animal rights

I really enjoyed reading this book. It had a lot of very good arguments about how animals have been treated and the way that they are treated now. It also gives good reasons why, and how we should treat animals from now on. In other words, we should not treat them at all, and just leave them alone to fend for themselves. We should not even use them for food.
When this book starts off, it talks about how our attitudes towards animals are schizophrenic. It talks about how animals were treated back in the 19th century, and then moves on to how we treat them now. He mentions about how we say that we do not want to impose badly on animals, but we still do even though we don’t think that what we are doing in bad to them. One of the many argument in chapter two that I thought was interesting was how if we treat animals the way that we do, by using them for testing things such as medicine, then we might as well use the homeless on the streets too. In chapter three it talks more about how we say that we do not want to inflict unnecessary pain on animals, but he is curious as to how much of it really is unnecessary. In chapter four he gives us two choices as to our moral status about animals. We can keep having them suffer, or we can change our ways and realize that they significant interests and that we should not hurt them. Chapter five talks about, the four reasons why we should not deny animals their rights. In the next chapter, it talks about Bentham’s mistake and how he is part of the reason why animals are looked at as things. In the last chapter it asks us if we would save our children over the animals.
I do agree with a lot of the arguments that were presented in this book. I also understand Francione’s want for change. However I don’t think that everyone today would be willing to change their ways about how they treat or see animals today. There are so many people who love to eat meat and feel as though they could not go without it, and because of that, I don’t feel as though things could ever change as much as he would like them to change. One of the arguments that I really thought about was the one about how if we are going to use animals for testing then we might as well use the homeless on the street. It is a very cruel statement, but it really made me stop and think.