Chapter 1

W.D. Ross states that humans have a moral and legal obligation to treat animals humanley (1). Now, I understand that humans have a moral obligation not to treat animals poorly and legal obligations because people can be punished for poor care. Then he goes on and says that many philosophers believe that animals have moral rights. What exactly does it mean for animals to have moral rights? Since we have moral rights not to be harmed then so do the animals? I truely believe that humans have a moral obligation not to harm the animals and the animals have a right not to be harmed but if certain animals weren't here just to be eaten, what exactly is there "purpose" for being alive? Pigs are used for ham and bacon but other than that, what true need is there for an animal that plays in mud all day? Then, that will take you into deeper questions about why some animals it is more acceptable to eat and others it is not.

This goes into rights of animals and our human responsibilities to these animals. If we are not to eat them, then what would happen to them? Farmers take these animals, take care of them, and provide food for many people when the animal is fat enough. I see it as animals are guided by the farmer, or leader. This leader takes care of them and watches over them until the animals time on the farm is fulfilled. Couldn't that be related to religion, in the sense that a supreme being is watching over its people and when each persons time on earth is fulfilled, the supreme being ends his/her life? More or less that is the same thing. Back to moral rights and legal rights, what do we as humans have? If someone belives in a supreme being, how many rights do you have? You don't decide when you die or when you are born or anything. Therefore, people don't have rights.

The last thing in the reading that really caught my attention was the part about abortion. "The rhetoric of right-to-life groups has incited some extremeists to bomb a number of clinics that provide prenatal medical services and occassionally to murder physicians known to have performed abortions."(3-4). My one concern with this statement is that there are women you have abortions and that kills babies, BAD. So to take action against these groups the extremists go and bomb a place with doctors and PEOPLE inside or kill doctors and that seems to be ok in their minds. Killing a baby through abortion is bad but killing a doctor who performs abortion ok? This seems to not make much sense because they kill babies and now the extremists are stooping to their level and killing people.

The problem that I saw in the first chapter was between moral and legal rights. Who defines a moral or legal right? The government defines legal rights but what about moral rights? Wouldn't moral rights come from what each individual person believes? Then, only few people or certain groups are going to have similar moral rights; then the only thing really "controlling" people's actions would be the legal rights that are set in place by the government (people we elect).