2009

is here. fuck it so far. fuck it, and most people. fuck it, and just about everyone i rang it in with. fuck it, and............everything.

"how've you been lately?"

"oh, you know, same old same old...going out of my mind from anxiety and loneliness."





lately i've been feeling even more cynical towards humanity than usual.


case in point: my sisters boyfriend broke up with her after she confronted him about cheating on her. she's also pregnant. with his child. he told her she's not getting child support from him and he doesn't care about doing some jail time. classy guy. now, i know this all sounds like jerry springer shit, because it does. also, i know that i normally try to distance myself from such bullshit, due to both a personal vow to not get involved with stupid stuff like that, and because i have next to no patience dealing with people who've let their emotions get the best of them and continue to make bad decision after bad decsion, even if those emotions are completely legit. but i feel that, in this case, to stand idly by and let someone slip off the mantle of responsibility and put it all upon someone else is unacceptable.

i sincerely wish i didn't have to live in a world in which such events occur, and i truly believe that this world would be a brighter and better place if his was a non-existence.




one of my teeth in the back of my mouth is causing me colossal amounts of pain when i drink something cold. the other day it broke as i was attempting to enjoy a bowl of corn flakes. i am angry at several entities. firstly, my dentist, who, upon revealing to me that my inconsiderate wisdom teeth had cracked the guilty party, refused to pull the tooth and instead pushed for a root canal. now, i refused a root canal because I DIDN'T HAVE EIGHT HUNDRED FUCKING DOLLARS FALLING OUT OF MY ASSHOLE at the moment, and because the tooth was far enough back in my mouth that vanity would not be affected if it were simply pulled. secondly, i am angry at the tooth itself for causing me such pain and ruining my bowl of corn flakes. had i the money, i would have shark DNA infused into mine, so my teeth would regrew when they were lost. not boner shark teeth, just normal, handsome human teeth. barring the lack of technology availabe i would settle for getting my teeth pulled, all of them, and replaced with crowns. i hate dentists, i hate teeth, and i hate toothaches.

i fucking love repairman jack.

the anniversary of an uninteresting event

fuck you.

not for all my little words.

i've been listening to the magnetic fields a lot lately.


they make me think of you a lot. no, not you. you.






yeah, you.

like a chinese buffet...

ill fucking do it!!!


remember boysetsfire? i do!


im stoked on the remake of the day the earth stood still.


my vegan spareribs need some tweaking. seriously.


hey pap! waddup!


assassins!


who's tryin' to kiss under the misletoe?!

in the past day, i have:

hung out with an awesome friend and cat.
ate vietnamese hoagies.
received a free reign supreme shirt.
read another third of the new repairman jack novel.
sat through several really, really bad bands that apparently only know how to play one or two chords and do stupid pig vocals.
was happy for thirty minutes as i wrecked my vocal chords, punched a stage as hard as i could, and moshed so hard i suspect i'll be badly paying for it tomorrow.
connected with someone totally rad over extremely mundane but awesome things...while peeing.



my ears are ringing. i cant make a fist. my throat is raw and i sound like im going through puberty. my ribs feel cracked and my muscles are sore. i cant take a breath without it hurting to a degree. my head is pounding. but i couldn't be happier right now. thank you so very much.

today.

i woke up.
ate a huge breakfast.
failed. failed. failed.
was miserable.
hung out jay and brad.
had adventures.
saw crazy people.
got hugged.
came home.



in a few hours, i shall feast!!!

yup.

the show was awesome. the black atlantic ruled, geert's out of his mind, spanish prisoners reminded me of ted leo, the antlers were fucking rad, and kim has the voice of an angel. my friends are awesome.





back to easton. back to mediocrity. back to all the stupid bullshit that makes me want to just not wake up.

back to the old 'house'...

more like the old town, really.


i came back to kutztown for the weekend. im staying on my friend jackie/siobhan/kate/lindsey's couch on main street. good buds. tomorrow, the black atlantic are playing a basement in town, and it's going to be fucking sweet. geert=a great dude who i wish i saw a lot more.

i miss kutztown. a lot. i miss my friends here, what few are left. i miss the times we had together here (atari pun definitely intended). i miss aimlessly wandering the streets til late at night, the smell of the leaves, of the wet asphalt, of the salty streets in the winter, the bitter scent of alcohol and lust in the bars. i miss it all. i miss the last hoorah of youth that i had here. i want it back. i want the loves i had here. i want to wake up across the street from the brake pad factory to the smell of fumes from that factory. i want to watch the sunset from my backyard at the panda. i want john galm and evbreak to come down unannounced and then have adventures with them. i want to bed surf with brad until five in the morning and then go out of my mind with heartache. i want to watch monday night raw with chris. i want to set things on fire with jon van dine and have dance parties with craig and kelsey. i want to sneak out of ashley's bedroom at five in the morning so my friends dont find out about us, and eagerly await shannon coming back. i want to fall asleep with my arms around bethany. i want to watch movies and make dinner with the 225 girls. i want to have the people i love the most within walking distance, and i want the real world to be a hazy distant prospect. i want it all back. i dont want to live the rest of my life in some epilogue to the best of my life. i want the simple and close loves i had here, when it was easy to find someone to connect with.

i dont want to be awake anymore tonight, but i think that's inevitable.

Justin Lore Tour De Food 2009

remember a few days, maybe a week or so ago, i mentioned going places to eat food and write about it?




ive been doing research, and the options are growing beyond taco king...which is still an option.


eight vegan pizza options on the east coast between virginia and rhode island. i am stoked. a bunch more out west and on the west coast.




get into it.




in other news, youre the one for me, 'fatty'.


my life is a joke. i feel like macready and/or childs at the end of the thing.

these past two nights

have been really cool. just like old times, i guess, right down to the 'everything is falling apart' feeling of it all. the random encounters with friends, the absurdity of it all, the mild touch of drama...i love it. i wish there were more nights like that to remind me that there are still good things in the world and that good times can still be had.


jay frankett is an alright guy. im glad we hang out.




brock lesner is still a fucking douche.



the new repairman jack novel is really, really fucking good. i read the first chapter tonight at barnes and noble and, had jay and i not had to flee the scene, probably read at least half of it.











loneliness, and all of the shit associated with it, can fucking suck it. i want to kiss and be kissed, touch and be touched, and so on and so forth. im not some lame crybaby weiner (not much of one, anyone) who just wants to be in a relationship to feel validated; i just want someone to be with, and to hold, and stay warm with in these coming winter months. i want to fall asleep under thick blankets in a cold bedroom with my arms around someone, someone who's shoulder i can kiss in the time right before falling asleep, and lots of other stupid and weakminded shit that i loathe but at the same time miss terribly.



the girl in thunderheist's 'jerk it' video is achingly adorable. criminally adorable.wackily adorable.



fuck. this is probably the fourth time in as many nights that i've found myself awake at this time. i simply cant fall asleep or stay asleep.


thanksgiving soon. food!


i'll be in kutztown this weekend for the black atlantic show, and im probably going to crash on the couch of the house of some wonderful friends. get at me if you want to hang out. go to see the black atlantic.

thats pretty much it.

sleepless.

"time to grow up, she says.



people are crazy, and i have a headache."


now i'm sort of sick.

possibly because i didn't sleep last night.

but i did watch 'aliens vs. predator:requiem', 'spiderman', and 'the warriors'.

goddamnit.


there's a new show debuting on the travel channel soon called 'man vs. food'. basically, some guy travels around america and gorges himself at various eateries with weird food challenges, like three pound burgers, three foot wide pizzas, two foot long meatball sandwiches, etc.

now, i'm into this because i enjoy any show involving a) traveling and b) eating. case in point, 'bizarre foods with andrew zimmern' and 'anthony bourdain: no reservations'. what gets me the most about this show is this: if that food were vegan, i could do that. i love to eat, and the bigger, the better.


so why shouldn't i have a show that involves me eating huge and unnecessary amounts of food for the amusement of others? what makes this guy better than me?


that being said, i'm officially announcing my intent to travel up and down the east coast, sampling the various vegan eateries and then writing about them on some sort of blog. i'm assuming brad and/or evan would accompany me on such journies of excess. stay tuned for more details.

i'm the end of the family line.

OR variations upon a theme.

my pap is really sick. i woke up early this morning to the sound of him wretching in the bathroom, and i've been hovering over him like a mother bird the whole day.

this book has got me really down. it's like taking a magnifying glass to the shitty and sad wreckage that is the end result of every dealing i've ever had with a woman.

i can't wait to start working at bankers. i really cant.

cast aside

had another dream about monsters last night. this time, i was holed up in cheston school with my dad and some other people. conveniently, cheston happened to have a grocery store and a gunshop inside, so we were pretty well set.



bummer. really.

five fifteen.

i awoke from a dream in which there was an apocalypse. somehow things went wrong. this area was running amok with velociraptors and bugs that turned people into zombies. for some reason, i was working at a hospital. i fought velociraptors at my grandfathers with gardening tools. then, the rest of my hospital shift fled to the turkey hill, where we were attacked by bug zombies. then it switched to me and my sister running. we stopped at an abandoned gas station and stocked up on food before fleeing again. and now i'm wide awake and terrified.

all this talk

should i listen to rick ta life and heed his words?


