Only Rational Beings Have Moral Worth

The claim Kant makes that, “Our duties towards animals are merely indirect duties towards humans” has a lot of underlying ideas that I think are true. He bases his piece on this statement and develops it into a way that I think makes beautiful sense. Although I do not condone acts of violence towards animals or think they are worthless, I do feel they are inferior to humans and should not be given the same rights as humans. I don’t think we should use them however we want, but I definitely don’t think they should be regarded as part of society or treated as equal to humans. Animals simply are not equal to humans. They are very different and although they, in some ways, can have humanistic qualities (i.e. take care of their young, or feel pain and suffering), they are not humans. As Wilson points out in the next piece, animals simply can’t reason or decide between two behaviors after discussing these two choices with another animal. Sure, animals make decisions, I’m not saying that they have no ability to make a rational decision, I just think that they can’t reason between two rational decisions and choose the better one. For this they are not equal to humans.
To further the point that we have certain duties to animals because we correspond those duties to humans, I turn to Michael Vick. Why was he put in jail? Why did he lose millions of dollars in endorsement deals and have to pay fines? Was it because people were mad that he violated the rights of the dogs? Some were, but I don’t think it’s that the dog’s actual rights were violated, since they don’t have any rights within our society. But more, I think that it is the fact that it scared people. For our society to hear about the numbers of dogs he had in his possession that were either hurt or dead, scared people. I think that’s because people unconsciously applied Kant’s ideas that the way we treat animals reflects the way we would treat humans. Sure Michael Vick would probably not have committed murder later in life, but it does say something about him as a person and about his morals. I think that is the big issue here. It’s not that animals have rights and should be treated as equal to human. It’s that humans should have enough dignity and love for other creatures to not want to harm them for their own selfish purpose. Wilson made the following statement at the end of her piece that I think makes my point perfectly. She says that we should be motivated to keep from treating animals cruelly out of respect and because we know our dignity as a human being is as stake in our treatment of animals.