IF POSSESSING A HIGHER DEGREE OF INTELLIGENCE DOES NOT ENTITLE ONE HUMAN TO USE ANOTHER FOR HIS OWN ENDS, HOW CAN IT ENTITLE HUMANS TO EXPLOIT NONHUMANS?

The Language of Suffering

Discrimination or oppression comes in many shapes and forms - from the name of a coffee shop that a limited number of people judged by their annual gross income can only afford to the skin color that race or fate had granted to an individual without his or her consent . Discrimination can happen inside a family where middle children feel that better chances are offered to firstborns . Oppression can take in the shape of a school canteen where no heterosexual male student wants to share a table with someone

who is gay

All these clearly show how well humans observe discrimination and oppression in forms like sexism and racism among many others . These scenes serve as pieces of evidence to prove how persistent humans earn their reasons to fight for their rights . The many shapes and forms of discrimination function as our tools to affect a supposedly fair society - one that is classless , devoid of any trace of hierarchy

These are the same pieces of evidence , reasons , and much more like excuses , why we oversee our rights but fail to recognize the rights of others . Animals -- those that can 't think , those that can 't formulate a single logical reason , those that don 't have a clue about the concept of discrimination or oppression , exist to serve us all . That , in this case is something humans carelessly assume

What basically differentiates humans from nonhumans is intelligence aside from many other things . Suffering is what primarily unites these two species , aside from many other realities (Singer ,

.236

All our observations about discrimination are valid . One scholar can lay hundreds of books and researches on a table to convince the world why we should practice equality . This same desire is what drives that scholar to ignore , intentionally or not , the right of other beings in which he or she doesn 't belong to

However , whoever says sorry to the pig that later turns out to be pork on a fine dish is considered overly fair , especially to a capitalist who needs the pig for profit . This is utterly criminal for Peter Singer who wrote Animals are Equal and argues that a matured pig is no different from a human infant if it is intelligence and abilities that we use as major units of measure or judgment for species (p . 237

In a more intelligent perspective , in which humans claim to know how to practice all the time , the pig a butcher kills does not need anyone 's apology . What the pig deserves is to stay that way until it ages . Like humans , it deserves to enjoy life . It may not be able to solve mathematical problems , but it can appreciate an environment suitable to its existence . It may not write poems , but it can hurt with a minor injury . As Singer puts it , it is important and it is a need , to give well-deserved considerations to any kind of being , either human or nonhuman , as long...