"unfinished business"? that's putting it lightly.

yeah. yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.




i'd stop the world and melt with you. i don't know if it's getting better all the time.


hopefully it is.


i've been listening to the acoustic versions of the cure's greatest hits a lot lately. once i sang a song by the cure to a girl i "was" in love with. that night, both of us stayed warm.

but now...


"I know that in the morning I will wake up
in the shivering cold."

ah robert smith. he may hate morrissey, but i still like him.


she enjoys when i sing to her. "which means she must be insane."


oh hey five in the morning. good to see you again.

five in the morning? really?

read it and weep, fuckers.


i updated my other blog earlier tonight with a rough version of my semi-infamous cardigans story. you can find it in my profile.




sleep is for bitches.

america....

you finally have something to say to the moz.












i am starting to really, really wish i had someone to do stuff with.

a weight off my shoulders

thank you God.


im still registered in berks county...which means no voting for me tomorrow. fuck.

i made soup today from scratch. it wasn't awful.






my paps not around often. that kind of sucks.

past few days.

the phillies won the series, so for the past couple days news coverage has been of the absurd parade the city had for them. i don't fucking care how long it's been since your city has had a championship. dont act like fucking assholes all the time. fuck.

bad blood was brought to an end tonight, and honestly it's a relief to not have that on my conscience anymore. so yeah...thanks for that.

i...really dont know what to think about some things anymore. like...i get it. but seriously...sometimes it's just fucking stupid.

i want to write another book about horror movies. i'm sure people dont think i can do it. but they can go fuck themselves.


not really much is happening.


i sort of want a girlfriend. sort of, but not really. mostly, i kinda just dont want to be alone anymore. but whats new i guess. toocher.

things that can suck it.

the re-release, or whatever, of friday the 13th. it sucked the first time around, why the fuck is it back? 'oh but lore it's a classic horror film wah wah wah bullshit.' fuck that. i dont care how classic it is. it's fucking stupid. half naked teenagers getting chopped up does not a good movie make.

the philadelphia phillies-actually, moreso their fans. philadelphia sports fans are bad enough as it is when their teams are all incapable of winning a championship. god only knows how bad they'll be if they have a world series to their credit. fuck the bandwagons too. i hate sports.

the female gender-i hope you die soon.

that stupid trend in hardcore that jocks bands like trash talk. ugh. i get it. your life is shit, you don't care, nobody loves you, there is no god, you dont care, you know how to use the word 'fuck' and you know how to write stupid crushing mosh parts. go fuck yourselves.

afros on non-blacks. unacceptable. irony is bullshit, so get a fucking haircut. fuck your curly hair, and fuck thinking youre cool for having a hairstyle that, at the time of this writing, was only really pulled off by one non-black: my father.

irony in general. die already.

barack obama supporters. we get it. you care about stuff. john mccain is an icky old man who's out to take away all the rights we don't exercise anyway. i cant wait for the election to be over so all these fucking idiots go back to not caring about politics for another four years and just shut the fuck up.

commercials where women are doing yoga. goddamnit. you and your bone loss can go straight to hell. and fuck putting a wiggle in you life. i hope you crash into a truck full of pudding and get buried alive in tons of gooey chocolatey goodness, you fucking asshole.



and a bunch of other shit.

the soil of a man's heart is stonier...

like a prospector digging through muck in search of gold, or an archeologist looking back through layers of time, lately, i too have been looking back.



nothing has changed. i still hate you and wish you awful awful things.






my book is going to fucking rock everyones ass.

pet semetary

great fucking movie.


the book is coming along good. a hundred plus pages.


i'm sick. dammit.



i love to eat.

if per chance i am dreaming, please let me sleep.

i awoke early this morning from quite a lovely dream, the kind that is so achingly perfect it's guaranteed to ruin the rest of you day. alas, now i am sitting in the backyard, and reality isn't nearly as wonderful as a dream.

i can see my breath when i sit outside.

hallelujah.

yes!

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/09/29/brickarms-creates-zo.html

life.

smooth sailing now
but in the distance
a storm gathers
and it seeks
to fill my sails
with the winds of misfortune.

entropy

organization into chaos.




as per usual, things fall apart.

i've got so much trouble on my mind.

they're remaking 'it'. this should be interesting.

went to doylestown tonight. saw a bunch of people i rarely see. saw a few i haven't seen in months.

i hate women.

i can't sleep.

mcardle is coming in for a few hours on tuesday aka tomorrow. hopefully that's fun.

i can't wait to start working.

i want it to be cold so i can be justified in wanting to cuddle with someone.

i don't want to get hurt again.

i think i'm gonna go have a soda and watch tv.

i was looking for a job...

and then i found a joooooooooooooooob...


let's hope the next part of that line doesn't come true and i'm actually happy where i work for once. i'll be working at banker's life and casualty, an insurance firm in allentown. hopefully making really good money.

the new repairman jack book comes out in a month or so. i'm stoked.

the new metallica is really fucking good.

i think i'm getting a cold. bummer.



thats about it, i suppose.

DEATH MAGNETIC

IF YOU DON'T LIKE THIS ALBUM DELETE MY NUMBER FROM YOUR PHONE AND DON'T TALK TO ME ANYMORE.

being an adult.

so i have an interview at an insurance company on wednesday in allentown. i really hope i get this job. moneymoneymoneymooooney...MOOOOOOONEY!

judgment day.

it's judgment day.

newsflash

edit: because i found out the hard way disagreeing with people is wrong, i'm just gonna say this: if i see one more bulletin or blog about how obama is going to save the world, ii'm going to scream.

skunks

my paps dog got sprayed by a skunk. it's unbearable.

i went to a party last night and ended up sitting in some girls room with chuck listening to the juliana theory.

i put my resume online with the 'willing to relocate' option on it.

i am looking forward, somewhat, to the fall.

apparently they may have found bigfoot.

TR, your place on mt. rushmore has been justified.

some things i dont like...

1) 'musik'
2) people
3) alcohol
4) walking

and yet several times in the past week, i attended an event that combined all four of the above things: musikfest. i suppose it's my own fault for going, but i'd like to wish the bulk of musikfest attendees a life of shortcomings and constant failure.

tonight, i was told i play 'hard to get', and thats why girls like me. i was unaware that women were a fan of me, and even more unaware that i play 'hard to get'. oh well.

i know my situation. i know where i stand. and yet, sometimes, it hurts a little.

i got really depressed tonight thinking about my sister. and not in the usual shameful way. like, a genuinely sad way. it sucked.


i really wish we'd gone through phoenix arizona when we went to california. what a beautiful city.


i didnt sleep last night. tonight promises to be a repeat of the same thing.


my mom made me a large bowl of her classic chili, but veganized. i have to say it was delicious and one of the few things thats made me happy in the past week or so. thanks mom. make more. please.


i love my grandfather. so much. sometimes i worry that he doesn't know that, and that he'll never know how much him letting me stay here has meant to me and how much i enjoyed it.


the weathers getting a little cooler at night...perfect cuddling weather. alas, although i wake up every morning and my bed looks like sex was had in it, the only thing ive cuddled in quite a long time has been a pillow. i'd like to think this doesnt bother me, but deep down, it kind of does. it could be worse, a lot worse, and i feel quite foolish even bringing it up...but i did, and i wont change it.


i really like how my internet keeps cutting in and out like a jerk. i wish jake would just fucking talk to me. i wish i had more chili.


congo is a really good book, and the patriot was a solid movie.


also, if you havent seen the dark knight, what the fuck are you waiting for?


its almost fall. sucks im such a loser, cause i could probably get a girlfriend. oh well. ftw.

i love the internet.

sarcasm.


i dont like anyone. i want to pay my debts and be done with you. i want to be out of easton and be forgotten. i want to forget. i want nothing to do with the empty ideals, bullshit fantasies, and preachy grandstanding that seems to make up everything around me. get me the fuck out.

the odyssey

i lived it. from one coast to another in a week and a half. it was awesome. my life has peaked, and it's all downhill from here.

on the road.

we're on the road.

the jurassic park franchise

is totally awesome. all of them. they rule.



i spent a goodish amount of time tonight outside the venue at the have heart show. it sucked.


the adventure begins tomorrow night.

aching all over...

inside and out.


i love my grandfather. i treated him to chinese tonight. he enjoyed it.


i hung out with kevin difranco as well. it ruled. i miss him.




apparently some people think im moving to california. i couldnt let them believe that. it would just be mean.






fuck.

no sleep til whenever.

lately, i've been way into death metal, particularly later morbid angel and entombed. specifically with each band 'formulas fatal to the flesh' and 'gateways to annihilation' by morbid angel and 'left hand path' by entombed. shit is seriously fucking rad.

iron age are also high on my playlist as of now.

i leave for california in a week. i'm equal parts excited and expecting the worst.

as per usual, i'm awake thinking about shit i have no real reason to think about, like where i've been and what i've been through. i went to red robin tonight with some friends, like we used to do every friday night, and it was really cool, but there was something missing. maybe it was the fact that brad and i don't live together anymore. or maybe it's just because shits different. i dont know. either way, im awake now, its four in the morning, and i cant help but think about the way things were. i think about the people i know, and what i went through with them, and where they are know. maybe who they're with. sometimes i think about what was said and how it now means nothing. mostly i think about that.

