MEET YOUR MEAT

THEORY: Imagine if we treated humans the way we treat (some species of) animals? Imagine you heard of a society that cages, tortures, and ultimately slaughters humans and then turns their dead bodies into meat for their sandwiches? The question arises: Are we any better than they are, since we do the same to cows, pigs and chickens? What if they didn't eat humans, just dogs and cats. Why is ok to us to eat pigs, but not dogs?

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In 1975, Australian philosopher Peter Singer posed these questions in his seminal work Animal Liberation and it in many ways launched the modern vegetarian movement. What do you think? What are you eating today?

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INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Read the Introduction to Animal Liberation.

2. Watch this brief video documenting a modern factory farm

3. Write a 1 page reflection:. Reconstruct Singer's argument that eating animals is "speciesism." Do you agree? Why or why not? What impact did the video have on you? How did the video and reading impact you differently, and what does this teach us about what makes you think? Does it reveal anything universal about the impact of emotions vs. reason? (e.g. is one more convincing than the other?)