Chulla

“We cannot directly experience anyone else's pain, whether that “anyone” is our best friend or a stray dog. Pain is a state of consciousness, a “mental event”, and as such it can never be observed. Behaviour like writhing, screaming, or drawing one's hand away from the lighted cigarette is not pain itself; nor are the recordings a neurologist might make of activity within the brain observations of pain itself. Pain is something that we feel, and we can only infer that others are feeling it from various external indications . . . ”( Singer, 1990 ).

Many environmentalists, like Aldo Leopold and Holmes Rolston III, criticize the emphasis those animal liberationists like Peter Singer place on preventing animal suffering, branding it unecological. Their argument holds that animal liberationists must regard predation as bad, by extending the role of moral consideration to include things that do not feel pain or pleasure. The view that Leopold and Rolston hold maintains that like the natural system of the animal world (humans and non-human animals), the eco systems of the land (including soil, plants, and all animals) is highly debatable and should be taken into moral co

The capacity for suffering and enjoying things is a prerequisite for having interest at all. If a thing has interests, and has the ability to suffer then it ought to be taken into moral consideration. It would be absurd to speak of the interest of rocks, plants, and mountains, because they have no ability to experience pain or pleasure. Animals have emotions and desires, and appear to be capable of enjoying a good life. Every sentient creature is capable of leading a happy or less miserable life, and hence it ought to be given moral consideration. Rolston argues that much of the natural world that should be protected is non-sentient and so deserves moral consideration and be regarded as intrinsically valuable. In my view, non-sentient natural objects can be rightly valued because of what they are and not just because of the ends they serve (intrinsically valuable), that is even if they are not the sorts of things we could have duties to (morally considerable).

Like human equality, animal equality does not mean equal abilities. It means that all animals have an equal right to moral consideration and legal protection. In Singer’s view, if a being is capable of suffering, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that it’s suffering be counted equally with the like suffering of any other being. It is true, of course, that we cannot know exactly how animals suffer. In the animal rights view, the question is not merely whether an animal suffers as a consequence of any particular animal use. The question is whether humans have the right to exploit ot

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