fuck.

remember 'splashdance'? the disney album? i'm downloading it right now. i used to listen to that with my mom when i was barely old enough to walk but was able to read the lyrics. i used to be quite smart as a child. its a shame such intelligence didnt last.

i've been having some really weird fucking dreams lately. thank god i havent had any truly horrifying nightmares in a while. knock on wood.

fireworks tomorrow at heritage day. maybe i'll run into some girl i knew from high school, and maybe we'll french under the fireworks. probably not. hopefully not. or just hopefully. i dont know. i guess if things cant go how you want, then just...hope for the best and french a girl from high school under the shitty sub par fireworks in downtown easton surrounded by the shitty sub par citizens of downtown easton? story of my life! fuck the world! viva la impulse!

internet keeps cutting in and out. im considering being like 'hey pap. let me pay for internet.' and he'll probably think im nuts. i love my grandfather. every night before i go to bed i thank god for his existence.

sigh...i wish i wasnt sleeping alone. i thought i'd enjoy having a big bed, buuuuuuut it only emphasizes my loneliness. id like to cuddle with a pleasant girl. or a peasant girl. but not a pheasant girl.

sometimes in the morning jake comes in and sniffs around. he's a pretty neat dog. i wish he could talk.

im gonna end this now while i still have internet.

...in which case im doomed.

Yeah…

So I saw reign supreme and iron age in a basement tonight. It would’ve been fun, but a group of a dozen or so redneck assholes decided it was probably a good idea to judo mosh in a basement full of people. I got hit in the face really, really fucking hard. They of course left immediately after reign supreme ended their set. Fuck them for ruining the only place I feel comfortable anymore.

I miss klint kanopka. A lot.

I kept expecting to run into someone any second while I was in philly tonight. And for whatever reason, I was really afraid. Maybe it was the company I was keeping for the evening. Maybe not.

Once again, I ignored a phone call from a friend tonight. I told myself it was because I was in a car, on my way to a show, and it would have been somewhat rude to the person calling me to not give them my full attention. In actuality, it was probably because Ive become somewhat of a recluse and really don’t talking to anyone much anymore. Because as fun as the show was (and, douchebags aside, it was fun. Iron age were rad, and reign supreme put on a really, really good show) I would have preferred to be in my room, by myself, watching some movie and falling asleep shortly thereafter. I don’t like the fact that I continue to justify avoiding the company of my friends. I don’t know why I came out tonight. Maybe it was special circumstances. Who knows. I don’t really.
I had thought at this point, something would have happened, and I would have things figured out, and it’s somewhat disheartening and depressing that clarity/satisfaction continues to elude me. Take that as you will, and apply to it what you want.

I’m not excited about anything anymore, and I don’t find virtue in anyone. All I care about is making myself as comfortable as possible for the time being, because it could all end tomorrow, or it could go on forever.

why oh why

i'm pretty sure maybe three people read this blog.





i remember once, a long time ago, i spent the night with someone. in the morning, when they left, i was half asleep and was only mildly woken up by the sound of them leaving, but i remember it being incredibly depressing for some reason. i laid there by myself for another couple of minutes on the verge of tears, wishing i had stayed asleep through them leaving and had just woken up to an empty bed.

i don't know what made me think of that. perhaps it was earlier talk of how great it feels to give small, "sleepy" kisses to someone instead of wildly making out with them. i think it's because a slow and small kiss on the shoulder is a lot more intimate. sort of like holding hands, i guess. who knows. the point is that i miss all of that. dearly. and it feels like each day, its growing a little more distant.


tonight i watched videos of japanese skiers being shot down a ski ramp, naked, in a rocket chair. i do love japan.

abc

i want to be held by anyone with any arms.

i didnt kiss anyone today.

fuck.

Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in this history of mankind. Mankind -- that word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests.Perhaps its fate that today is the 4th of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom, not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution -- but from annihilation. We're fighting for our right to live, to exist. And should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice:

"We will not go quietly into the night!

We will not vanish without a fight!

We're going to live on!

We're going to survive!"

Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!

yup.

sleepless

night time is the right time.
i've become almost nocturnal. no matter what time i go to bed, i find it hard to wake up in the day.


i'm going to philly this weekend. its gonna be fun.

easton.

i'm staying at my grandfathers in southside easton. so far, we've watched several hours of the history channel together, went to a diner together, gone to walmart together, and pretty much hang out all the time. today, his dog jake raided the garden and ate all of the cucumbers. whats more bizarre is he later trampled the plants. earlier tonight, jake punched me in the face and gave me a hug. it was pretty awesome.

unloved.
obsolete.
cast aside.
left behind.



that's pretty much how i feel right now.


i'm probably gonna go to philly this weekend to see my dear friend klint. i love klint.



i need something that i haven't had in a while.

last day at dude house.

everything is packed up. ryan's gone. time flies, i guess.

i still remember my very first night in kutztown like it was yesterday. and i remember my first night here in dude house even better.




you know when a plane is going down and they jettison a bunch of stuff to make it lighter? yeah...im the stuff they jettison.

my room is no longer my room.

i made the mistake of taking my posters down first. now my room looks horribly empty. it's also depressingly similar to my first night here, when all my stuff was just in boxes and had yet to be unpacked.



yup. life goes on. ryan goes to michelle's, brad goes to his place in reading, and i go to easton. again.



i told ryan tonight my ideal place to live is as far from here as possible. not out of any lame 'fuck this place' attitude, but more so because i dont want to be reminded of anything.

i cracked a tooth today

awesome.

done.

today was my last day of summer classes. i am officially done with kutztown university.


i also realized yesterday i don't really like the movie 'juno'. i think ellen page's acting is abrasive at best, i want to punch whoever made the soundtrack, and michael cera reminds me of all those douchebags who think if they act sensitive girls will like them.



when i'm back in easton, before i go to california in july, i'll be living with my grandfather in southside. he's a good dude and i'm way stoked on it.


i want to go out west and put five bucks worth of morrissey songs on a jukebox in some major city, and then look around to see if any pretty girls are singing along.

swan song

so in less than a week, we move out of dude house. the dream is over. i was looking through some old pictures today, and i found a picture chrissy took of brad, ryan, and myself the day we moved in last year. i remember the moment it was taken, and i remember the day we moved in. it was such an awesome feeling: we had a whole year ahead of us. a whole year of adventures, of fun, of just good times. i myself had the rest of the summer ahead of me before i started school again. i had something to look forward to later in the week, and in a few weeks 'transformers' came out. it was just an awesome feeling. brad and i were living in a real apartment, a nice apartment, not some former party house that was falling apart. there was a clean slate. we didn't have to look back at a time when things were better like we were doing for so much of the year before. we had a whole year to do whatever we wanted. and it was awesome. our housewarming party was a blast. that summer was a blast. even when class started, when i once again had responsibility, it was still awesome. and now its all over. in a month and a half or so, im gonna be living in reading with brad, but it wont be the same. i dunno.

kutztown is done. looking back on it all, i'd like to say that i got something out of it other than a degree, but i don't feel any wiser. maybe a little more jaded on certain issues, and a little more intolerant on some things, but have i really gained anything? it all feels like i could've done it differently and better. not so much academic wise. i got mostly B's, and it sucks to say but im happy with that. i only really came to college just to do something different. it just feels like overall, i couldve done better. i dunno. i dont really believe that college is the best time of your life, because if you really want you can feel that way all of the time. not so much happy, but just the great feeling. its not restricted to college, i dont think. i dunno. i just wish i could go back, and maybe at certain times said something when in reality i said nothing.

anyway, this is stupid, and i feel stupid, but i'm not gonna delete it.

and do i gain?

a year ago at this time, i was hanging out with a bunch of crazy australian bicyclists. today, i'm hanging out with bradical and michele brazee. later i'm making cookies and lasagna.



however, i don't have a year of living with brad and ryan ahead of me.





i suspect i break even.

yah yah yah yah yah

me and brad saw jenna haze dance last night at erv's. i made it rain, and got a free poster. which she signed as follows: 'justin-cum inside my slutty as. love, jenna.'


classy.



brad and i got a picture with her. it was awesome.



she's so nice and tiny. it makes me almost miss a certain someone.



i didn't go to rhode island tonight because i woke up feeling like shit. i might hang out with jay tonight. if we do hang out, i'm gonna make him dinner. go lore.

tomorrow, brad, myself, klint, and one of the dudes from reign supreme are going back to ervs. rain shall be made again.

one night to be confused

today, i had two really weird dreams. the first involved me hunting alligators and crocodiles from a suspended platform above a swamp/pond with my dad. at one point, a tiger went to drink from the pond, and a crocodile tried to eat him. i shot the crocodile.
then, the dream switched to a really tall boat on the ocean. by really tall, i mean a deck covered in thinly spaced boards revealing the ocean like, thirty feet below it. i had a double barrel shotgun and was ready to kick some ass if the boat sank.

