Nick Triggs
Professor Jesse Miller
ENG-110 G
17 April 2019
To Eat or Not to Eat
In many things that humans do the question of whether it is ethical often arises. One of the
greatest ethical dilemmas is found in our relationship with animals. Most people grow up with a diet that
includes eating meat like beef and pork. With that in mind, a majority of those people do not take into
consideration the fact that these animals are living things with consciousness. People take value in certain
animals’ lives like cats and dogs, but when it comes to other animals like cows and chickens, the value
isn’t considered to be the same. Why do people eat animals like cow or chickens but are mortified at the
idea of eating a dog? What really determines a person’s outlook on the moral quandary that is our
relationship with animals and if that relationship is worth giving up for people.
David Foster Wallace uses his piece, Consider the Lobster, to talk about the issue of killing and eating
lobsters. Wallace uses the lobster as a way of depicting the inhumanity of the way that people boil
lobsters and not even bat an eye. Wallace provides plenty of evidence throughout the piece describing
how lobsters, like other animals, feel pain when they die. When visiting the Maine Lobster Festival for
the first time and after watching lobsters pile over one another into the worlds largest lobster pot Wallace
defends that the festival isn’t just a giant medieval torture-fest. He states, “I believe that animals are less
morally important than human beings…I have an obvious selfish interest in this belief, since I like to eat
certain kind of animals and want to be able to keep doing it.” (Wallace). Much like many other people,
Wallace enjoys eating meat even though he knows that the animal experiences pain when they are killed
for food. However, Wallace is not willing to stop eating meat. Wallace wrote Consider the Lobsteras a
Commented [JM1]: Very interesting hook, really gets
the readers attention.
Commented [JM2]: Good usage of rhetorical
questions, be sure to include another question mark at
t
way to get people to think about their values and the relationship that they have with animals in their
lives. For Wallace, he believes that his relationship is worth giving up in order to keep eating meat
In the piece Animals Like Usby Hal Herzog, Judith Black is a woman that thinks she has found a
solution to this ethical dilemma. When she was only twelve years old, she decided that killing animals is
wrong. With this in mind she became a vegetarian with a slight catch, “while it was quite obvious that
dogs and cats and cows and pigs are animals, it was equally clear to Judith that fish were not. They just
didn’t feel like animals to her. So for the next 15 years, this intuitive biological classification system
enabled Judith, who has a PhD in anthropology, to think of herself as a vegetarian, yet still experiences
the joys of smoked Copper River salmon.” (Herzog). After deciding to become a “vegetarian” she never
considered fish to be an animal, so she could keep eating fish. Judith was faced with the difficult decision
to either give up fish and still be a vegetarian or stop thinking of herself as a vegetarian. When Judith
gave up vegetarianism, she made a difficult decision that she wasn’t willing to give up eating meat. Like
Wallace, she realizes and accepts that our reasons for killing animals is ethically and morally
questionable, but she isn’t willing to give up eating meat for it. For Judith, being able to eat meat is more
important than being able to say that she is a vegetarian. Like Judith, David Foster Wallace knows that he
may not be taking the moral high ground by eating lobster or animals, despite the knowledge he has on
their treatment, he does not think giving up meat is not worth giving up for him. I believe that Herzog
chose to put in Judith’s story because it shows that people, even after many years of dedication, some
things are just not worth completely giving up for people. For other people giving up meat is an easy
decision and are more than willing to give up eating meat.
In the reading What the Crow Knows, by Ross Anderson, talks about the fact that animals are
capable of doing intelligent things, yet they are not really seen as conscious beings. Once on stops
ignoring an animal’s consciousness it makes eating meat a very difficult task. An ancient religion in India
known as Jainism follow the commandment that forbids violence against humans and animals. The
Commented [JM3]: This paragraph shows some
excellent support to your claim as well as some
unneeded information. I think you can take away from
some of the summary portion of his article and include
more support to the inhumane way of eating animals.
Commented [JM4]: Good support here, instead of
following it up with more of a summary maybe add in
some more explanation for why this part was an
important inclusion.
Commented [JM5]: Good job bringing in a comparison
between two of the articles and how they work together
in one claim.
followers of Jainism live a very restricting lifestyle in order to follow the commandment “The monks
refuse to eat root vegetables, lest their removal from the earth disturb delicate subterranean ecosystems.
Their white robes are cotton, not silk, which would require the destruction of silkworms. During monsoon
season, they forgo travel, to avoid splashing through puddles with microbes, whose existence Jains
posited well before they appeared under Western microscopes.” (Anderson). The monks that follow the
religion are capable of showing levels of restraint that a majority of people will never have. They believe
that animals are conscious beings that like humans, also experience emotions like fear, pain and sorrow.
When one makes the choice to become Jain, they essentially give up everything they have ever known
and trading it for nothing. The value that animals play in the world of Jainism is more than just taking the
moral high ground, it is taking a completely new lifestyle. The Jain monks decided that animals are equal
to humans and deserve the same treatment that we get
** Dear Nick,
Overall, this is a great start to your paper. I think that your ideas flow very nicely and
everything is cohesive. Just like most of my comments state, I think you can strengthen your
argument with more information put towards the arguments. If you draw away from the
summarizing and more on your thesis your paper will be even better. Just be sure to double
check for any grammar errors and try adding in some more quotations.
Commented [JM6]: Almost an extreme version here,
good inclusion. Maybe consider a comparison here to
another article.
