The Lowest Animal Summary

Animals by Simon Rich is an outstanding short story which takes a unique perspective on the everyday life in a classroom. The story is written from the point of view of a hamster who spends his tortured life entrapped in a cage. From the first point in this story, it is clear that the purpose of the writing is not to understand the hamster, but rather to analyze the different actions of the people, and to discover that how they act towards the hamsters reflects on their character. It is curious to view the everyday interactions of people through a different set of eyes, that is done by humanizing the narrator’s perspective. Based on the actions of the many people and the treatment of the class pet, the author suggests that human nature is very much a product of the financial circumstances a person is subjected to.

The statement that can best be made about the purpose of The Lowest Animal by Mark Twain is that he believes that mankind is immoral, vulgar, wasteful, vengeful, discriminatory; cruel, greed, and obscene. This is because he has a moral sense and conscience despite this, doesn’t make our decisions right and properly. However, contrast with Mark Twain’s thesis; I think human beings are not that all bad and not the lowest animal, but perhaps not the highest animal either.

Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones -- not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.” This is his final example to show that human beings are the lower species. However, I disagree with this experiment, I do not believe that the experiment would end this way. People of different backgrounds are able to live alongside each other, and even become friends. Twain’s theory is disproved by communities great and small, neighborhoods, countries, and the world. If people were truly as evil and violent as Twain makes them out to be, we would have no civilization, no law, and no

Mark Twain theorizes that man is in fact the so called “lower animal” and has descended from a single atom to insect to animal from a long line of innocence. The lowest stage would be reached and would become known as the human being. Twain counter argues the popular theory of Darwinism which could be considered controversial. However, he conducted experiments using the scientific method to provide evidence to his claim: the principle of human morality, as disputed in “The Damned Human Race”, has seemingly not evolved to the same extent of the morals of what he believes to be the “higher animals”. Moral sense as defined by Twain is the quality that enables wrong doing. Without this this “sense” man would not be capable of doing wrong.

First of all, man has been killing since the beginning of time. Even in the Bible, Cain killed Abel and that was in the very beginning of time thousands and thousands of years ago. It seems it is human nature to kill and

They show the utmost kindness for one another and the planet they live on. On the other hand, there are many species of animals that kill just because they can. Part of the reasoning behind this is that numerous animals have tendencies of aggressiveness. There is no reasoning behind it, but is clearly found in their innate and learned behaviors.

The purpose of the reading for Mark Twain was to show: “That the human race is of one distinct species. That other animals also more or less distinct and that they are in the procession. They are links in the chain which stretches down from the higher animals to man at the bottom” (Twain). He eases his readers into his claims strategically by presenting his facts and findings. He frantically unravels as he depicts his findings to show the believed evidence as he attempts to stake his claim.

Mark Twain, in his essay¨, The lowest Animal¨,(1896), Mark Twain argues that human beings are not on the same ¨level with other animals¨.He claims that humans are the most lowest animals in the world. He announced that humans are the most idiotic creatures and that humans starts wars for no reason. Mark Twain suggest the problem for humans, that they are reveal as the lowest animal. Mark Twain explain the humans for being shelfless, cold hearted and less intellligent then the rest of the animals.To his audience Mark Twain revealed the humans problems not being reasonable with mankind. Fur the audience to know humans weakness to mankind.

The idea that all humans are born equal has been something that has been almost installed in our minds. However, in the eyes of Peter Singer, we as humans are constantly violating our own moral code in the way we treat animals. Singer refers to this as speciesism and compares our treatment of animals to the same way sexists and racists treat those who they deem inferior. He also argues that the grounds on which they base their prejudice on are equally fragile. He illustrates this by comparing speciesists to racists. He recalls, “The racists violates the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of his own race…similarly the speciesist allows the interests of his own species to override the greater interests of members of another species” (53.) He initiates this argument by explaining how our willingness to declare all humans as equal when the opposite is fundamentally true. Singer writes, “Like it or not, we must face the fact that humans come in different shapes and sizes; they come with differing moral capacities, differing intellect…if the demand for equality was based on the actual equality of all human beings, we would have to stop demanding equality” (51). Singer seeks to establish that our push for equality ends once the being in question is no longer human. Once he establishes this, he can quickly draw parallels between our unequal treatment of animals and humans. He evolves what initially begins as a far-fetched claim to a nuanced and

Humans are a unique species because they have possess the ability to reason. Other animal species only have instinct, thus making them less smart. In Richard Connell’s short story “The Most Dangerous Game”, it tells of a hunter named Rainsford who got stranded on Ship-Trap Island. Zaroff hunted Rainsford on the island, but in the end Rainsford killed Zaroff . In “The Most Dangerous Game”, the author uses imagery, setting, and characterization to suggest that instinct is better than reasoning.

Again we must look at the means he used to come up with this theory. Mark Twain who is known for his fictional stories has once again added to his fictional collection with this work. The facts Twain states about man are all true, the issue that animals do these same things only in a different form and venue. With all the bias, exaggeration, and lack of actual proof; truthfulness is lost in Twain’s portrayal of human nature. He ascribes no linking chain to animals and humans.

Mark Twain and Stephen Gould have different views about the nature of man. Mark Twain believes that the nature of man is lower than that of an animal, and Stephen Gould believes that the nature of man is good. My view on the nature of man is somewhere in between good and bad. I don’t believe that the nature of man is entirely bad and I don’t believe it’s entirely good. I believe it’s

One of the most controversial topics in modern philosophy revolves around the idea of non-human animals being considered human people. Controversy over what makes up an actual person has been long debated. However, society deems it as a set of characteristics. The average person normally does not realize how complicated a question this is, and in fact many scientists, philosophers, and individuals will side differently on this specific topic. I personally do not believe that animals are capable of being human people, but throughout this argumentative paper I will address critical views presented from multiple philosophers on why this seems to be the case.

     Conversely, there exist equally as many challenges to raise had the ethicist taken the alternate position that animals have equal value and accordingly that their pleasure is impermissibly infringed upon when they are killed for human interest. Arguments could be presented for a bevy of actions taken on a daily basis by society as a whole. One might address the fact that using animal testing for the advancement of medicine has benefits that outweigh the pains. Similarly, while the development of land effectively kills the previously animal inhabitants, it is an accepted result that society has displayed it is willing to disregard. In each of these cases, the majority of society condones such behavior, as evidenced by their

In his article “All Animals Are Equal,” Peter Singer discusses the widely-held belief that, generally speaking, there is no more inequality in the world, because all groups of formerly oppressed humans are now liberated. However, it often goes without notice that there are groups of nonhuman animals that continue to face unequal treatment, such as those that are consumed or used as scientific test subjects. Singer’s article criticizes the belief that because humans are generally more intelligent than nonhuman animals, then all humans are superior to all nonhuman animals. Singer argues that intelligence is an arbitrary trait to base the separation of humans and nonhumans, and declares that the only trait that one can logically base moral value is the capacity to have interests, which is determined by a creature’s ability to suffer. Singer explains that in order to stay consistent with the basic principle of equality, anything that has the capacity to suffer ought to have its needs and interests recognized, just as humans’ needs and interests are currently recognized through what he calls “equal consideration.” In this paper, I will explain Singer’s notion of equal consideration as the only relevant sense of equality and why it applies to the rights of both human and nonhuman species that are