Animal Liberation Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Animal Liberation - Term Paper Example Singer equates treating animals lesser than human beings to other forms of discrimination like racism and ethnicity. Furthermore, Singer equates animals with human beings who have irreversible brain damage. The utilitarian views of Singer are opposed and refuted by Cohen. Cohen argues that rights can only be restricted to moral agents. To refute Singer’s argument that animals have equal rights to humans, Cohen proposes a definition of rights as claims. A right according to Cohen is a claim made against somebody else. Cohen further argues that an obligation to ensure animal welfare cannot constitute a right. To prove this Cohen clearly shows that rights entail obligation but obligation cannot entail rights. However, Cohen’s fails to show how humans without the ability to claim their rights can enjoy rights. These groups of humans include human infants and mentally handicapped persons. Cohen’s speciesist theory failure to explain how humans without the capacity to claim rights can enjoy moral rights assists Utilitarianism answer his criticism for their explanation of animal rights. The starting point for answering the question â€Å"Is there such thing as a moral saint?† always starts with an attempt to define the term. This is occasioned by the fact that any author who attempts to tackle the controversial question must have a standard of morality that the supposed â€Å"moral saint† satisfies. This approach is reflected in Wolf who starts his work by giving a brief description of what the moral saint is supposed to be. Wolf defines a moral saint as a person who strives to be as good as possible everyday and in every situation. Similarly, Carbonell in his work article Moral Saint Reconsidered also starts his exploration of the issue with a description of the term moral saint.