Are Animal Lives As Important As Human Lives?

Are Animal Lives as Important as Human lives?

The question of whether or not the lives of animals are equivalent to lives of humans remains open. Facts show the many differences between human and animal life, and that very people would argue that the lives of animals aren’t valued. It’s known that humans may be more intelligent than animals and we may have more influence over the Earth however, that doesn’t determine importance. Therefore, human lives are not more important than animal lives.

Animals have their part in the environment and do make a contribution to Earth. ‘‘For still another class of human beings, the response to uneasiness is categorically different. It expresses itself in aggression: physical assault, theft, domination.

They have their own way of surviving that’s different than ours but that doesn’t make them any less important or less worthy of their place on Earth. ‘‘The belief of human cognitive superiority became entrenched in human philosophy and sciences. Even Aristotle, probably the most influential of all thinkers, argued that humans were superior to other animals due to our exclusive ability to reason.’’(Dr.Saniotis, Anthropologist and Medical Scientist). If you look at all the similarities between humans and animals, there aren’t that many. We need to sleep, breathe, reproduce, eat, drink, fight for the strongest, etc. The main difference is our mental ability and ability to reason. But, we must remember that if we didn’t have the ability to reason, we would be no more than a chimp. Imagine us without intelligence. We wouldn’t have complex communication and would be equivalent to an animal. Nesting, fighting, foraging, etc. We would probably be worse off than an animal because we don’t even always know how to survive in certain weather conditions because our bodies don’t adapt to it like some animals do. We would have no civilization. For, the Google definition of civilization is, ‘‘the stage of human social development and organization that is considered most advanced.’’ Therefore, we ultimately wouldn’t meet the requirements of being advanced or

Animals have intelligence too, and we misjudge them because they ‘‘aren’t like us’’. As mentioned before, depending on where an animal comes from, they play a certain role in our environment. Animals would continue to do their part with or without humans existence. Herbivores would still eat and Carnivores would still kill to keep the population under control. Animals have to have the intelligence to hunt for their own food, and have actually been on Earth way longer than us. WE are the ones making the world such a bad place to live. We cause more damage than they ever have or could. We need to understand that animal’s were here first, and our ability to reason does not give us the right to treat them as unimportant, hunt them for sport, use their fur as clothing, cage them in zoos where they die because of mistreatment or starvation, or abuse them. We need to stop putting animals in this less important category because they are most definitely important. In fact, they were probably doing so much better before humans came along. Whatever religion you believe in, it’s agreed that animals were here long before humans. We have brought so much pollution and violence. They would go back to natural selection without our interference especially because they are naturally equipped with instincts of survival from birth. They’d live with much