Tumblr do Rafael is a tumblelog.

The trouble with arguments for treating animals as equals is that the language of rights and responsibility implies, above all, reciprocity. We believe it to be wrong for whites to take blacks as slaves, and wrong for blacks to enslave whites. Yet animals themselves are generally far crueller to other animals in the wild than we are to them in civilization; though we may believe it to be unethical for us to torment a lion, few would say it is unethical for the lion to torment the gazelle. To use the language of oppression on behalf of creatures that in their natures must be free to oppress others is surely to be using the wrong moral language. A language of compassion is the right one: we should not be cruel to lions because they suffer pain. We don’t prevent the lion from eating the gazelle because we recognize that he is, in the fine old-fashioned term, a dumb animal —not one capable of reasoning about or really altering his behavior on ethical grounds, and therefore not rightly covered by the language of rights. Dogs, similarly, deserve protection from sadists, but not deference to their need for, say, sex. We can neuter them with a clear conscience, because abstinence is not one of their options.