Apparently Humans are More Important

                Peter Singer notes that Coetzee’s lecture is a lecture within a lecture. (This kind of reminded me of the movie Inception.) By that, I mean that Coetzee is telling his lecture through the narration of a female novelist named Costello. Furthermore, Costello is telling her fictional account/lecture. Singer, in his reflection of J.M. Coetzee and The Lives of Animals argues that “normal humans have capacities that far exceed those of nonhuman animals, and some of these capacities are morally significant in particular contexts”  and that when it comes to how humans inflict pain on animals, we must approach it with equal thought and feeling (Singer 87). Singer begins his reflection with a conversation between himself and his daughter, Naomi. This writing technique gives Singer's reflection a rather personal touch and tries to make the topics at hand seem a little less critical and serious. At one point, Naomi asks whether her father would save her or the dog Max if the house was on fire. Singer’s answer to this is that Naomi has always had a plan for her future, whereas Max does not know what he will be doing next week or even tomorrow for that matter. Therefore, he would choose to save the human rather than the non-human. Personally, I don’t agree with this reasoning because I believe that animals do have a sense of intuition, and that when there is some sort of routine implemented into their lives, they are going to remember it and follow it. I mean yes, if I had to decide between saving a human and an animal, I would save the human first, but for different reasons that Singer has mentioned. To me, this all connects back to moral judgement and the fact that animals do deserve to have equal rights and fair treatment. Furthermore, he argues that any painless and unanticipated form of killing of animals is okay to do. Naomi’s counter argument to this is that “we are doing them (animals) a wrong by ending their lives, and we don’t make up for it when we bring another dog or pig into existence” (Singer 89).  Once more, I completely disagree with Singer. Just because there are more dogs being bred does not mean that a new puppy can replace the painless death of another dog. A person does not have the same type of bond with every dog they come across or own in their lifetime. Would a parent be alright with someone taking their child away from them and replacing it with another baby? No, because the painless killing of one human or non-human is not justified by merely replacing them with another. Ultimately, Singer believes that there is more to lose with human existence than there is with animal existence. 

(Peter Singer)

Also, this TED talk relates to the topics covered by Peter Singer as well as the topics covered by Tom Regan, who was in the recommended readings  for the lecture on 5/13.