Ethics & Sharks

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer notes that prior to the scientific understanding of the physiological basis of pain reception in vertebrate animal species, it may have been understandable that humans disregarded the unnecessary pain that they imposed on animals. However, the writer maintains that today one understands completely that even the animals we raise for slaughter deserve to have any pain, trauma, and discomfort associated with our use of them minimized or eliminated, rather than utterly disregarded. The writer discusses the suffering caused to sharks by humans from an ethics point of view. The writer concludes that the vast majority of shark attacks on human are attributable to the ridiculous practice of feeding sharks in the open ocean, such as in conjunction with tourist cruises and diving expeditions. The writer argues that even were it true that sharks actively hunted humans to the extent that it required culling their numbers, that issue remains completely distinguishable from the obligation to do so less cruelly rather than more cruelly, without regard for their suffering.

From the Paper:

"The concept of human sensitivity toward non-human animals has taken a long time to develop and in many respects, still lags far behind other moral concerns. In much of modern Western society, dogs and cats are kept as pets, along with various other species of animals, in conjunction with which Americans provide them with veterinary care and other benefits of love and protection from harm. At the same time, we exhibit comparatively little moral concern at all for many of the animal species we raise for consumption.
"In other parts of the world, animals are often afforded substantially less consideration and absolutely no thought at all to the excruciating pain and other unnecessary suffering that our treatment of them causes, despite the fact that reducing or eliminating it would take very little effort at all."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bright, M. (1994) Intelligence in Animals: The Earth, Its Wonders, Its Secrets. Montreal: Reader's Digest Books
• Broad, W. Scientists Say Frenzy Over Shark Attack Is Unwarranted; The New York Times (9/5/01). Accessed April 29, 2008, at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0DE3D61439F936A3575AC0 A9679C8B63&n=Top/News/Science/Topics/Sharks
• Gerrig, R, Zimbardo, P. (2005) Psychology and Life. 17th Edition. New York: Allyn & Bacon.
• Moussaieff-Masson, J. (1995) When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals. New York: Bantam.
• Perrine, D. Sharks. (1995) Stillwater: Voyageur

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