Christopher WillnerProfessor Curran ENC 110227 January 2018Lobsters: Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Eat 'Em or Leave 'Em? In David Foster Wallace's essay, “Consider the Lobster,” Wallace argues that the suffering of animals (particularly lobsters) is a complicated and uncomfortable issue. However, despite the obvious, some people still disagree with Wallace. These people will most likely argue that because lobsters are not human, cooking them cannot be considered a moral decision. This statement is false because the process of cooking lobsters actually involves ethical considerations. Ethical considerations are defined as an accumulation of values and principles that address questions of what is good or bad in human affairs. This means that human beings have a certain morality that allows them to determine what is right or wrong. Wallace believes it is important to highlight some of the more difficult ethical questions emerging from the Maine Lobster Festival (MLF). To make his point, Wallace first claims that lobster is prepared right in front of oneself or alone in the kitchen. Use this approach as imagery to elicit the reader's emotions and beliefs. By using the setting of home, he makes the reader feel like he is the cook. He writes: "The basic scenario is that we come in from the shop and make our little preparations, like filling and boiling the kettle, then lifting the lobsters out of the bag... after which some uncomfortable things start to happen." (Wallace 467.) The discomfort begins soon after. Wallace goes on to write, “As stupefying as a lobster may be from the return journey, it tends to spring to life in an alarming manner when placed in boiling water. ...The lobster sometimes tries to cling to the sides of the container or even hook its claws on the edge of the kettle like a person trying to avoid falling off the edge of a roof. And worse yet… you can usually hear the lid rattling and rattling as the lobster tries to push it off” (Wallace 467.) The purpose of comparing the lobster to humans is to make the reader imagine they are going through what it's lobster. experimenting. That said, Wallace is simply trying to point out that lobsters meet the two criteria that ethicists use to determine whether an animal is capable of suffering: 1.) the amount of pain receptors the animal in question has, and 2. .) if the animal is capable of suffering. shows behavior associated with pain. And although Wallace says lobsters don't have a nervous system as advanced as humans, lobsters are highly sensitive animals capable of sensing incremental changes in temperature. Furthermore, once a lobster is immersed in the pot of boiling water, there is no denying that the struggle that comes from within is a sign of suffering and pain. To further strengthen his point, Wallace states that the lobster's scrambling behavior is a favorite. And since Wallace believes that showing a preference for one condition over another is an important indicator of suffering, Wallace concludes that lobsters are in fact capable of experiencing suffering. In raising these points, Wallace hopes to spark self-examination and analysis of readers' perspectives. about animal suffering. It confuses Wallace about how people justify eating animals for their own pleasure and taste experience. Instead, Wallace asks what moral justifications people have for rejecting such a claim. Overall, Wallace thinks this is a question.
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