Category Archives: Comment

Dangerous dogs – animals condemned from birth

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Following on from my last blog on humans, animals and the language of life and death, I thought I’d expand a little on the issues surrounding dangerous dogs, and that most outcast of all animals, the banned dangerous dog.

According to the UK government website, it is against the law to own certain types of dog. These are:

  • Pit Bull Terrier
  • Japanese Tosa
  • Dogo Argentino
  • Fila Brasiliero

It’s also against the law to:

  • Sell a banned dog
  • Abandon a banned dog
  • Give away a banned dog
  • Breed from a banned dog

If you are in possession of a banned dog, either knowingly or unknowingly, there is very little you can do. You cannot keep it, you cannot get rid of it – indeed the dog is condemned to death from its very birth. To explore the unique position held by the banned dangerous dog, we can conduct a simple thought experiment Continue reading »

Humans, Animals, and the Language of Life and Death

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The language with which we refer to ourselves as human beings, relative to our ‘animal’ cousins is something that’s always fascinated me. I have always been interested in nature, and my sister, Kate, is soon to graduate as a vet, making these issues resonate all the more as I compare my own studies in philosophy with the world of animal science. Continue reading »

A sombre view of the modern world…

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I despair at the modern world in which we live. It’s not so much the sensationalism, the terrorism, the rampant consumerism; it’s more the fact that people today simply do not think.

For all its boons, social media has done more to erode modern society than it has to enhance it. People think they can explain the world’s problems in a meme, or a few characters, without ever bothering to scratch below the surface or find out more. Worse still, the ease with which ‘information’ (very definitely with inverted commas) can be found these days means people just don’t know how to do proper research and think for themselves. Got a question? Google it. Google will tell you the truth… Continue reading »

We are not pigeons! (Or are we?): Animality and the Homeless Conundrum

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It was with great interest that I read in the news recently tale of Jennie Platt from Prestwich, who has been so incensed at the installation of anti-homeless spikes in Manchester, that she’s covered them up with cushions. According to Ms Platt, “The building owners are treating human beings like pigeons.”

This line intrigued me, and for a number of reasons. Firstly, there is the obvious assumption on the part of Ms Platt that we are not like pigeons and should not be treated as such. Yet in reality we all know and accept that we actually are an awful lot like pigeons and share more in common with them than we like to admit. In a way this incident reminds us of the strange Orwellian ‘double-think’ that we all subscribe to on a daily basis. That is, the way that we are at once both human and animal, and define our humanity in relation to, and through the exclusion of, the ‘animal’ other. Continue reading »