THEN, i had a dream there was a movie debut at my high school in the auditorium, and i was there with my family and all of my friends from high school. i noticed whitney's dad sitting behind me, and i whispered to my sister that he was there. she said 'duh.' then i walked up a few rows to tell one of my friends (matt markle?) that art knowles was behind me. he said 'yeah dude, i know.' THEN, i noticed whitney herself sitting next to me, talking a bunch of shit like she used to. then i noticed she was wearing a smiths shirt and was basically into everything that i was. i woke up feeling terrified.



i guess i can't even say 'at least we're still friends' anymore. oh well. whatever you think is best.

ruined

it's ruined.



there have been times in my life when i've been more frustrated than right now. but not many.





i wonder if i'm a)actually saying what i think i'm saying, b) if other people understand what i'm saying, c) if other people are on the same plane of comprehension that i am, or d) if maybe i'm dreaming everything that i think i'm doing.


i give up.

its such a shame

when things fall apart
can we make a new start?



no, we cannot.

secrets

a few days ago, i did something quite uncharacteristic of me. without any sort of forewarning or buildup, completely unlike what was going on in my life around this time last, i dove into something that i should've, at best, gently tip toed around. i am now reaping the whirlwind of my actions and have my arms full of consequences. i let my loneliness take the reins and pushed rationality and morality aside for a few minutes of reassurance that a) i wasn't really alone and b) i still "had it", even though now i sort of wish i never had it. i immediately regretted my decision, not out of disgust for the other individual involved, or any sense of shame for what i had done, but out of concern for the other person. i realized i didn't know what they wanted. so it ended. perhaps too soon. who knows. but now, things are awry. despite our reassurances to one another that things wouldn't get weird, i'm fairly certain that they have. and this kind of sucks.

i suppose i deserve whatever happens to me. after all, blatant disregard for the well being of another human being is somewhat of a dick thing to do. Self preservation is by no means a bad thing, but when a small sense of reassurance comes at the potential cost of the dignity and feelings of another person, then sometimes we have to bite the bullet and remain unreassured and uncertain of ourselves. unfortunately, i chose not to do the right thing. even though i'm not certain any feelings were hurt, i am nonetheless weirded out by the fact that i would give into such disregard for someone else.

then there's a whoooole nother side to the story. good lord.

no alarm clock this morning.

unfortunately, i still woke up.

oh well.

i'll never learn.

sore

every muscle in my body is aching.







i want my kisses back from you.

my movies

note:remakes, if the original is not owned, will be indicated. otherwise, it is the original.

28 days later
28 weeks later
30 days of night
300
the 40 year old virgin
ali
alien
aliens
alien 3
alien: ressurection
alien vs. predator
aliens vs. predator
altered
altered states
amelie
American history X
American psycho
the Amityville horror
An American werewolf in London
Anthropophagus
Army of darkness
Audition
Back to the future
Back to the future II
Back to the future III
Batman
Batman begins
Black Demons
Blade
Blade II
Blade III
the blob (remake)
Bonnie and clyde
Bottle rocket
the bunker
the calamari wrestler
Candyman
Captain kronos: vampire hunter
Carnosaur
Castle freak
Cat’s eye
Cemetery man
Closer
Children of men
Christine
the church
Cindarella man
City of the living dead
Close encounters of the third kind
Closer
Cloverfield
the creature from the black lagoon
the creature walks amongst us
the crow
the Darjeeling limited
Darkman
Darkman II
Darkman III
Dawn of the dead
Dawn of the dead
Day of the dead
the day the earth stood still
Dead alive
Dead birds
Death machine
Death of a president
Deep red
the deer hunter
Deliverance
Demons
Demons II
Demons III: The Ogre
the descent
Destroy all monsters
Diary of the dead
Die hard
Die hard 2
Die hard with a vengeance
Dog soldiers
Don’t look now
Dracula
Dracula
Dracula’s daughter
Dracula: the satanic rites
Dragon wars
Dune
Eyternal sunshine…
Event horizon
Evil dead
Evil dead II
the exorcism of Emily rose
the exorcist
the fly (remake)
the fly II
the fog
the forgotten
Frankenstein
Frankenstein meets the wolf man
Freaks
the frighteners
Fright night
From beyond
From dusk til dawn
the gate
Ghidorah the three headed monster
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters II
Ghost dog
the girl next door
the godfather
Godzilla: king of the monsters
Godzilla
Godzilla 2000
Godzilla: final wars
Godzilla against mechagodzilla
Godzilla and mothra: giant monsters all out attack
Godzilla raids again
Godzilla’s revenge
Godzilla: tokoy SOS
Godzilla vs. gigan
Godzilla vs. hedorah
Godzilla vs. king ghidorah
Godzilla and mothra: the battle for earth
Godzilla vs. megaruirus
Godzilla vs. space Godzilla
Godzilla vs. Destaroyah
Goodfellas
the gravedancers
Gremlins
Gremlins II
the guyver
Halloween
Harold and kumar go to white castle
Hellboy
Hell Of the Living Dead
Hellraiser
Hellraiser II
Hideaway
High fidelity
High tension
the hills have eyes
Hot fuzz
the hours
House of dracula
the house on haunted hill
the house on haunted hill (remake)
the howling
Hulk
the hunt
I am legend
Ichi the killer
Independence day
Indiana jones and the raiders of the lost ark
Indiana jones and the temple of doom
Indiana jones and the last crusade
Inferno
In the mouth of madness
Invasion
Invasion of the body snatchers
Invasion of the body snatchers
I, robot
It came from outer space
Jacob’s ladder
Jaws
Jurassic park
Jurassic park II
Jurassic park III
Kill bill
Kill bill vol. 2
Killer klowns from outer space
King kong (jackson's version)
Knocked up
Land of the dead
the last man on earth
the last samurai
the legend of hell house
Nosferatu
Let sleeping corpses lie
the life aquatic
Lifeforce
Little miss sunshine
Living hell
Lord of the rings I
Lord of the rings II
Lord of the rings III
the lost boys
Love actually
the messengers
Midnight express
the mist
the monster squad
Mortuary
the mothman prophecies
Moulin rouge
Munich
Near dark
Nightbreed
Nightmare city
Night of the living dead
Night of the living dead
Nine months
No country for old men
Office space
Old school
the omen
the omen
the omen II
the omen III
the omega man
The Other Hell
the outsiders
Pan’s labyrinth
Penny dreadful
Pet semetary
Phantasm
Phantasm II
Phantasm III
Phantasm IV
the plague
Planet terror
Poltergeist
Predator
Predator II
Prince of darkness
Prophecy
Pulp fiction
Pulse
Pumpkinhead
the pursuit of happyness
Q: the winged serpent
Raging bull
Re-animator
Return of the living dead
Return of the living dead II
Return of the living dead III
the return of the vampire
Reservoir dogs
Revenge of the creature
Robocop
Robocop II
Robocop III
Rocky
Rocky II
Rocky III
Rocky IV
Rocky V
Rocky balboa
Rosemary’s baby
the royal tenenbaums
the rules of attraction
Rumblefish
Rushmore
Salem’s lot
Saving private ryan
Scanners
Shaun of the dead
the shawshank redemption
She wolf of london
The shining
Short circuit
Sideways
Signs
the simpsons movie
the sixth sense
Sleepwalkers
Soson of dracula
Spider
Spiderman
Spiderman II
Spiderman III
Stand by me
Star wars III
Star wars IV
Star wars V
Star wars VI
the stuff
Suicide kings
Superbad
Suspiria
the sweetest thing
Tales from the darkside
the taxi driver
Tears of kali
the terminal
the terminator
Terminator II
Terminator III
the terror of mechagodzilla
the texas chainsaw massacre
the texas chainsaw massacre
the texas chainsaw massacre II
the blair witch project
There will be blood
the thing
the thing
They came back
Transformers
Transformers
Tremors
Tremors II
Tremors III
Tremors IV
True romance
the twilight zone
Unbreakable
Undead
Unfaithful
Unleashed
Unrest
Uzumaki
Vampires
Versus
V for vendetta
the warriors
War of the worlds
War of the worlds
Watchers
Watchers II
Wedding crashers
Weekend at bernies
Weekend at bernies II
the werewolf of London
the wolf man
Zombi 2

unexpected phone calls

are nonetheless welcome. thanks jessy!


so today while waiting for my fitness class to start, i was sitting in the locker room, kinda stretching but mostly just waiting for my class to start, and i was thinking about something that happened to me around this time last year. i dont think it meant much to the other person involved, and truth be told im not entirely sure how much it actually meant to me, but i was just reflecting on that whole situation. this reflection, combined with a talk i had a few days ago with another friend, served to put me in a fairly sour mood about romantic love and all that jazz, even more so than i usually am. and tonight, i was supposed to hang out with someone, but they decided not to attend, and that only made me even more bitter. why, i dont know. i should, by now, realize that its all a waste of time, and that struggling to create an intimacy that fits what i believe to be appropriate will only serve to push me away from what would truly be good for me and what is actually more honest than my perceived 'perfect' relationship. that of course being a caring but casual relationship. maybe it makes me a scumbag to not want to be someone's boyfriend but to still somewhat enjoy the benefits of a relationship. i don't think it does. and honestly i'd only get fucked over anyway. so why put myself out there for someone who's only going to get tired of me in a few months anyway? fuck it. and fuck you as well.

