice to eat fish for nutritional reasons. (She argues that fish likely have no sense of the future, a claim that even she seems unsure about.) Singer is eager to intervene here, emphasizing that animal-rights activism should pursue the diminishment of suffering, not the achievement of sainthood. “We are more likely to persuade others to share our attitude if we temper our ideals with common sense than if we strive for the kind of purity that is more appropriate to a religious dietary law than to an ethical and political movement,” he writes. Veganism is a boycott, and, while boycotts are more effective the more you commit to them, what makes them truly effective is persuading others to join them.

Strangely, where Singer and Nussbaum might agree is that defining the proper basis for the rights of animals is less important, at least in the short term, than getting people not to harm them, for any reason at all. Those reasons might have nothing to do with the animals themselves. Perhaps you decide not to eat animals because you care about people: because you care that the water where you live, if it’s anything like where I live, is too full of CAFO by-products to confidently drink. Perhaps you care about the workers in enormous slaughterhouses, where the pay is low and the costs to the laborer high. Perhaps you believe in a God, and believe that this God would expect better of people than to eat animals raised and killed in darkness. Or perhaps someone you love happens to love pigs, or to love the idea that the world could be gentler or more just, and you love the way they see the future enough to help them realize it. Nussbaum, after all, became interested in animal rights because she loved a person, her late daughter, an attorney who championed legislation to protect whales and other wild animals until her death, in 2019. Nussbaum’s book is dedicated to her—and also, now, to the whales. ♦

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Tom Regan, one of the founding fathers of the American animal rights movement, explains the philosophy of animal rights.

In his masterful speech, Professor Regan presents the case for animal rights like no other speaker does. He goes over all the common objections against the philosophy of animal rights and disproves them one by one.

Tom Regan's legacy

Professor Regan may be the most articulate speaker in the history of the animal rights movement, particularly when it comes to philosophy.

Due to his skillful speaking and writing, Professor Tom Regan has set the stage for the modern animal rights movement. This important speech at the Royal Institute of Great Britain in 1989, is definitely a key milestone in Regan's legacy.

Professor Tom Regan (1938 – 2017) was an animal rights philosopher and considered to be one of the founding fathers of the American animal rights movement.

Professor Regan had taught philosophy at North Carolina State University between 1967 and 2001. As a vegan and animal rights advocate, he dedicated most of his time to the theory of Animal Rights.

Tom Regan's Books

Regan was the author of several renowned books on the philosophy of animal right. His most famous book, The Case for Animal Rights (1983), was one of a handful of books that have significantly influenced the modern animal rights movement.

Other famous books of Regan were The Struggle for Animal Rights (1987), Defending Animal Rights (2001) and Empty Cages: Facing the Challenge of Animal Rights (2004).

Official website:  Remembering Tom Regan - Honoring the Life and Legacy of a Great Man

Philip Wollen's website

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Speech on Animal Rights

Animal rights are a crucial matter, touching on the ethical treatment of creatures who share our world. You may have heard about it, but do you really know what it entails?

It’s not just about pets, but every creature big and small. Think about this: shouldn’t all animals deserve respect and protection, just like humans?

1-minute Speech on Animal Rights

Good day, everyone! Today, I want to talk about something very important: animal rights.

Animals, like us, have a heart that beats and a life that matters. They feel joy, sadness, and pain, just as we do. So, it’s only right that we treat them with kindness and respect. This is the core idea of animal rights.

Think about your pet dog or cat. You love them, right? You feed them, play with them, and make sure they are happy and safe. This is how we should treat all animals, not just our pets. It’s wrong to hurt them, lock them up, or make them live in bad conditions.

Now, some people might say, “But animals are not like humans. They don’t think or talk like we do.” That’s true, but it doesn’t mean they don’t deserve respect. Just because they are different from us, doesn’t mean we can treat them badly.

Animals are also important for our world. They help keep nature balanced. For example, bees help flowers grow by carrying pollen. Birds eat insects that can harm our crops. So, when we protect animals, we also protect our planet.

In conclusion, animal rights are about treating animals with kindness and respect. We should not hurt them or make them suffer. Instead, we should protect them, just as we would want to be protected. Remember, every life matters, whether it’s big or small, human or animal. Let’s respect all life and make our world a better place. Thank you.

