With the beginning of the 21st century, the topic of animal rights has become one of the controversial and often talked about topics in the news. Year after year, society has made great strides in trying to better understand nature and the impact humanity has on the lives of these creatures with whom we share the world. But when humanity began to try to act on behalf of the animal, the question became: what ethical rights can be assigned to the animal? Evidence of acts of animal cruelty has spread across the world and humanity has risen to defend the right of the voiceless animal. With this, the ethical problem has grown – in the words of philosopher Jeremy Bentham, “The question is not: Can they [animals] reason?, nor can they speak? But can they suffer?” (Bentham cited in Wise) If an animal cannot rationalize, is it unfit to receive ethical rights? Or, following Jeremy Bentham, the question is: can the animal still feel pain, regardless of its mental capabilities? While the philosophical question of animal rights may never be answered, this essay will attempt to clarify some of the main arguments for and against the current debate. To achieve this goal, different opinions are organized through the positions of virtue ethics, deontology and utilitarianism. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay When examining what virtue ethics or virtue theory is, it is important to understand the main underlying principle: that every action taken must aim at something good enough. Ultimately, virtue ethics promotes that any action taken should be aimed at promoting one's happiness or prosperity. But with respect to the animal kingdom, virtue ethics states that this happiness is felt only in the mind of man, not in the mind of a beast, according to one of the strongest voices in virtue theory, Aristotle. Aristotle stated that animals are incapable of rational thought and that, due to their instinctive mannerisms, they do not warrant moral thought in the same way that humanity does. He felt that animals were simply a means to serve the ends of man's happiness and needs on Earth. Similarly, fellow philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas believed that because animals were incapable of making coherent decisions, humans were responsible for making choices for them. Furthermore, Aquinas stated that animals were simply instruments of the world that humanity could use. Being a Christian theologian, he found his rationalization sound because in the natural order, Thomas believed that man should end up at the top as his God intended, using beings of lower power and rank, the animals, as the means through which achieve the existence that man has divinely and naturally deserved. However, in the study of theoretical virtue ethics, one could argue in contradiction to the claims of Aristotle and Aquinas, perhaps a traditional virtue theorist would defend the need to guarantee the rights of the animal because it is the justified position to take , on the basis that it is a virtuous position to have. For example, if one sees an animal being tortured and in need of help, virtue ethics would require human intervention on the basis that a morally good person would not watch an innocent creature suffer when there is an opportunity to intervene and offer help. A virtue theorist would like to support the possibility of maintaining or creating the action of rectitude in saving an innocent being, of goodness in helping a creature indifficulty, of dignity in showing humility towards the creature that is in need, and so on… Certainly the contemporary The position towards animal rights, given the speed with which the animal rights movement has taken off, has become more widely accepted because the way society now views the treatment of animals has changed dramatically since the times of Aristotle and St. Aquinas. Similar to virtue theory, deontology focuses on obtaining a morally justified response to the ethical problem in question. Also called duty ethics, deontology is attention to one's duty to others, called "perfect duty." In doing so, it is necessary to realize the “categorical imperative,” which is a universal law or principle that is morally right and sound. The leading voice of this belief, Immanuel Kant, wrote “act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature” (Kant 89). Deontology firmly believes that one should always treat humanity as an end, never as a means - in particular that every person one encounters, regardless of their importance or social position in the world, must be treated with equal respect, as it helps to reach an end. . Continuing this line of thought, Kant wrote that animals are simply a means to an end. He, like Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas before him, saw animals as irrational beings, incapable of logical and coherent thought, which placed them physically and ethically in a different position than mankind. Dr. Nelson T. Potter of the University of Nebraska wrote at length about Kant's views on animal rights: According to Kant we human beings are finite rational beings... That said, all of our duties are duties to possible experience . There are no human beings who have only duties and no rights: they would be slaves or servants. And the apparent duties we