In his lectures about the way humans treat animals offered at Princeton University, John Coetzee chose to tell his audience a short fictional story about Elizabeth Costello, an aging female novelist. Costello is invited to give a lecture at Appleton College in any topic she wants, which turns out to be about animals. At first, using a story in a lecture seemed to be interesting, but a story about a novelist delivering a lecture should not be more interesting than Coetzee himself giving a lecture. Considering the controversy that usually results from a discussion about animals’ rights, it is also likely that Coetzee chose Costello to be the speaker instead of him because he wanted to detach himself from the discussion of such topic and be …show more content…
Her son, John Bernard, realizes not only that his mother is talking about her death but also that she is going to connect it to the deaths of animals. He also “has a strong sense that [the] audience—which consists, after all, mainly of young people—wants death-talk even less” (Coetzee 19). Costello also notices the difference between her and the audience’s interest when she says “…I have no reason to believe that you have at the forefront of your minds what is being done to animals at this moment in production facilities”, and avoid talking about the deaths of animals explicitly (Coetzee 19). However, since the purpose of her lectures is to question the way humans treat animals, it is inevitable that she uses “rhetorical power to evoke these horrors” of animals’ deaths (Coetzee 19). Thus, she cannot ignore a huge gap between her and her audience. The difference between Costello and her audience is parallel to the gap that humans create between them and animals.
The other reason that alienates Costello from Appleton community is that she is a female novelist. Most of the people who criticize Costello’s argument are male. One of them is a “tall, bearded man” who asks Costello to clarify the points she tries to make in her first lecture, and he is not satisfied when Costello cannot give him a single solid answer (Coetzee 36). Here we notice the
Throughout history, humans have utilized nonhuman animals for the benefit of mankind. This tendency increased as civilization developed, and presently, necessitated by staggering population growth and technological progress, human use of animals has skyrocketed. We eat them, we breed them, we use them as test subjects. Some people have begun to question the ethics of it all, sparking a debate on animal treatment and whether or not they have rights. In a paper on the subject, Carl Cohen lays out his definition of rights, explains their relationship with obligations, and uses these ideas to present the argument that manifests clearly in his piece’s title, “Why Animals Have No Rights”. THESIS
Hearne uses her superiority as an animal trainer and personal connection to animals in “What’s Wrong With Animal Rights” to convince the audience that animal rights should focus on the happiness of an
Throughout this speech Elizabeth Costello is critiquing the philosophical beliefs, and specifically philosophy of reason, because of the way they use reason as a way to create distance and justify our logic for abuse of animals suffering. She begins to make her case against philosophers by compares the horrible crimes of the holocausts to the killing of animals in slaughter houses as the same sin for the willful ignorance and killers. Many people of were offended by this comparison because philosophers have made us think we have a superiority to
Animal Intelligence Intelligence is defined as the ability to acquire and apply knowledge. Psychologists have exploited this concept in many ways to try and determine whether non-human animals are capable of intelligence. From social learning it is logical to assume that, since non-human animals are able to both acquire and use new behaviours, they must be intelligent in some way. Heyes stated that there are 6 types of behaviour which suggest intelligence. These are imitation, self-recognition, social relationship formation, role-taking, deception and perspective taking.
The deeper I dig into animal abuse , the more I want to become a vegetarian. But it is not easy as it seems. The things that I have seen and read makes me sick to my stomach. To watch a hopeless cow, get whipped , is sickening. Watching baby Chicklets die in a big machine , brings tears to my eyes. Millions of animals every day die cruel deaths , and I no longer want to be an accomplice to the crimes. While it may be hard to retrain myself , I should and intend to just stop eating meat.
“Hills Like White Elephants” is a short story that tells of a normal couples ostensibly shallow conversation. However, this conversation that is told from an objective point of view is particularly deep and calls for a thorough analysis. Through context clues and examination of keywords, one can infer that the conversation they’re having is about abortion; when looking at the specific symbols and words in the story, it becomes more clear that they topic of conversation is, in fact, a termination of pregnancy. In "Hills Like White Elephants," Ernest Hemingway uses symbolism and diction to illustrate a couple's conversation in a way that showcases the complexities of communication.
Peter Singer addresses the ordeal of animal rights better than I have ever seen anyone address it. His analysis laid out in A Utilitarian Defense of Animal Liberation is remarkably stated. He pushes the viewer to see animals as equals to us.
backs and they were dragging their hind legs (Reed 38). While in the lab, the
Animal rights are an important topic to discuss and review. The trouble is the vast diversity of how people see humans and animals and how they are different and yet the same. Animals are in every aspect of our lives in how they are utilized to make our lives easier, to sustain us, or as a pet. Unfortunately, the line of animals and humans blurs as the widely known belief that we are a derivation of an animal and we should treat them as we would ourselves. This viewpoint, however, can be taken to an extreme as we see pets that can be pampered quite a bit. Relating back to the four authors in our text, there is considerable controversy on how animals should be treated. While some interesting positions arise with the various authors, to
In our world, protests occur each day on the issues of animal cruelty and human rights, but when the issues are put together which will reign over the other? The author Peter Singer of “All Animals are Equal” and “Tools for Research” presents his argument for determining when animal experiments are justified. The author starts his paper with a counter argument, questioning if one would be willing to let thousands of people die if those people could be saved by experimentation on a single animal. The answer is a unanimous no; in our culture we value human life over everything else. The author follows by asking the reader if they would be prepared to carry out their experiments on humans who are mentally retarded or orphaned babies, if that
There is something about dolphins that fascinates me. They are some of the most intelligent and beautiful animals that I have ever seen. Their faces are so cute that every time I look at a dolphin it looks like it is smiling at me and wants to tell me something. The noises they make represent some kind of language and it makes me wonder if they can really communicate. I also want to know what kind of feeling they have and whether they have emotions. This is why I chose to do this I-search project on dolphins; the different kinds of dolphins there are, the places that they can be found and their mental abilities.
Argument for Animal Rights The argument for animal rights assumes that animals posses their own lives and deserve to be assigned rights in order to protect their wellbeing. This view insists that animals are not merely goods utilised only to benefit mankind and they should be allowed to choose how they want to live their lives, free from the constraints of man. But if animals are given absolute rights, then surely they shouldn’t be allowed to kill each other, as this would be a violation of these rights.
third world. Singer feels that since the people of the third world are so far
Non-human animals are given rights only because of their interactions with human beings. Without involvement with humans, animals do not deserve rights. It is through this interaction with humans that animals are even given moral consideration. We do not give rights to a rock simply because it is a creation of Mother Nature, similarly non-human animals do not have rights unless it is in regards to humans. As pointed out by Jan Narveson "morality is a sort of agreement among rational, independent, self-interested persons who have something to gain from entering into such an agreement" (192). In order to have the ability to obtain rights one must be consciously able to enter into an agreement, non-human animals are
There are several types of animals being used for research, but not surviving the test. Animals are similar to human beings; they have hearts just like human beings. Researchers have absolutely no sympathy for these animals, including the vicious ones. All animals need some type of affection from humans, or else there is a high possibility the animals will not survive. Personally, animal researching should be banned, but doing so, the researchers would have to find something else or someone else to test the products on to make sure the products are useable to humans.