Summary Of Alice Walter And Ted Kerasote's Ethical Dilemma
1057 Words5 Pages
When looking at things from an ethical perspective, one has to consider how to protect and preserve the basic needs of others as well as their own. There is no difference here when dealing with the well being of animals. Alice Walter and Ted Kerasote are two individuals who deal with ethical issues regarding the well being of animals, and while their stories are vastly different, their main points have overlapping similarities. In Anthony Weston’s A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox, both Walter and Kerasote’s experiences are explicitly detailed through Walter’s essay, “Am I Blue?,” and Kerasote’s excerpt from Bloodties: Nature, Culture, and the Hunt. Throughout both of their experiences, Weston’s three-part concept of ethics is put into full-effect.…show more content… Alice showed a great fondness for Blue, which has helped her realize that Blue had not the slightest bit of fondness for his own life. Through paying attention, Alice sees this through the expression Blue gives her: “I was therefore unprepared for the expression in Blue’s. Blue was horribly lonely and bored.” (Weston 34). This makes her realize that she has forgotten how possible it is for humans and animals to communicate with one another, showing a variety of feelings without ever expressing the need to engage in conversation through speech. In being conscientious towards Blue, Alice feeds him the apples, but sadly she knows that it would not be enough to change Blue’s outlook on life. Eventually, Blue was given a friend, a female horse named Brown, and though it took him a while to warm up to her, he was able to share a great bond with her, and Alice sees how happy he has become because of it: “When he did, bringing his new friend with him, there was a different look in his eyes. A look of independence, of self-possession, of inalienable horseness.” (Weston 35). Unfortunately, once Brown got pregnant and gave birth, she was taken back to her owner, and Blue’s despair turned to rage: “But most disturbing of all, in Blue’s large brown eyes was a new look, more painful than the look of despair: the look of disgust with human beings, with life, the look of…show more content… This holds true during the hunt he talks about in the excerpt, where he shoots and kills an elk, but throughout the whole ordeal he tries to keep himself from doing it, showing himself to be conscientious of the elk’s well being: “Still I hesitate, for though I can lose myself in the hunting, I have never been able to stop thinking about its results-that I forget it’s this creature whom I’m about to take from the world rather than some number in an equation proving the merits of wild-food harvesting over being a supermarket vegetarian; that this being before me-who sees, who smells, who knows- will no longer be among us, so that I may go on living.” (Weston 39). Ultimately, Kerasote’s remorse for his actions and his sympathy towards animals who suffer from harsh conditions in and out of factories and slaughterhouses have prompted him to take action by means of becoming a vegetarian. However, through paying attention to other factors, he realized that it meant nothing, and in some ways only made it worse: “But when I inquired about the lives lost on a mechanized farm, I realized what costs we pay at the supermarket.” (Weston 41). In the end, Ted makes the decision to continue hunting, for though it does not do much to rest his conscience, it does help him realize that most of his actions are, so to speak, for a greater good: “When I looked into that web, so