have to refrain from the cruel treatment of (nonhuman) animals are not, it seems, direct duties to such animals, but duties to ourselves, and simply indirect duties to animals. (Potter 299) Simply put, duty requires one to promote one's own goodness and intervene on behalf of the animal in need in the eyes of deontology. Kant also believes that the desire to refrain from harming animals is also an acceptable categorical imperative, because negative actions such as animal cruelty would cause harm to one's inner character. It would follow that, in the eyes of a deontologist, one's duty to one's community and to oneself would be to not be an animal abuser in any situation. Nelson T. Potter was also convinced that Kant should reconsider his view that animals do not deserve the same ethical consideration given to humans, following the division of all creatures on Earth in Kant's writings, Metaphysics of Morals. Potter cites the words of Kant in defending his view that animals, due to their inability to produce rational thought, should be afforded the same moral rights as a non-functioning human being, since the lack of brain function and production of thought is physically the same. Dr. Potter wrote in his article “Kant on Duties to Animals”: ​​“Kant tells us that first, the relation of the rights of human beings to those who have neither rights nor duties has no members because “these are beings devoid of reason, who can neither bind us nor by whom we can be bound." This empty classification is the one in which Kant would place the moral relationship between man and animal. (Potter 305) Later in his article, Potter introduces another category of beingswhich Kant never specifically addresses in the Metaphysics of Morals, those seriously ill and unable to perform basic life functions. Dr. Potter writes that those who are so physically ill as to be incapable of rational thought or essential brain processes should be considered of equal ethical consideration to animals: The conclusion with respect to both groups is that the paradigmatic classes of nonhuman animals Humans and animals permanently incapable of functioning rationally must be treated ethically in the same way. For people, Kantian or otherwise, with what I have called moderate views on animal rights, this forces an unfortunate choice: either greatly raise the appropriate level of moral rights for paradigmatic nonhuman animals, or dramatically lower the level of such rights granted to human beings permanently. and seriously lacking in rational function. (Potter 305) Following Dr. Potter's line of thought, if Kantians had followed the metaphysics of morality and applied Potter's deductions, it would follow that Kant could have considered these two types of non-rational creatures as equals, granting animals the same ethical rights as human beings. While today society has taken a general stance in favor of the fundamental rights of animals, in Immanuel Kant's time this might have been considered a dangerous thought. Utilitarianism is the ethical view that one's actions are justified if performed to achieve the greatest good, without the presence of pain. “The Greatest Good Principle” states that the utilitarian's goal is to try to achieve everything that promotes happiness without harm. Furthermore, you achieve your goal if the happiness created is greater than the consequences of your actions. John Stuart Mill, one of the most influential thinkers of utilitarianism, classified the levels of happiness that can be achieved: higher pleasures, consisting of intellectually based stimuli, and lower pleasures, consisting of physically oriented stimuli. According to Mill, higher pleasures, such as pride, freedom and dignity, had greater priority. In Utilitarianism he wrote of the importance of these higher pleasures, such as dignity: “It is better to be a dissatisfied human being than a satisfied pig; better to be a dissatisfied Socrates than a satisfied fool. And if the fool, or the pig, thinks differently, it is only because they only know their own side of the question” (Mill 10). To lower pleasures, he concluded, man often succumbs to weakness, poor choices, and acting wrongly. Instead, according to JS Mill, one should try to sacrifice happiness to obtain higher pleasures, not to reduce it. According to this line of thought, the deprivation of the life and liberty of animals for a utilitarian would represent a great injustice, regardless of the mental capacity of the creature. Indeed, the position of utilitarianism was that the categorical imperative was to help those who had no rights, such as the poor and slaves, because it was one's moral responsibility. Utilitarianism believes that every person should make voluntary sacrifices like this and actively seek to have a conscience, because the goal of utilitarianism is ultimate happiness without pain. JS Mill deepened his utilitarian beliefs and elaborated on these principles in his 1874 writings, “On Nature.” In these works, Mill develops the basic idea that it is the utilitarian's philosophical responsibility to sacrifice himself in the name of the best good for those (man, creature, or beast) who are in need. He states that one should indeed strive to respect nature in order to create a greater understanding of what is not