Animal sympathy is the ability of animals to form connections and feel the emotions of other organisms and to sympathize with their owners and their animal counterparts. Animal sympathy is rarely considered or just investigated among a limited number of species, such as whales. This is mostly because the human aspect in the relationship between man and animal is usually mentioned by the written media as it is more likely easier to understand by the targeted audience. However, it is also important to understand the emotional viewpoint of animals, especially those which are an integral part to human existence and society, as it can help foster a better understanding in every human being, regardless of whether or not he or she interacts with animals.
Before the presence of sympathy in animals can be discussed, one should understand the definition of the concept of sympathy itself. Sympathy is a rather easy concept to act upon but difficult to decipher accurately. Through sympathy, one might aid a person in distress for no self-benefit but purely due to good nature. According to philosopher Adam Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, every person on this Earth has the capability to feel or even automatically be affected by a wave of sympathy at least once in his or her lifetime. As Smith states, “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him,
There has been a time at one point in a person’s life where they were given a task they did not want to do. Sometimes it has to be done. The the short story The Rattler, a mane is talking a walk through a desert setting. His walked was suddenly stopped when he saw a dangerous looking snake, at first glance anyway. He was faced with the task of killing the snake. When the task was complete, he was not thrilled. In The Rattler, the author creates the effect of empathy for the man and sympathy for the snake. The techniques used to achieve that are the description of the man, description of the snake, the setting.
When in times of danger, people must often take the actions they see best fit. In "The Rattler," the author depicts a vivid story of a man who has to make a difficult choice while facing a rattlesnake in the desert. Despite the man seeing a threat in the snake, it is him that becomes a threat to the other. By using the descriptions of the man, the snake and the specific setting, the author affects the reader by creating a sense of empathy for the narrator and sympathy for the snake. With such a connection, it adds a greater depth to the story for the reader to analyze.
Many things do have feelings when you think they don't have feelings. Many things are not exactly what it seems. Animals have many similarities and differences to humans. Starting with the story the pod.
Jeremy Rifkin in the article " A Change of Heart about Animals" argues on the fact that as incredible as it sounds, many of our fellow creatures as like us in so many ways. For example, in a movie named Paulie a young girl that suffers autism gets attached to a parrot. The girl struggles to talk but she just can't. Time passes by and then the girl starts talking because the parrot helped her. An incident happened so the little girl's parents decide to let the parrot go. The parrot ends up in an animal testing lab but somehow he managed to escape. The parrot begins to miss his owner because he formed a bond with a human being. Obviously, this proves Rifkin is right when he states that animals experience feelings like human beings.
When it comes to animals, everyone seems to have an opinion. Some love them, some hate them. Some believe that animals feel and experience authentic emotions, while others believe that they do not have the capability to do so. A lack of belief in the existence of emotions in animals is often used to justify wrongful treatment. Are some animals more aware of feelings than others? These questions and more demand answers. Animals definitely have emotions, and because of this we must rethink many of our modern practices.
Studies have shown that the children who grow up in homes with animals have a better ability to show empathy later and as adults. Pets are easy to communicate with, and their body language is much simpler than a human’s. This simple body language allows children to learn to empathize with them, a skill they can carry with them as they go through life (Holistic Online, 2007).
In Chapter two of Moral, Believing Animals Christian Smith argues that human beings are moral animals because they are strong self-evaluators who inhabit morally based orders. In the next chapter, smith adds that humans are moral animals because they also believe. This ability to believe and act morally allows humans to stray away from our instinctive minds. In other words, it is apart of what makes us human. Smith finds that this way of viewing humans provides a better account of human religiousness. Religion is the manifestation of our capacity to be self-conscious. Smith uses Narrative morality writing to help explain his views on religion and human beings, which allow us to recognize our true moral capacity.
