Course Reflection

Entering into to English 802, and exploring the topic of animal ethics, I was experiencing my first college english class. The topics and ideas discussed throughout this course forced me to re-evaluate the way I think and view everything in life. The research that we went through this semester often felt gruiling and time consuming, but when I look back and see how effective and supportive these "small fixtures" are within a peice. The readings formed a mental and ethical battle within all of us, ideas such as Tom Regan's moral agents and moral patients, "in contrast to moral agents, moral patients lack the prerequisites that would enable them to control their own behavior in ways that would make them morally accountable for what they do"(19). This idea challenges the idea of animal consiousness and intelligence of non-human animals. Then we were faced with the question of what are the prerequisites for obtaining "rights" and ethical , protection, and the hidden prejudice we hold against them, as stated by Paola Cavalieri "speciesm-as was defined, with a neoologism that alludes to the parallel intra-human prejudices, the view that grants to the members of our own species a privileged status with respect to all other creaures"(31). I feel that this course helped me so much with my insight, and it helped me to reflect on not only life but my choices in it.