The Post editorial board's Sept. 29 standpoint regarding PETA's campaign, Crossing the Line ... Gruesome shock tactics subvert PETA's otherwise laudable goals
failed, as have many other writers addressing this issue, to explain why there is no rational justification for the comparison of human suffering to animal suffering.
Is The Post aware of the theory of speciesism? That theory is certainly at least an attempt to give a rational justification for the equal consideration of both human animals' and nonhuman animals' interests and rights not to be made to suffer at the hands of others.
Instead of simply asking the reader to accept The Post's opinion that this is not rational, I think a much stronger case could be made if the editorial attempted to explain why that is so and how to refute the ethical theories that take the opposite position.
The comparisons, in my opinion, can easily be drawn between discrimination that is based on an arbitrary physical attribute such as skin color, sex or species, instead of that being's ability to feel pain and suffer.
- Chris Cameron is a senior art major at Florida State University. Send him an e-mail at chriscam@chriscameron.org. 17
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Letter to the Editor
