I think that what we learned on class on Friday was very interestering. Kohak stands very strong in some of his beliefs, and his readings and the notes from Friday taught me so new things. It has crossed my mind to be a vegeterian but never because I thought it was morally wrong to kill an animal. The Great Chain of Being does a really good job bringing everything in life to reality. It shows what we consider to be the most important on top and the lowest importance on bottom. It clearly shows that animals are below people. Before our converstaion in class on Friday I think I always just kind of thought like De-Cartes thought. Animals are raw material; they lack mind or spirit, so they are just machines. However, I am a hypocrit and only apply that rule to some animals. I have had pets and clearly they are very special to me. I side with Arthur Schopenhauer when it comes to animals that we would consider to be good animals for pets. I show extreme compassion to anything that can suffer.
All of the Philosophers that We talked about in class all had different points of view on how they thought things below us on the Great Chain of Being should be treated, especially animals. Peter Singer wrote a book for animal rights and said that we have obligations to prevent animal suffering if possible. Kant said we do have obligations to animals but they are indirect. There are many other philosophers, but these were some of the ones that I thought to be most interesting.
The more that I have thought about all of this the more intrigued I get. This is a topic that is much more complicated than I ever imagined it could be. I am not even sure that I agree if there is actually a right or wrong answer. I will not become a vegetarian because of all of these new ideas that I have learned, but it will make me think twice now about animals when I see them or when I am eating meat.
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