Contrary to what we might think, animals share similar characteristics with us in terms of their physical and psychological states. Jeremy Rifkin, author of twenty books on the impact of scientific and technological changes on the society and the environment, writes in his op-ed piece “A Change of Heart about Animals,” research which supports animals have behavioral, mental, and emotional states. Koko, a gorilla, was taught how to use sign language and has mastered more than 1,000 signs and can understand several thousand English words. To express their sense of individuality, orangutans use mirrors to explore parts of their bodies they can 't otherwise see. A common misconception is animals can 't feel anything, meaning they don’t understand suffering. However, elephants appear to experience grief by mourning for the dead and standing next to their dead kin for days (Rifkin). Also according to Victoria Braithwaite, a Professor of Fisheries and Biology interested in animal cognition, studies in her article "Hooked on a Myth" suggests nociceptors, specialized nerve endings that alert creatures to feel pain, are found in the mouths of fish. This study proves animals have the ability to experience pain. Rifkin’s
Sympathy is a feeling. When you feel pity or sorrow towards another individual, that is considered sympathy. Sympathy is something that we should keep alive and exercise, as it affects our principles. That’s not a bad thing. Being able to show sympathy and empathy towards others makes us human. We are rational beings and have feelings. Sympathy is relatable to virtue ethics, which allows your feelings to affect your decisions. Good character comes from making the right decisions. While our feelings are most affected by those we love, our feelings are also impacted by total strangers.
I think every single day we are personally connected with animals. We eat animals for food, wear animal skins for clothes, own animals as pets, use animals for recreation, and experiment on animals to test drugs and consumer products. We are aware of this, yet we naturally give little thought to the overwhelming number of animals that we use in these ways, and what the animals themselves might be suffering as we use them for our purposes. While no non-human animal on this planet has the cultured rational abilities that we do, many, however, have mental capacities that enable them to experience pain, suffering, and anxiety
Furthermore, I argue that sympathy Smith conceives sympathy as internal sense of perception which informs moral judgment, divorcing judgment from self-interested or rational calculus, and provides the necessary information for survival of man in society and for the survival of society itself. Moreover, since it is implanted by a benevolent author of nature it is a universal power all mankind possesses, therefore, mankind responds in a universal way to world of matter of fact. Mankind either consciously or unconsciously from their built in mechanism which directs mankind toward as end. Smith is not a moral sceptic. I think it is proper to use Smith’s remarks of the sensation of heat and cold as an analogy of how sympathy
In the article “A Change of Heart about Animals” Jeremy Rifkin uses scientific evidence to reason with us that “many of our fellow creatures are more like us than we had ever imagined”. Rifkin suggests that animals should be treated better and be provided with better living conditions. He uses Betty and Koko as examples that animals have higher intellectual abilities and emotions than we thought. Many scientists also argued that animals do not have an understanding of death or capable of grief, but Rifkin counteracts that argument by using elephants as evidence to show that they are capable of grief.
The article “A Change of Heart About Animals” written by Jeremy Rifkin informs readers that animals feel emotions very much similar to humans and should be given more rights. I agree with Rifkin’s statement, but to a certain extent.
Both in and out of philosophical circle, animals have traditionally been seen as significantly different from, and inferior to, humans because they lacked a certain intangible quality – reason, moral agency, or consciousness – that made them moral agents. Recently however, society has patently begun to move beyond this strong anthropocentric notion and has begun to reach for a more adequate set of moral categories for guiding, assessing and constraining our treatment of other animals. As a growing proportion of the populations in western countries adopts the general position of animal liberation, more and more philosophers are beginning to agree that sentient creatures are of a direct moral concern to humans, though the degree of this
Do animals feel joy, love, fear, anguish or despair? What ere emotions, and perhaps more importantly, how do scientists prove animals are capable of emotion? Sea lion mothers have often been seen wailing painfully and squealing eerily as they watch their babies being eaten by killer whales. Buffaloes have also been observed sliding playfully across ice, excitedly screaming “Gwaaa.” Emotions are defined broadly as psychological phenomena that help in behavioral management and control. This is a challenging question to researchers who are trying to determine the answer to this question. Through current research by close observation combined with neurobiological research, evidence that animals exhibit fear, joy