Article Review: Animals like Us
Jimmy Betulia
3/29/14
Joe Selvaggio
English 101s MW 9am
Essay 2
A Higher Plane In the essay, “Animals Like Us” by Hal Herzog discusses the “trouble middle”, and whether or not humans have ethical obligations to animals. By troubled middle, Herzog means the problem between killing certain animals for food. For example, we don’t think twice about killing a cow for beef but to us (people in America) it is unethical to kill dogs for food. Yet, in some other countries it is okay to kill a dog for food. It is quite the troubled middle that most of us are in if the situation is given some thought. I think we do have obligations to animals, however, it really depends on what kind of animals and how obligated we feel towards them pending where we are from. In some countries it is okay to eat animals, and some other countries it might not be okay to eat an animal like that. Some cultures think of certain animals as a god where some other cultures might just think of that same animal as a meal. The more thought this situation is given the more difficult it seems to be. To eat a burger or have a piece of bacon doesn’t take much though, most people don’t think twice about eating it. But to eat a dog or cat in American society is something that we do frown upon and that is just wrong to us. Does this mean we do have ethical obligations to animals? To a point, yes we do. People have a decent sense of what is ethical to animals and what isn’t. We raise animals, that’s ethical if you ask me, but eating them after we raise them. Is that ethical? Are we helping with the circle of life? This is what the philosopher Strachan Donnelley calls “The Murky ethical territory”(247). It’s a very difficult situation. Herzog says, “Ethical Judgment puts humans on a different moral plane from that of other animals” (247). What he means by this is that humans, well most humans, think before they do something. We have ethical backgrounds. Animals don’t, or do they? We have a lot
3/29/14
Joe Selvaggio
English 101s MW 9am
Essay 2
A Higher Plane In the essay, “Animals Like Us” by Hal Herzog discusses the “trouble middle”, and whether or not humans have ethical obligations to animals. By troubled middle, Herzog means the problem between killing certain animals for food. For example, we don’t think twice about killing a cow for beef but to us (people in America) it is unethical to kill dogs for food. Yet, in some other countries it is okay to kill a dog for food. It is quite the troubled middle that most of us are in if the situation is given some thought. I think we do have obligations to animals, however, it really depends on what kind of animals and how obligated we feel towards them pending where we are from. In some countries it is okay to eat animals, and some other countries it might not be okay to eat an animal like that. Some cultures think of certain animals as a god where some other cultures might just think of that same animal as a meal. The more thought this situation is given the more difficult it seems to be. To eat a burger or have a piece of bacon doesn’t take much though, most people don’t think twice about eating it. But to eat a dog or cat in American society is something that we do frown upon and that is just wrong to us. Does this mean we do have ethical obligations to animals? To a point, yes we do. People have a decent sense of what is ethical to animals and what isn’t. We raise animals, that’s ethical if you ask me, but eating them after we raise them. Is that ethical? Are we helping with the circle of life? This is what the philosopher Strachan Donnelley calls “The Murky ethical territory”(247). It’s a very difficult situation. Herzog says, “Ethical Judgment puts humans on a different moral plane from that of other animals” (247). What he means by this is that humans, well most humans, think before they do something. We have ethical backgrounds. Animals don’t, or do they? We have a lot