i am angry i am ill i am ugly as sin

i dont know what keeps me alive and kicking.


so our lease got extended by two weeks. which means i'll have a home for the rest of summer classes.

i'm thinking about getting another bachelor's degree. just a thought.

i want to make some bad decisions.

lemon iced girl scout cookies are really fucking good.






i think im gonna take a nap.




carnival tonight.




the 'transformers 2' filming in bethlehem is a pile of shit. and i don't feel bad for 'blowing up your spot.'


grillin!







yup.


oh yeah. i got some new ink as well.

excess weekend

yup. two days and a hundred and seventy five smackers later, i now own two pairs of extremely ignorant sneakers, the nike donatello dunks, and the nike dawn of the dead air trainers.


righteous.




fuck being fiscally responsible, and long live excess!

dude manse

so i guess brad's getting a house in reading. like, he's buying a house. he offered me a room there for two hundred dollars a month.



moving to reading!!!



im pretty sure brad and i are destined to live and die together.



there are some other advantages to it as well. i just need to find an awesome job in downtown reading.




not in the stabbing district, of course.

i am a cynic and an outcast.

my time in kutztown is almost up. where i'll go from here, i honestly don't know. i feel like a little kid dressing up in his dad's close; a parody of an adult. i don't feel like an adult; indeed, i feel the same way i felt when i was ten.


i try not to get my hopes up. ever. but sometimes, i expect certain things, not out of any sense of hope, but simply out of a sense of logical progression. event B always follows event A. sometimes immedietly after, sometimes later. but it always happens.


i am waiting for event B to happen.




i am not a bad person, i don't think. i'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings. i'm just tired of being alone, i guess. and i don't want a status, or a title, or anything like that. i just want connection, i guess. physical gratification? maybe. i dunno. it would be nice.

deep inside of me, there is a part of me that yearns to be with someone else. it is a weakness, no doubt, but it is still there and i cannot rid myself of it no more than i can change the color of my eyes. its the part of me that lies under the desire to feel the smoothness of a woman's skin, or feel the coolness of the sweat on her back. beyond the part of me that just wants pure physical sensation is the part of me that tells the rest of me 'we, as a whole, or indeed not a whole and need someone else to make us a whole. we cannot be happy until we find the other half of our collective us.' i hate when people act like this. i hate when my friends act like this. and most of all i hate when i act like this. because i know it's not true. i am not a human version of the constructicons, who are not complete until they join together to form devastator. i'm a human being, a whole in and of myself.


but nonetheless, i want company.

so....

i graduated college. word up.

take me out back, tie me up, and put a bullet in my head.

because i am hopelessly ill and will never get better.

thesis

is done. here's a rough version.

1. Introduction
The argument over animal rights is nothing new. For thousands of years, there have been arguments on both sides of the debate, with some arguing that we do have a duty to not treat animals cruelly and others saying that we have no obligations. In ancient Greece, Pythagoras, the great mathematician, argued for compassion towards animals based on his theory of transmigration of the soul, which was that animals and men had the same kind of soul, and that because of this, reincarnation of the souls of men into the bodies of animals and vice versa was a reason for us not to eat meat, as we might actually be eating former human beings. Aristotle, however, believed that animals ranked far below men in his Great Chain of Being and were not rational, and thus men had no obligation in any way to respect them, as they technically had no rights. In the Christian and Jewish faiths, there is an interesting view of animals. In the book of Genesis, God gives man dominion over the other animals, which, to some, would imply that man has no duties to be kind to animals because this gives us the right to do whatever we wish to them. However, there are places in the Bible where God commands man to be kind to animals. For example, it is wrong to cut the limb of a living animal (Genesis 9:14), or to kill an animal in a manner that is not quick and merciful (Deut. 12:4). Furthermore, man is commanded to treat his animals in a kind manner overall. (Deut. 12:15) Muhammad, the most revered prophet in Islam, once said, “he who is kind to the creatures of Allah is kind to himself.” So, religiously, while there is no official doctrine in any of the Semitic religions that teaches animal rights, there is nonetheless an idea that man should be kind to animals. However, Thomas Aquinas wrote that man had no real obligations to be kind to animals, but that we should kind to animals because it teaches us to be kind to other humans. Later, the great philosopher Rene Descartes wrote that animals, unlike man, were simply complex automata, or organic machines. Man, Descartes believed, consisted of both a body and a soul, and it was this rational soul that linked man to God. Man could think, reflect, feel pain, and suffer, whereas he argued animals could do none of that. To Descartes, the sound of an animal crying out in pain could be likened to the sound of a bell ringing in a clock upon striking a certain hour; a purely mechanical reaction, and nothing more. There was no sort of feeling behind the sound; it was just the end result of a blind mechanism at work. Because of this view, Descartes believed there was nothing wrong with cruelty to animals. Nicholas Malebranche, a contemporary of Descartes, expressed a similar view when he wrote: “They [animals] eat without pleasure, cry without pain, grow without knowing it; they desire nothing, fear nothing, know nothing…”
But not all in the ancient/early modern world believed that we had no obligations, direct or otherwise, to respect the lives of animals. Jean Jacques Rousseau, the famous French political philosopher, believed that animals should be respected and treated compassionately, not out of respect for their ability to reason, but instead out of their ability to suffer. He argued that since animals were, like man, sentient beings, they deserved just as much respect as another human being, as both beings suffered in the same way. Jeremy Bentham, the “father of utilitarianism”, argued for a similar consideration towards animals for several reasons, stating:
“It may one day come to be recognized that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate? What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”
Unlike Rousseau, however, Bentham completely rejected the concept of natural rights, which according to Bentham, could theoretically give one being more consideration than another being simply due to a theoretical idea. Instead, Bentham proposed that each and every being count for one and no more than one, and that their suffering and pleasure be counted just as equally. And since animals suffer the same way that human beings do, their suffering should be given equal consideration. So, like Rousseau, Bentham believed that a beings ability to suffer and not its ability (or lack thereof) to reason should be counted when considering its “rights”. But it is the idea of counting reasoning as consideration for rights that will be the subject of this paper, as reason was the basis for Immanuel Kant’s justification for the granting of rights to beings.
Kant’s Theory
For centuries, Immanuel Kant’s ethical theory has been considered one of the most sound and sure theories on what is right and what is wrong. It is based on the rather simple idea of doing what we ought to do, not out of any sort of personal gain, or what is convenient or beneficial for us, but simply because it is the right thing to do. Such a theory is noble in both theory and in practice. It has the appeal of the archetypical good to it; indeed, few things sound better than “doing the right thing” out of a sense of duty, no matter what the consequences. And likewise, in practice, there are few ethical theories that approach Kant’s in their consistency in the real world. It provides maxims for our behavior; before doing something, we should ask ourselves how the world would be if everyone acted that way. This idea is known as the first formulation of Kant’s moral theory. If we were to take what we please, what kind of world would exist if everyone took what they pleased? The theory is based on the belief that we all know what is right and what is wrong, and thus we can do what is right using this logic; we use our rationality to decide what is right to do and what is wrong to do. It is this rationality that Kant championed above all else. He wrote of a “Kingdom of Ends”, a theoretical group of beings that consists of the rational beings of the world. Beings that belonged to this group were, according to Kant, ends in and of themselves, beings of infinite worth, whose lives were priceless and thus should never be treated merely according to whatever instrumental value they might possess. In other words, Kant believed it was wrong to exploit a member of the Kingdom of Ends for our own benefit and to not treat that member as an end in and of themselves. Originally, Kant wrote that the Kingdom consisted of humanity and humanity alone, stating:
“The fact that the human being can have the representation ‘I’ raises him infinitely above all the other beings on earth. By this he is a person…that is, a being altogether different in rank and dignity from things, such as irrational animals, with which one may deal and dispose of one’s discretion.”
But later, he extended it to include any rational beings. However, he still maintained that animals are not rational and thus are merely “means to an end…and that end is man.” This meant, according to most interpretations, that it was acceptable to use animals for whatever we pleased: food, transportation, labor, etc. Logically, one would assume that to follow Kant’s stance on animals would allow us to use animals for literally whatever we wanted; after all, as non-rational beings, they do not exist in the Kingdom and thus have no real rights that we are obliged to respect.
However, there are several passages in Kant’s work that indicate we are not to treat animals however we please and that we are in fact indirectly obliged to treat animals kindly. According to Kant, kindness to “dumb animals” was necessary so that it would breed in rational beings a kindness towards others. In other words, Kant believed that one should be kind to, say, a dog, so that he could properly learn how to be kind to his fellow human beings. Simply put, Kant believed that we must never mistreat animals, as this cruelty could possible carry over to our dealings with our fellow human beings, and this would be unethical. He wrote:
“Our duties towards animals are merely indirect duties towards humanity. Thus, if a dog of human service has served his master long and faithfully, his service, on the analogy of human service, deserves reward and when the dog has grown too old to serve, his master ought to him until he dies. Such action helps to support us in our duties towards human beings, where they are bounden duties. If then any acts of animals are analogous to human acts and spring from the same principle, we have duties toward the animals because thus we cultivate the corresponding duties toward human beings. If a man shoots his dog because the animal is no longer capable of service, he does not fail in his duty to the dog, for the dog cannot judge, but his act is inhuman and damages in himself the humanity which it is his duty to show towards mankind. If he is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men.”
Earlier, it had been noted that originally Kant used the blanket term “humanity” to describe membership of the Kingdom. This meant he assumed all human beings were rational, and likewise all rational beings were human. However, later on he came to realize that it was entirely possible for there to exist a rational being who was not necessarily a member of the human species. (Allan Wood writes of Kant’s theory of an intelligent extraterrestrial species that would be, rationally, identical to human beings and would thus “be ends in themselves every bit as much as human beings”. ) Kant realized the logical inconsistencies involved with excluding a being from the Kingdom based merely on species membership, and thus extended the boundaries of the Kingdom to “rational beings” instead of merely “humanity.”
Thesis
In this paper, I argue that these boundaries can, and, in order for Kant’s argument to not collapse, must be extended to include at least some non-human animals, which exhibit at least some semblance of rationality. This must be done for several reasons. First, for the sake of consistency in general, and secondly, for consistency within itself and according to the guidelines that Kant himself laid down for the morality of any given situation i.e. the proper universalization of a moral law. In other words, any being which exhibits any degree of rationality which we, as human beings, possess must be included in Kant’s Kingdom of ends and treated the same way that we would treat a “fully” rational being, which is freedom from exploitation in any way. If we simply discriminate against non-human animals for no good reason other than the fact that they are animals and not humans, then we are not consistent in our beliefs and thus our beliefs are invalid. As Julian Franklin wrote, if animals are excluded from Kant’s theory of morality, then that theory “collapses into incoherence.” In short, I will argue that the consideration that Kant reserved for human beings must be extended to at least some non-human animals or else his argument falls apart. I will also give a brief summary of the history of arguments pertaining to animal rights so as to illustrate why it is justified to extend such consideration. The arguments of such writers as Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Allan Wood, and Julian Franklin will be examined and if need be, criticized. Singer and Wood’s arguments in particular will be criticized for their shortcomings and moral inconsistencies regarding Kant’s theories and the rights of animals.
It should be noted that in this paper, the ethical and moral aspects of eating meat or any other animal product for that matter, will not be the main topic. To be fair, it will be touched upon but only to illustrate the ways in which animals are exploited. However, the eating of meat will not be criticized in and of itself, but will instead be taken as part of a whole. In other words, the main idea of this paper will not be that eating meat is wrong, although the act does fall under the criteria of treating an animal merely as a thing of instrumental value. Instead, it will be argued that it is the exploitation of animals and the attaching of an instrumental value and only an instrumental value to their lives that is truly wrong, and not just the slaughter or torture of animals for their flesh or for medical experimentation. I intend to show that, as noted animal rights activist Karl Buechner once said, “animals lives are their own and must be given respect.”
2. Direct Duty Views
The most easily understood argument for animal rights is what is known as a direct duty argument; that is, that we have duties that we owe directly to animals. Kant’s ideas would be considered indirect duty views, as they maintain kindness to animals must be maintained only to “cultivate” kindness in man towards man; in other words, our duty is really towards humanity, but in order to carry out that duty, we have an indirect duty towards animals. However, the most well known proponent of a direct duty view in modern times is Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation. Singer is a proponent of preference utilitarianism, a version of Bentham’s moral theory.


