How feminist theory and gender roles are used in film, literature and society.

 On Animal Rights

 Animal rights is one of those issues where people tend to take extremes.  Either one holds a position that animals have no rights and the are only useful as the means to human ends (Kant), or the other extreme is to see non-human animals as entitled to full constitutional rights.  The latter is often compared to freeing slaves and giving minorities and women constitutional rights.  This might be taking it too far.  Non-human animals should be treated with respect and dignity.  They should not be made to suffer pain, anxiety, hunger in the same manner man should not be tortured or killed.  Now, should my cat be allowed to vote?  I adore my cats.  In fact, I usually refer to them as my "children" and they enjoy the same or more priviledges than any ordinary human child.  However, we should draw the line at some point.  Although I consider their intellegence superior to that of many humans I have met, I realize they have their limitations.  The relationship between people and people and people and animals are two different issues, as Cora Diamond has argued.  We cannot make a parallel transition between giving rights to Blacks, for instance, and giving the same rights to animals.  A human being can become independent within social constraints if allowed, a nonhuman animal cannot, although it can survive in the wild.  Domestication and industrialization, which have changed the immune capacities of nonhuman animals in a similar manner to those of humans, become handicaps to Darwinian survival.  We have to look at the whole picture, not just the pieces that neatly fit into our argument.  As it stands, I do believe animals should be entitled to be defended in court and not only on the basis of intense mistreatment and cruelty.  They require social responsibility because we share the environment with these creatures great and small.  From elephants to insects, a sentient creature should not be made to suffer either physically or psychologically. 

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