The book, Animals and Why They Matter, is hard for me to understand for the most part. In order to to get a full understanding of the text and what Midgley is trying to say I have to reread the passages over and over again. Midgley starts the book talking about the lifeboat ethic which was also discussed in Kohak's book. Midgley states that this model is inaqeduate for most situations where it is applied to human affairs because we are not usually in lifeboats. We are never in lifeboats becuase in these situations there is only one choice. Us as humans never have just one choice to make because most of the time we are never in moral situations where this is needed. The situations that we face are not just black and white, but are far more compicated than that.
Also in this chapter, Midgley discusses competition and states that is it "real, but not limited." She describes competition in a sense that creatures are always in a competition with each other, especially if they are using the same limited resources. She also says that this competition is in proportion to the limitation. With this competition, of the two competing species, one will eventually vanish. This is evident in the real world because many species are going extint from lack of resources.
Along with this idea of competition, Migley makes a comparison of a hunter and an elephant. She says a quote that I thought was really disturbing becuase it is completely true for some people. "An elephant killed for strictly competitive reasons--for necessary meat, or to save crops--ought not to be kept waiting, half-killed, while those in charge have their coffee." This quote really appealed to me because non-humane people would definately do this, without a doubt. They would half-way kill the animal and make it suffer just because they can.
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