Peter Singer’s Utilitarian View
Peter Singer is perhaps the most influential and widely known philosopher in the field of animal rights. His book Animal Liberation is considered to be the blueprint for the modern animal rights movement, and rightfully so. It presents a rather simple and easily understood argument as to why cruelty to animals is wrong. Put bluntly, cruelty to animals is wrong because it causes suffering to animals. From a utilitarian point of view (Singer is also one of the most well known utilitarian philosophers in modern times), cruelty is wrong only because it has negative consequences for a larger amount of beings than it has positive consequences for. This argument appears ironclad. After all, what is worse than unnecessary suffering? However, if one examines this argument, and takes its implications to their logical ends, it becomes obvious that there are some glaring shortcomings. But before the shortcomings of this theory are examined, a summary of it will be provided.
Simply put, Singer argued that since animals can suffer in a way that is, for the most part identical to human beings, their suffering should be counted in the moral equation of what is right and wrong. And since animals can suffer, it is our duty not to cause them suffering by killing them for food, using them for medical experiments, or by doing anything else to them that would cause them pain. He states, “If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration.”
The main idea behind Singers theories is his criteria of speciesism, or, the preference of one’s own species over all other species based solely on the fact that you yourself belong to your species and thus believe your species is somehow better than all others. It is akin to racism and sexism, in which one’s own ethnicity or gender is believed to be better than the other gender or other races based merely on simple discrimination.
An example of speciesism is as follows: let us compare a normal, healthy pig and severely mentally handicapped human infant. Pigs are known to be extremely intelligent and emotional creatures. They are capable of solving complex problems and developing emotional relationships with other pigs as well as human beings. A pig in a healthy and caring home will live a happy and productive life, and is capable of enjoying all the pleasures that a pig’s life has to offer. Now let us examine the case of the severely mentally handicapped human infant. The infant will never develop past the stage it currently exists in. She cannot recognize her parents or family, she cannot form any sort of emotional relationship with anyone, she is entirely dependent upon her parents for survival, and she is completely incapable of enjoying life at all. Indeed, she may not even be aware of her own existence.
However, despite the fact that the pig is doubtlessly the more competent and conscious being, few would object to it being used in a medical experiment or food, even though it would cut short a potentially fulfilling life and cause a sentient being untold amounts of pain. On the opposite side of the coin, few people would endorse the use of the human infant in a painful experiment or, even more ghastly, as food. Both instances, using the pig and the infant, are undeniably horrid. Causing any being pain for any reason makes most people shudder. And yet few people seriously take the pigs suffering on par with the non-suffering of the human infant. But why is this?
Often, people will merely state that the infant is human and the pig is not, as if such a blunt and circular statement remedies the dilemma perfectly. Such an attitude is speciesist. It is the preference of a being over another merely because the first being happens to be a member of your own species, while the second being happens to not be a member of your species. After all, there is no real reason to believe that the human infant, whose life is hardly a life at all, deserves to live any more than the pig, which is wholly capable of enjoying life. That is not to say that it is permissible for us to experiment on handicapped infant; indeed such behavior is undeniably wrong. And because it is undeniably wrong, then such consideration should be extended to nonhuman animals that are cognitively “higher” than the theoretical infant. Evelyn Pluhar writes on the subject:
“No morally relevant difference between marginal humans and sentient nonhumans has been found to legitimize the very different ways in which these beings are standardly treated….One must either give up the belief that autonomous moral agents are the primary subjects of moral concerns and respect, or one must accept the full, ghastly (for marginal humans and sentient nonhumans alike) implications of that view.”
Singer contends that this logic can be extended to all animals, and that causing animals suffering is thereby wrong. So, in essence, according to Singer’s argument, humane consideration, i.e., freedom from exploitation must be extended to at least animals that are higher than a severely retarded infant. This would include “higher” primates such as gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and baboons, as well as pigs, dogs, cetaceans (dolphins and whales) and certain birds such as gray parrots and magpies.
Criticism of Singer
Singer’s intent is noble and has had a positive impact on the way animals are viewed. Because of his famous Animal Liberation, many people around the world were introduced to the idea that animals should be respected and not just used as objects. Unfortunately, however, Singer’s argument falls short on several grounds. Each one of these shortcomings involves Singer’s emphasis on suffering as the deciding factor in the rightness or wrongness of any given moral situation. First, like utilitarianism, as a whole, the consequences of the action are what decide if an action is ethical or not. If the consequences are favorable, the action is right. If not, it is wrong. The implications of only suffering being wrong are the most obvious error in this argument, as this contends that killing animals when they are a) unconscious or b) under anesthesia is morally permissible. Essentially, it says as long as there is no pain, and then the act is morally permissible. This is almost absurd in it’s implications, as logically this mindset would allow for, say, a dog under anesthesia to be skinned alive, because as long as the dog feels no pain, it falls outside of Singer’s considerations in the argument.
Second, Singer’s grounds for a vegetarian diet become quite shaky when the suffering aspect is taken out of the argument, as many kosher types of meat are slaughtered in a humane and merciful way, as dictated by Jewish law. Julian Franklin points out that a fatal flaw in the utilitarian argument when applied to animal rights is that “it holds, against common sense, that killing is not an evil if the death is painless to the victim, if it does not set a bad example, and if it does not cause pain to those who cared about the deceased.” This logic would not only justify and allow eating meat, but logically the murder of say, a homeless person with no family, because there would be no one around to mourn the death of the person. Then Singer’s argument for a vegetarian diet would almost have to have a sort of asterisk/footnote attached to it: that eating meat slaughtered in a merciful way is permissible because there was no suffering.
Utilitarian ethics in general tend to face a whole host of shady uncertainties when applied to real world situations. Slavery, for example, is undeniably atrocious and morally reprehensible. Yet, slavery was a case in which a large amount of people benefited while a smaller amount of people suffered. So, according to utilitarianism, slavery would be permissible as long as a larger amount of people benefitted from it. A gang rape, according to utilitarian ethics, might somehow be considered ethical, although it could be argued that since most people would be horrified by such a crime, their horror and outrage would weigh just as heavily as the “benefits” of the rapists, as well as the sorrow and shame of the victim and their family. Other forms of animal exploitation can slip quietly through the cracks of Singer’s boundaries, such as rodeos or zoos. Although the two are undeniably cruel to animals, they are the cause of pleasure for countless more beings than they are the cause of suffering for. Even the very act of eating meat can be justified using utilitarian ethics if one cow must suffer for a hundred people to eat, then it seems that the benefits outweigh the nonbenefits and thus it is morally permissible for the cow to die.
So Singer’s argument falls short of not only justifying a vegetarian diet, as it assumes that the consequences of animal cruelty will always be suffering and pain for many, but also on animal cruelty altogether, because it denies the existence of any objective right or wrong and bases these two ideas on benefits and non-benefits for a given amount of people (or beings), and thus is wrong based on that.
However, I contend to show that the true wrongdoing when it comes to animal cruelty, for whatever reason, is not just the suffering and pain of the animal in question. Giving suffering such high regard and emphasizing it in a moral equation takes away from the dignity of the being itself; it is essentially placing a higher value on a quality of a being than the being itself; that quality being the ability to suffer. This greatly reduces the value of the life in question, and therefore falls into some rather shaky moral territory. Doubtlessly, such suffering is undeniably wrong, but giving the suffering higher regard than the actual life of the being is just as bad as the suffering itself. Thus, the real moral atrocity is not the suffering or what becomes as a result of the act of cruelty, but the reduction of a feeling, emotional, rational being to an object to be used and forgotten about once all utility has been gained from it. It is the same thing that was and continues to be wrong with slavery: the deprivation of dignity from a being that should be treated not as an object but as an end in and of itself.