Also check:

• Essay on Animal Rights

2-minute Speech on Animal Rights

Good day, everyone. Today, we talk about a topic that is close to our hearts – animal rights. Animals, just like us, are living beings. They feel joy, they know pain, and they too, need love. And just like us, they also deserve the right to live a life free from harm and suffering.

Let’s think about our pets – our dogs, cats, or even the birds in our backyard. We care for them, feed them, and protect them. We feel sad when they are hurt and happy when they are well. This is because we understand that they have feelings. They can feel happy, sad, scared, or excited. This shows us that animals are not just things, but beings with emotions, just like us.

Now, imagine if someone were to hurt our pets. We would feel angry, right? We wouldn’t like it. This is because we believe that our pets have rights. They have the right to be safe, to be loved, and to be free from pain. This is what we mean by animal rights. It means that all animals, not just our pets, have the right to live a life free from harm, pain, and suffering.

Sadly, not all animals are treated this way. Many animals are hurt and abused every day. They are used for testing in labs, they are hunted for sport, and they are kept in bad conditions in some zoos and farms. This is not fair to them. They deserve better. They deserve to live a life that is free from harm and suffering.

So, what can we do? We can start by treating all animals with kindness and respect. We can choose not to use products that are tested on animals. We can speak up for animals who are being treated badly. We can also support laws that protect animals from harm and abuse.

Remember, animals cannot speak for themselves. They cannot tell us when they are hurt or scared. It is up to us to be their voice. It is up to us to make sure that they are treated with kindness and respect.

In conclusion, animal rights are about treating all animals with the love and respect they deserve. It is about making sure that they are free from harm and suffering. It is about being their voice and standing up for them. Because just like us, animals have feelings. Just like us, they deserve to live a life that is free from harm and suffering.

Thank you for listening, and remember, every act of kindness towards animals, no matter how small, can make a big difference. Let’s be the change we want to see in the world. Let’s stand up for animal rights.

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30 Debate Topics About Animals And Animal Rights

Animals play an important part of life as we know it and without them the human race would surely cease to exist. People have diverse feelings about how we should treat animals and whether or not animals have the same rights as humans. On this page, we will list some of the top debate topics about animals and animal rights . These can be used for a classroom debate, a topic for an assignment, or just as a topic to stimulate interesting conversation about this important issue.

Animal Debate Topics

• Are animals conscious?
• Do animals have feelings?
• Do animals have rights?
• What rights do animals have?
• Which animals have rights?
• What punishment should someone get for animal cruelty?
• Is animal testing justified?
• Is factory farming ethical?
• Should trophy hunting be illegal?
• Is it okay to sacrifice an animal for religious reasons?
• Are zoos beneficial to animals?
• Is it ethical to race animals for entertainment?
• Should fur coats and clothing be banned?
• When is it okay to test new drugs on animals?
• What protections should animals have under the law?
• Is it okay to hunt animals for food?
• Do animals have souls?
• When is it okay to kill a wild animal?
• Should it be allowed to keep exotic animals as pets?
• What should be the punishment for animal poachers?
• What can we do to prevent animal extinctions.
• Do all animals have the same rights? How about fish?
• What impact have humans had on the animal population?
• Should fox hunting be banned?
• When is it okay to euthanize animals?
• Some places eat dog meat. Should this be banned?
• Should horse racing be banned?
• How are humans different from animals? Does this mean humans have more rights?
• Should bullfighting be banned?
• Should humans eat less meat?

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16.4: Types of Persuasive Speeches

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• Sarah Stone Watt@Pepperdine University & Joshua Trey Barnett@Indiana University
• Millersville University via Public Speaking Project

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Persuasive speeches revolve around propositions that can be defended through the use of data and reasoning. Persuasive propositions respond to one of three types of questions: questions of fact, questions of value, and questions of policy. These questions can help the speaker determine what forms of argument and reasoning are necessary to support a specific purpose statement.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. ~ Marcus Aurelius

