Journal 15—Animals Like Us
- In the second paragraph of the second page in this text, Jim Thompson had worked in a poultry research laboratory where is main job was to dispatch baby chicks at the end of experiments. He received a magazine from his mother on animal activism and read it. After reading the magazine, he never ate meat again. I can relate to this in a small way as to I also am a slight animal activist and a vegetarian (more on that to come in this response page). His moral obligations have changed after reading a different viewpoint which hit hard to home with him and his daily job.
- Moral acceptability is a major point in this text. Sam, a boa constrictor, is seen to be a deadly killer because boa constrictors require flesh to survive. They are meat eaters. The moral question at play in this section (paragraph 1, page 4) is “Given Sam’s need for meat, was it ethical to keep a boa constrictor for a pet?” I pondered this further and have a hard time deciding whether it’s moral or not as well. The author refutes this question by backing up that most American families own at least one cat in their homes. Cats eat their weight many times over each year in flesh as well, but no one really talks about that. I think, if a cat is morally acceptable to have as a pet, so would a boa constrictor who eats much less flesh per year.
- Speaking of cats, 2 million are euthanized each year for being “unwanted” by people—mostly just left and unadopted for many years in animal shelters. On the last paragraph of page 4, the author poses the question as to whether it would make sense to give these carcasses and make them available to snake owners. I would agree to this statement as it would be less of a waste of biomaterial and put to good use as snakes need a source of food as well. However, there is a tighter moral connection to cats as pets than snakes, which makes event the author feel guilty about when thinking about feeding to a snake.
- In the fourth paragraph of page 7, the author goes on to explain the stages of people and their stances on eating meat or not. She refers to herself as part of the “troubled middle” group—between people who are stark animal activists who do not consume meat and those who are polar-opposites. She explains that the ethical obligations to animals are very murky in humans. While people do not support, say, testing toxic cleaners and makeup products on animals, they could also completely be in support of using animals as a way to biomedically test for cancers and such. Both are immoral to some, but necessary for us humans. I would have to side with the people in the troubled middle. Even though I’m a vegetarian, I am not doing it for animal activism. I was raised a vegan from my parents and due to such, my body does not make the enzymes necessary to digest meat in a pleasant way. Needless to say, though, I am strongly for the ethical use of animals. I work at a laboratory on campus where we test on rats and mice. They are bred in the lab, and live their lives in the lab in full. They do not know what the wild is, nor will they ever. After their jobs are complete, they are peacefully euthanized in the most humane way possible. Our morality in that case is, why keep a rodent alive after they’ve fulfilled their biomedical testing role for us? They’ll just live their lives in a boring cage, with low stimulus, wasting resources, and not having their fully biological potentials seen.
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