Tracie Harrison

Reflection Assignment: Prior to this course I had an opinion based on research regarding human’s relationship and treatment of animals an opinion that was founded on a book I read by Michael Pollan called the Omnivore’s Dilemma a Natural History of Four Meals. Reading this work had me researching factory farming and sustainability of our agriculture system. I felt that author argument for a diet of cruel free meat products was a great alternative to the current exploitive system of confirmed animal feeding operations as opposed to a vegetarian diet. In his works the treatment of animals is the focus and how a correct ecological system can work with humans and animals together in an interdependent relationship.

However after taking this course and addressing the moral philosophical views of writers such as Tom Regan and Peter Singer I have had a change of heart. I have found their arguments for treating animals with the same moral consideration we treat fellow humans, was a more powerful argument towards vegetarianism.  Peter Singer theory address the rights of animals is their commonality with human to feel pleasure and pain. It is not through reasoning, or language and the ability to communicate that brings animals into a humans moral circle it is our equal interest in avoiding pain and suffering. This position paper expands on this idea.