propositions of fact

Questions of fact ask whether something “can potentially be verified as either true or false” (Herrick, 2011, p. 20). These questions can seem very straightforward—something is or it is not—but in reality, the search for truth is a complex endeavor. Questions of fact rarely address simple issues such as, “is the sky blue?” They tend to deal with deep-seated controversies such as the existence of global warming, the cause of a major disaster, or someone’s guilt or innocence in a court of law. To answer these questions, a proposition of fact may focus on whether or not something exists. For example, in the U.S. there is a debate over the prevalence of racial profiling, the practice of law enforcement officers targeting people for investigation and arrest based on skin color. On one hand, the American Civil Liberties Union advances the proposition: “Racial profiling continues to be a prevalent and egregious form of discrimination in the United States” (ACLU, 2012, para. 2). They verify this claim using data from government studies, crime statistics, and personal narratives. However, journalist Heather MacDonald (2002) proposes that studies confirming racial profiling are often based in “junk science”; in fact she says, “there’s no credible evidence that racial profiling exists” (para. 1). To substantiate her proposition, MacDonald relies on a study of traffic stops on the New Jersey turnpike along with personal narratives, policy analysis, and testimony from a criminologist. The claim that racial profiling exists is either true or false, but there is evidence for and against both propositions; therefore no consensus exists.

While some propositions of fact deal with the existence of a particular phenomenon or the accuracy of a theory, others focus on causality. For example, the U.S. government appointed a commission to evaluate the causes of the nation’s recent economic crisis. In their report the commission concluded by proposing that recklessness in the financial industry and failures on the part of government regulators caused the economic crisis. However, Congressman Paul Ryan has proposed that Medicare is to blame, and the chief investment officer at JP Morgan has proposed that U.S. housing policy is the root cause of the problem (Angelides, 2011). Each of these three propositions of fact is backed by its own set of historical and economic analysis.

Propositions of fact may also be used to make predictions concerning what will happen in the future. In the summer of 2011, ten miles of a popular Southern California freeway were closed for an entire weekend. Motorists, news outlets, and government officials called the closure “Carmageddon” because they proposed there would be an “inevitable and likely epic traffic tie-up” (Kandel, 2011, para. 1). As a result of the predictions motorists stayed off the roads and made alternative plans that weekend resulting in much lighter traffic than expected. The proposition may have been true, but the prediction was not fulfilled because people were persuaded to stay off the freeway.

When advancing propositions of fact, you should focus on the evidence you can offer in support of your proposition. First, make sure that your speech contains sufficient evidence to back up your proposition. Next, take the time to interpret that evidence so that it makes sense to your audience. Last, emphasize the relationship between your evidence and your proposition as well as its relevance to the audience (Herrick, 2011).

Bitter experience has taught us how fundamental our values are and how great the mission they represent. ~ Jan Peter Balkenende

propositions of value

Persuasive speakers may also be called to address questions of value, which call for a proposition judging the (relative) worth of something. These propositions make an evaluative claim regarding morality, aesthetics, wisdom, or desirability. For example, some vegetarians propose that eating meat is immoral because of the way that animals are slaughtered. Vegetarians may base this claim in a philosophy of utilitarianism or animal rights (DeGrazia, 2009).

Sometimes a proposition of valuecompares multiple options to determine which is best. Consumers call for these comparisons regularly to determine which products to buy. Car buyers may look to the most recent Car and Driver “10 Best Cars” list to determine their next purchase. In labeling a car one of the best on the market for a given year Car and Driver (2011) says that the cars “don’t have to be the newest, and they don’t have to be expensive . . . They just have to meet our abundant needs while satisfying our every want” (para. 1).

Both the vegetarian and car examples offer standards for evaluating the proposition. Since propositions of value tend to be more subjective, speakers need to establish evaluation criteria by which the audience can judge and choose to align with their position. When advancing a proposition of value, offer a clear set of criteria, offer evidence for your evaluation, and apply the evidence to demonstrate that you have satisfied the evaluation criteria (Herrick, 2011).

An inner process stands in need of outward criteria.~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

The 2005 disagreement between family members over removing a woman’s feeding tube after she had been in a coma for 15 years sparked a national debate over the value of life that highlights the importance of evaluation criteria. After years of failed medical treatments and rehabilitation attempts, Terri Schiavo’s husband petitioned the court to remove her feeding tube, initiating a legal battle with her parents that went all the way to the President of the United States (Cerminara & Goodman, 2012). Opposing sides in the debate both claimed to value life. To support his proposition that his wife had a right to die, Mr. Schaivo applied the evaluation criteria of quality of life and argued that she would not want to continue to live in a vegetative state (Caplan, 2005). Ms. Schiavo’s parents vehemently disagreed with his argument. They also claimed to value life and, with the support of religious groups, relied on the evaluation criteria of the sanctity of life to contend that she should be kept alive (Catholic Culture, 2005). Both sides gained widespread support based on people’s agreement or disagreement with their evaluation criteria. Despite intervention on behalf of both state and federal legislators, the courts eventually ruled that Mr. Schiavo had the right to have his wife’s feeding tube removed and allow her to die.

