Part 1

1st segment-   

Main idea – Moral status of animals. Examples that Herzog uses to bring this idea to life, was how Judith Black and Joseph Weldon disagree about the moral status of fish. Judith somehow believed fish weren’t animals,  what a joke. She even had a PhD in anthropology.  This supports the main idea because a human who has an effect on animals, had the mental vision that fish weren’t animals, therefore they had no rights.

2nd segment- 

Main idea- Questioning the morality of keeping pets. Jim Thompson the 25 year old doctoral student in mathmatics worked in a poultry research lab.  A spontanous life changing, career altering moment occurred when Jim read an animal conservation magazine. The Animals agenda, which caused him to never eat meat again, forever becoming a vegetarian. This scaffolds the idea of morality of pets because if you believe animals are living beings, with a conscious, then you view them as equal. Many compassionate people have this attitude toward nature.

 

3rd segment- 

Main idea- Moral implications of keeping a predator for a pet. Herzog introduces his personal experience when he kept a boa constrictor on his home, and fed it meat. Some individuals, particularly human rights activist look down upon the notion of feeding snakes cats. Because cats are animals, and they shouldn’t be subjected to death in that manner. The argument that snakes shouldn’t eat meat like cats, but everyone who has cats feeds them meat from a can, which theoretically is the same thing. Also, when a predator captures and kills its prey, theres nothing more natural than that. Another argument of the stat that animal shelters euthanize 2 million cats, which instead could be fed to predators that require that nutrients. This connects to the idea of moral implications of keeping a predator because the idea of putting an animals inside the cage for the sole purpose to get eaten is sickening to Herzog

4th segment- 

Morally problematic interactions between people and animals. When the graduate student Ron Neilor was studying how the brain reorganizes itself after injury. His dramatic experience of surgically destroying specific parts of their brain, and then creating a relationship with these cats who were subjects of this study. Only in turn to have to kill them and cut open their heads to examine brain tissue. This procedure is referred to as perfusion. This relates to the idea of people running into problematic interactions with animals, Ron became tense, withdrawn and shaky do to his experience. His personality changed dramatically. Having negative effects both on humans and animals.

 

 

Part 2

My first reaction was “wow”, because that is very unusual for a family in America. More similar to  the  culture in Asia, and the ways they use their dogs. Just a little surprised to hear the decision they made as a whole. After the scenario explained that they would be celebrating the dogs life and appreciating the taste, I don’t view this as a bad thing.  I think a family has the right to do whatever they want with their animals once they’re no longer living. This is common practice in places around the world.

Describing what I would do if I was a member of that family 

I would probably research dog meat and know a little before I did that. I would be taken by surprise if I was apart of that family,

4 reasons explaining my actions if apart of dog eating family.

My 1st action is,  I would part take in the meal. Mostly because it interests me to experience what dog meat tastes like.

A 2nd action I would take, is googling information about eating dogs and things of that nature, purely because I would be curious to know more about dogs and their meat going into it

A 3rd action  I would take is finding out the “most popular” part of dog to eat, or the most “tasty”. The more I know the better.

The 4th action I would assert, would be to talk to my dad about it, who obviously has some experience in the manner.

Conducting Experimet 

What is wrong with eating dog meat ? This is more of an opinion than anything else. Dogs in this culture, are viewed as members of the family. People would never eat a person but a dog is considered okay, because it’s a certain type of animal.  Humans are a specific animal too. We have meat and bones and a lot of things the dog has. Morally, some view dog eating as evil, the idea of eating something we interact with can be hard to grasp ethically. An experiment to conduct, would be to feed people some chicken, steak, and dog meat. Not tell anyone until after the experiment what kind of meat they ate, record opinions about their experience before and after finding out what kind it was.  Look out for their stance on eating dogs, to change based on this experiment.

Part 3

When Herzog says he sits in the troubled middle on many ethical issues, he’s refers to his own conflictions about ethical obligations to animals. The philosopher Strachan Donnelley coins the term’ troubled middle” Someone who doesn’t eat as much meat as they used to, someone who opposes testing oven cleaner on animals but is for animal testing if it means a possibility to curing human diseases like cancer. The most logical way of explaining a “troubled mind”. Is these people see the world in shades of gray versus clear black and white.