![I’ve posted this photo before, but I wanted to use it nevertheless to frame the following excellent passage, from Roger Scruton’s “A Carnivore’s Credo,” included in The Best American Essays, 2007:
“[Animals’] mute lack of self-consciousness neutralizes our own possession of it and makes it possible to pour out on them the pent-up store of fellow-feeling, without fear of reproach. At the same time, we are acutely aware of their moral incompetence. Their affection, if it can be won at all, is easily won, and based on nothing. However much a man may be loved by his dog, this love brings warmth and security but no release from guilt. It implies no moral approval and leaves the character of its object unassessed and unendorsed.”
I don’t know many who are more affectionate with and dependent on their pets than I; I love my dogs dearly, and have loved animals of all sorts for my entire life, even working at a veterinary hospital for a spell to see if the work suited me. But I can still admit that this passage is absolutely true and why those people who genuinely seem capable of substituting the love of their pets for the love of their fellow man to me seem more interested in escaping “assessment” of their moral character than in love.
Scruton’s essay, which argues that vegetarianism is gaining in popularity partly due to our need to experience moral piety as part of our diet (and the decline in such piety as we’ve moved from humane husbandry and family dinners to factory farms and fast-food, from cultivation to consumption), is absolutely brilliant.
Note: I’ve posted several other amazing photos from Taschen’s A Thousand Hounds, which is like a history of photography as told through photos only of dogs.](http://6.media.tumblr.com/2KfNZVJctf252ngcc63ouoodo1_400.png)
I’ve posted this photo before, but I wanted to use it nevertheless to frame the following excellent passage, from Roger Scruton’s “A Carnivore’s Credo,” included in The Best American Essays, 2007:
“[Animals’] mute lack of self-consciousness neutralizes our own possession of it and makes it possible to pour out on them the pent-up store of fellow-feeling, without fear of reproach. At the same time, we are acutely aware of their moral incompetence. Their affection, if it can be won at all, is easily won, and based on nothing. However much a man may be loved by his dog, this love brings warmth and security but no release from guilt. It implies no moral approval and leaves the character of its object unassessed and unendorsed.”
I don’t know many who are more affectionate with and dependent on their pets than I; I love my dogs dearly, and have loved animals of all sorts for my entire life, even working at a veterinary hospital for a spell to see if the work suited me. But I can still admit that this passage is absolutely true and why those people who genuinely seem capable of substituting the love of their pets for the love of their fellow man to me seem more interested in escaping “assessment” of their moral character than in love.
Scruton’s essay, which argues that vegetarianism is gaining in popularity partly due to our need to experience moral piety as part of our diet (and the decline in such piety as we’ve moved from humane husbandry and family dinners to factory farms and fast-food, from cultivation to consumption), is absolutely brilliant.
Note: I’ve posted several other amazing photos from Taschen’s A Thousand Hounds, which is like a history of photography as told through photos only of dogs.
