Friday, April 17, 2009
Animals and Economy
This is a response to the Animals and Economy post. I also have read about the increase of animals at animal shelters. The lady that was interview was very upset and said, "She was losing a family member. " It is sad that the economy affects animals who have no control over the problem and doesn't understand the problem. When watching the segment you could tell the animals were confused and upset. It shows that animals do have feeling and connections to people. Animals do matter, because they do have feelings, interests and emotions.
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I agree completely that it is evident that animals have sentience and the innate abilities to feel. After looking up the increase of animals in animal shelters and how the future is not hopeful for many of these animals, I do not understand how someone of an absolute dismissal philosophy could turn a blind eye to the plight of these animals and act as though they have no ability to feel preference, i.e. to prefer to live in a home or to live in an animal shelter. Furthermore, I think that this also shows that Midgley is correct in not dismissing emotions in arguments because they are valuable in discussing problems and often motivate more action than cold, scientific rationalism. Emotions motivate people to change things, in this case in aiding homeless animals, and that can be far more powerful than using statistics to reason out environmental thoughts. Although emotion should not be the only driving factor, it is important to incorporate passion into a cause or a even a belief/conception/idea/debate. Stories about increasing numbers in animals shelters just helped realize that, to me, absolute dismissal seems completely impossible. I don't know how anyone could ignore the plight of animals when their sentience is so evident.
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