A policy is a temporary creed liable to be changed, but while it holds good, it has got to be pursued with apostolic zeal.~ Mahatma Gandhi

propositions of policy

Although the Schiavo case was rooted in a question of value, the debate resulted in a question of policy.Questions of policy ask the speaker to advocate for an appropriate course of action. This form of persuasive speech is used every day in Congress to determine laws, but it is also used interpersonally to determine how we ought to behave. A proposition of policy may call for people to stop a particular behavior, or to start one. For example, some U.S. cities have started banning single use plastic bags in grocery stores. Long before official public policy on this issue was established, organizations such as The Surfrider Foundation and the Earth Resource Foundation advocated that people stop using these bags because of the damage plastic bags cause to marine life. In this case local governments and private organizations attempted to persuade people to stop engaging in a damaging behavior— shopping with single use plastic bags. However, the organizations also attempted to persuade people to start a new behavior—shopping with reusable bags.

When answering a question of policy, speakers will typically begin by describing the status quo. If you are arguing that a change must be made, you must first identify the problem inherent in the current behavior, and then demonstrate that the problem is significant enough to warrant immediate consideration. Once you have established that there is a problem which the audience ought to consider, you can then offer your proposal for a preferable course of action (Herrick, 2011). Then, it is up to you to demonstrate that your proposed policy will have more benefits than costs.

In 2011 the U.S. Postal Service, the nation’s second-largest employer, told Congress it was facing an $8.3 billion budget shortfall (Bingham, 2011). To solve the problem, the Postal Service proposed that be permitted to end Saturday mail delivery and close some post offices. To make their argument, they first described the status quo saying that the demand for their service had dramatically decreased with the popularity of email and online bill-pay services. They explained that in preceding years they laid off workers and cut spending to help with the shortfall of revenue, but now another plan was necessary to avoid defaulting on their financial obligations. They offered evidence that people preferred ending Saturday mail to alternatives such as paying more for stamps or allocating more tax money to post offices (Bingham, 2011). Although they made a compelling case, the USPS still needed to overcome perceived disadvantages to their proposition such as the negative impact on businesses and rural towns (Bingham, 2011; Stephenson, 2012). A full year later, the policy proposition passed the U.S. Senate but continues to await approval in the House (Stephenson, 2012).

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PERSUASIVE SPEECHES - YEAR 6 - ANIMAL RIGHTS - COLD TASK

Subject: English

Age range: 7-11

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

19 May 2019

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A complete lesson, PowerPoint and resources for a unit on PERSUASIVE SPEECHES in Upper KS2 (Year 6)

THIS COLD TASK PROVIDES A STANDALONE WRITING TASK THAT WILL FEED INTO THE UNIT. It would also work well as a big writing lesson.

This is lesson 1 in a series of 6/7. The whole scheme of work is also available as a bundle

The whole scheme includes a cold and a hot task, and culminates in the class writing a perusaive speech based on animal rights.

This scheme was incredibly engaging and produced brilliant pieces of writing.

All images sourced from Pixabay.

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PERSUASIVE SPEECHES - YEAR 6 - COMPLETE SET OF 7 LESSONS

A 7 lesson unit of work, with presentations and resources for Persuasive Speeches about animal rights. Lesson 6 and & are bundled together as both are needed to complete the written task. Aimed at Upper KS2 but easily adaptable. Each lesson is differentiated at least 3 ways. All lessons are ready to go. This unit is genuinely ready to reach and planned to a high quality. Each lesson is also available separately and includes a presentation and all resources. Editable versions are included wherever possible. Lessons are based on the understanding of the text type and its features. Coverage includes: use of AFORRESTPIE, Structures and PEEL paragraphs. This scheme was incredibly engaging and produced brilliant pieces of writing. All images sourced from Pixabay.

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