3. Indirect Duty Views
Indirect duty is, simply put, duty not directly to the moral patients, but instead out of obligation to moral agents. In regard to Kant and animal rights, it is duty to animals not for the animal’s sake but for the sake of cultivating a proper attitude towards our fellow men. Kant believed, for example, that in order for us to learn how to be kind towards people, we should be kind towards animals. Kant simply believed that any sort of cruelty was bad for people, as he believed this degraded and trivialized our infinitely valuable rational nature. He was not alone in his belief that indirect duty was owed to animals. Many of his contemporaries, including John Locke, argued for indirect duty towards animals. Locke wrote that we should teach children not to be cruel towards animals, as “the custom of tormenting and killing of beasts will, by degrees, harden their minds even towards men." Locke also believed that harming animals was wrong for the same reason that vandalism was wrong; it destroyed the property of another and caused financial damage to the owner. Alexander Broadie and Elizabeth Pybus used the example of borrowing a book from someone, in that we have a duty to not damage or destroy that book. Our duty is not directly towards the book itself, but instead towards the owner of that book. Kant, similarly, believed that to mistreat animals was to exercise a cruelty that, in the end, hurt ourselves.
Allan Wood’s View On Kant
An attempt to explain Kant’s seeming uncertainty on just how animals are to be treated is made by Allan Wood. In his article “Kant On Duties Regarding Nonrational Nature”, Wood tries to reconcile Kant’s classic argument regarding the point of nonrational nature, i.e., to exist merely for the use of rational man, with the idea that nature can exist and be appreciated for its beauty alone. This argument that nature must be respected regardless of its use to mankind implies that the lives of animals are their own and must be respected. However, as it has been established, this last statement goes against what is classically accepted as Kant’s teachings, as animals are not “rational” in the traditional sense and therefore fall outside of what Kant refers to as “The Kingdom of Ends”, which encompasses all rational beings who are to be treated as ends in and of themselves and never merely as means to an end. But there arise in Kant’s writings certain discrepancies about animals and their non-rational nature. One would assume that, given Kant’s idea that non-rational animals fall outside of the the Kingdom of Ends, we have every right to use animals (or any non-rational being) in any way we would please without regards for their well being. But Kant writes that animal’s lives are not to be pointlessly squandered for our amusement, or for any other useless or unnecessary reason. He claims that doing so would breed in man a tendency towards cruelty for all beings.
Wood counters this claim, when it comes to animals anyway, that since at least some animals possess certain aspects of rationality or, as he puts it, “having parts of it or necessary conditions of it.” That is, if a being possesses some of the qualities that rational beings possess that make them rational, then they should be treated in the same way we would treat a fully rational being and not just out of indirect duty. It is not the actuality of the rationality that should be respected, but instead the abstract and possible form that should be respected, according to Wood. This is somewhat a of Lockean view, that the qualities of a person are what make them who or what they are. Wood believes that it is these qualities that should be respected, because if we respect the whole of the qualities in a being, then we should respect a being that possesses part of the qualities.
Criticism of Wood’s View
I find fault with Wood’s logic, as well as his stance on the issue, on several grounds. First, there arises the issue of what Wood’s version of rationality is made of. That is, if rationality is a sum of parts, then what are the parts? It is possible that the parts of rationality can be divided into such parts as sense of right and wrong, awareness of self, etc. However, this still does nothing to alleviate the problem of just why these individual traits are deserving of respect. Apparently, it seems that Wood is committing the fallacy of division; that is, he is assuming that just because the whole is to be respected, we must respect its parts equally. This is simply not true, because it does not hold that any one quality of rationality is what makes a being rational.
Secondly, the qualititative view of persons that Wood takes seems to stand at odds with a Kantian view that rational persons have intrinsic value regardless of any qualities they might possess which might increase their instrumental value to others. To clarify: when we say ‘I respect so and so for their compassion and sense of humor’, what we are saying is that we appreciate the qualities that the person in question possesses. However, according to Kant, regardless of what qualities a person possesses, we should respect that person because as a rational being they possess infinite intrinsic value. It seems to almost cheat a person out of their deserved respect as a rational being, according to Kant anyway, as it does not value the human being because they are a rational being, but only because it values the qualities that they possess as a rational being. It may not make much of a difference, but Wood’s argument would seem sensible from a Kantian viewpoint if his interpretation of Kant’s logic was “respect a being that is rational” instead of “respect the rationality that a being has.”


