Nussbaum introduces to us both Kant’s and Rawl’s perspective on the treatment of animals. Nussbaum then focuses on my favorite part of the reading, which is where Rawl’s approach is incorporated into the idea that animal cruelty is a justice issue. Nussbaum states that Rawl’s approach has a lot more to do with the emotional aspect of compassion and humanity for the cruelty of animals. Rawl does not really see the issue of animal cruelty as an issue of justice, rather he see’s it as as a moral duty. It is a human’s moral duty to know how the consequence and the true extent of the animal cruelty that is happening. Then Nussbaum incorporates compassion into justice. Nussbaum states that if if compassion is to become a moral duty, then it is wrong to cause these animals suffering. That then brings in the fact that animal cruelty does arise an issue of justice.
The reason that part is my favorite is because of the role that compassion plays into all of this. Compassion is defined as: a strong feeling of understanding, pity, or sympathy for the sufferings of another. This definition alone explains how humans should look at animals. We humans may believe that we are the superior race because we have cognitive functioning, but we did not start out with the advanced brain that we have now. We all really started out as cavemen. We lived among animals and in many ways we lived in peace with them. There was always a certain balance that was achieved when it came to humans eating animals and animals eating humans. Yet, I believe that so many humans today have just thrown away that understanding. This does contradict with my love for eating meat but I do believe that animal cruelty is an injustice. I don’t believe that there should not be none at all. In all honesty, even with all our technology advances, we still need a certain balance with animals and humans. Yet, the true injustice is the excessive cruelty. I believe that animals are an important balance to the ecosystem and that humans must have compassion. This also goes hand in hand to how humans treat other humans. We can treat each other in many awful ways but we are still able to find compassion in darkest times. Animals too, they have compassion for one another. So then, why can we not have compassion for them? They have as much right to be on this Earth as we do, even more.
jenniferp95 