Ethical Responsibilities

It should be unequivocally clear to all who consider the question of ethical responsibility being extended towards animals that it is tremendously important that we extend these rights towards our fellow inhabitants of the planet. When we realize that gap between us and other animals is far smaller than we had previously assumed, it logically follows that there will be a growing imperative to extend humane treatment towards animals. Literary critic and journalist Christopher Hitchens has a tendency to refer to people as “mammals”, which seems strange until you give it a moment’s thought. It is emotionally (and for some, intellectually) jarring to hear another one of our species being referred to as a mammal. It does detract somewhat from our ignorantly assumed and vigorously enforced position at the top of the zoological hierarchy when we hear one of our own being referred to as a mere mammal. After one spares a moment of thought to consider this question, there is nothing at all strange about it, we are mammals, we are animals, we are not very different from our cousins in the wild. I believe that it is an imperative that we extend certain ethical responsibilities towards certain groups of animals. It seems that the gap between “us” and “animal” is simply a gap of the mind (I use the term literally), all that separates us from other animals is the fact that we have more advanced cognitive capabilities, which is a result in a large brain size relative to our body size (vocal mechanics also play a role in our separation from animals, as they provide the means to proliferate information). When we recognize the sheer number of similarities between ourselves and other animals (we have an unfortunate tendency to focus on the very few differences) it becomes very clear that our commonly excepted notion of ethical treatment towards humans must be extended to other animals. It is becoming increasingly clear that characteristics we once assumed were uniquely human are exhibited in our primate cousins. Chimpanzees have been demonstrated to be capable of emotions, even of violence that mirrors our own behaviour (hopefully they will never reach the sorry state we have reached). Examples of such behaviour can be easily found through internet searches for videos of chimpanzees, such videos have become increasingly more accessible since Jane Goodall’s fervent advocating of chimpanzee rights.