Tom Regan’s View of Kant
Tom Regan’s view of animal rights is based upon the idea that each animal, and therefore each human being, has a life that matters to it. For Regan, it is this idea that the granting of rights should be based upon, and not whether a being is rational. Because we all have a life that matters to us, we should all be given the same respect. Regan writes:
“Both animals and humans have preference and welfare interests, some biological, some psychological, some social; both are capable of acting intentionally in pursuit of what they want; both may be benefited or harmed…both have lives that are characterized by pleasure or pain, satisfaction or frustration’ and the overall tone or quality of the life of each, to a greater or lesser degree, is a function of the harmonious satisfaction of those preferences that it is in the interest of each to have satisfied. Granted, the sources of satisfaction available to most humans are at once more numerous and varied than those available to animals…nevertheless, the same categories of thought (interests, benefits, harms, etc.) that illuminate the most general features of human welfare are equally applicable to animal welfare. Though some may find surprising similarity, they shouldn’t. In view of our own animality, surprise would be appropriate only if things were otherwise-only if, that is, human welfare differed in kind from animal welfare.”
What Regan is referring to is consistency in granting rights to beings. While this is somewhat similar to Singer’s argument, it is different in that it does not depend on utilitarianism as a platform to grant rights to animals. Instead, Regan is simply saying that since we routinely grant rights to the mentally impaired, infants, the mentally deranged, and other individuals who are wholly incapable of recognizing their rights, and then we should, in order to remain consistent, grant rights to animals as well.
4. Rationality In Animals
Kant’s Kingdom of Ends was made up exclusively of rational beings. So Kant claimed that animals, since they were non-rational beings according to him, were excluded from the consideration guaranteed to members of the Kingdom. Rationality is, by definition, “the state of having good sense and sound judgment” or “the quality of being consistent with or based on logic.” To be rational is to be able to make judgments and act on those judgments based on logical reasoning. However, it can also include several other cognitive abilities, such as an awareness of oneself, the ability to recognize the existence of objects that we do not see, and the communication of assorted ideas.
Use of Language
The first “quality” of rationality to be examined is the use of language. Some, such as R.G. Frey, have argued that this ability is an essential part of rationality, and that language is how rationality is revealed to us. But this argument is circular in nature, as it argues that language is a prerequisite for rationality, and that rationality can only be revealed by our use of language. Furthermore, the use of language as a sign of rationality and consciousness holds no ground, as we do not consider human beings who, for whatever reason, have lost the ability to use language to no longer be rational and conscious.
Tom Regan further criticizes the language test for rationality by pointing out that children, before they learn how to speak, are clearly aware of their surroundings. Regan also points out that the language test fails because if it’s implications on the acquirement of language are followed, then that acquisition of language is mysterious and somewhat miraculous. For if a child, before they can speak, is unaware and unconscious, then they are unable to learn anything. Eventually though they learn how to speak and use language, and proponents of the language view are at a loss to defend this, because this counterargument illustrates that in order for a being to learn a language, they must be conscious.
But let us play devil’s advocate, and for the sake of the argument accept that language is necessary for rationality. We can even do away with the theoretical victim of brain damage who is no longer able to use language and say that he or she is not rational. But this does not entirely discount animals as nonrational beings, because certain animals have demonstrated the ability to use language. Some of the great apes, such as chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, have been taught American Sign Language by researchers over the years. Beginning in the 1960s, researchers at the University of Nevada taught Washoe, a female chimpanzee, how to use ASL. Washoe demonstrated both novel abilities (such as signing for “water” and “bird” upon seeing a duck) as well as an ability to distinguish general categories (such as signing for “dog” upon seeing both a real dog and a picture of a dog, regardless of breed. Shortly after that, David Premack of the University of Pennsylvania taught Sarah, another female chimpanzee, to use symbols for words. Sarah was given colored plastic shapes, which represented separate ideas and was taught to communicate her own ideas using different combinations of these shapes.
However, these early attempts at teaching the great apes language were not without criticism. Some have objectivity of these studies, claiming that that these animals are merely mimicking their teachers, or that the apes are picking up on subtle and unconscious cues from their instructors. Herb Terrace, a professor of psychology at Columbia University, taught a chimp named Nim to cleverly mimic his trainers and repeat what appeared to be cohesive sentences but what were in actuality just that: clever mimicking. Beatrix and Allan Gardner, the couple responsible for training Washoe, repeated the study with several other chimps, and when testing them used images on a screen instead of human teachers. Although there was still somewhat of a success rate, there was a dramatic decrease in the amount of correct signing. Premack’s work with Sarah suffered even more, with Sarah often taking long breaks between signs, almost as if she were waiting for the cues she was accustomed to.
Does this discredit the theory that apes can learn language? According to David Degrazia, it doesn’t. Degrazia, amongst others, argues that too much emphasis is being put on language production (able to speak language) while language comprehension (understanding language) is almost entirely ignored. Small children’s rate of comprehension far exceeds their rate of production when learning. Furthermore, more advanced attempts at teaching apes, under more strict conditions, human language have yielded much more promising results, both in language comprehension and language production. Koko, a female lowland mountain gorilla, was taught by researchers at Stanford University over a thousand different words in ASL, and can respond to over two thousand verbal commands. With Koko, the ability to create phrases out of signs she knew to express an idea of something she didn’t know about was apparent. For example, without being taught the word for “mask”, Koko began referring to the mask as “eye hat”. Zebras to her were “white tigers”. A cigarette lighter was a “bottle match”. Koko’s use of language also demonstrated an awareness of self. When angry, she would describe herself as a “red gorilla.” When denied the juice she wanted and thus had to drink water through a straw, she became a “sad elephant.” When examined in light of what these individual words meant to Koko, they make perfect sense. Furthermore, when asked if she did anything special on her birthday, she replied with “sleep. Eat.” When asked again if she did anything beyond sleeping and eating on her birthday, she replied with “old gorilla”.
In the case of Chantek the orangutan, the apes that learned the language used it to attempt to deceive their keepers. Chantek would often times sign for the word “dirty” so he could get into the bathroom and play with the washing machine, the soap, and the sink instead of using the toilet. H. Lyn White Miles, the researcher who trained Chantek, wrote of an instance in which the orangutan took Miles’ hand with one of his own, and pulled Miles’ hand away while he, Chantek, reached into Miles’ pocket for a morsel of food. Much like Koko, Chantek created compound words to signify entirely new ideas for him. When witnessing a researcher placing eye drops in their eyes, Chantak began signing about “eye-drinks”. Before engaging in play with researchers, Chantak would let them know the play wouldn’t be too rough by signing “no-teeth”.
The great apes are not alone in their ability to create new phrases out of words taught to them to represent their ideas. Stephen Wise writes about Alex the gray parrot, who was being taught by researchers at MIT to speak beyond the typical mimicking of parrots. Wise relates the story of Alex being introduced to apples; prior to this, the parrot was familiar with grapes, bananas, and cherries. When given an apple, although he become quite fond of the fruit, he had trouble relating the word “apple” to the fruit he was being given. However, after a few days, he began referring to the apple as a “banerry”. When he asks for an apple, he asks for a banerry. Irene Pepperburg, the researcher who has done the majority of work with Alex, believes that the word “banerry” is a combination of the words “cherry” and “banana”, two fruits that Alex was particularly fond of. So then, it appears that at least some animals are capable of understanding, producing, and creating language. Even if we accept linguistic ability as a necessary quality to be considered rational, (but as I mentioned before, I do not believe linguistic ability to be necessary for rationality) then at least the great apes must be considered.
An interesting side note to the concept of language is that there must be a clear distinction between the ideas of language and communication. David Degrazia defines communication as “when one animal successfully and deliberately transmits information to another animal; when that happens, let us count both as having communicated.” He writes of the behavior of a study done of vervet monkeys in the jungle. It was found that, when warning others of predators, the vervets had three different calls for their three main predators; one for an eagle, one for a leopard, and one for a snake. Each call was, soundwise, distinct from the other two, and each call conveyed a different idea; in this case, a different place to hide for each predator. Degrazia takes care in separating this phenomenon from language, as he argues this does not constitute language because it lacks syntax, and is merely an automated response triggered by the sight of a predator.
Self-Awareness
One of the most commonly used attempts at denying rights to animals is arguing that they are not aware of their own existence. After all, why should rights be granted to a being that is completely unaware of the fact that it is alive? What real harm can come from denying rights to such a being? Well, theoretically none, as a being who is not self-aware is essentially the same as a vegetable, and few would argue for the rights of vegetables. Earlier in this paper, Descartes view on animals was discussed; Descartes, of course, believed that animals were aware of nothing, not even their own existence, and thus there was nothing morally objectionable about hurting them. But what if animals actually are self-aware? Then the argument for self-awareness can no longer be used against them. However, how can self-awareness be defined?
Degrazia outlines three basic types of self awareness: bodily self awareness, in which one is aware of one’s body being distinct and separate from other things in the world; social self-awareness, in which one is aware of the relations one has with others in a group; and finally introspective awareness, in which one is aware of one’s emotional states. The first state of awareness is arguably the most basic, as it is what most people think of when they hear the phrase “self aware”. To illustrate this concept, I will first show how it develops in human children. In most healthy human babies, this basic sense of self-awareness develops between the first and second year of life. Until that time, the child cannot distinguish between itself and it’s environment. It does not perceive its feet as being part of its body. Between a year and half and two years of age, most infants will be able to recognize themselves in the mirror, and make the connection that the image in the mirror is actually a reflection of themselves. The second sense of self-awareness, which is an awareness of others as similar to oneself. Around a year of age, children will tend to look where others are looking and point, a concept known as “joint attention.
But what about self-awareness in animals? Are there any instances of such behavior? Indeed, there are studies, which have yield information that would strong suggest at least some animals.
Earlier, I had mentioned Koko the gorilla’s statement of her being an “old gorilla” on her birthday. Also, when angered, she would refer to herself as a “red gorilla”, and when she was feeling down, she was a “sad elephant”. All of the phrases, while not making much sense to a human observer, have one thing in common: they were created and uttered by Koko in reference to herself. They indicate that not only was Koko aware of her own existence, but she was also aware of her various emotional states. Even more surprising, she seemed to have a concept of her ability to learn; when asked “what’s a smart gorilla?”, Koko replied with “Me.” This means she had not only an idea that she was a gorilla, but that she was an exceptionally intelligent gorilla. In other words, she was not only aware of her status in the world as a distinct and separate object from other things in the world, but the qualities she possessed, be they constant qualities (her intelligence) or passing emotional traits (sadness or anger). Furthermore, the fact that she recognized herself as a gorilla, and not, say, a human being, indicates she had a distinct idea of her qualitative separation from human beings.
The use of mirrors in experiments on the concept of self-awareness in animals often yields interesting results. Leslie Rogers writes of an experiment done by Professor Gordon Gallup at the State University of New York in which chimpanzees, which had been born in the wild and had had no previous experience with mirrors, were put before mirrors. The results were as follows:
“At first the chimpanzees treated their image as if it were another chimpanzees, and they engaged in head bobbing, and vocalizing and threatened the image. But, about after three days, they began to perform self-directed behavior, using the mirror to groom parts of the body that they could not see without the aid of the mirror, making faces at the mirror, blowing bubbles and manipulating wads of food in their lips while looking in the mirror. It appeared as if they had learned to recognize themselves in the mirror.”
Further tests yielded even more interesting results:
“After ten days of exposure to the mirror, Gallup anathesthesized each chimpanzee and, while it was unconscious, applied a spot of red dye to the forehead and the tip of one ear. The chimpanzee was then returned to its cage without the mirror being present. Four hours later, by which time the chimps had recovered from the anesthesia, the number of times they touched the dye was recorded. They did not touch the dye very often. Then the mirror was returned to the front of the cage and the same behavior was scored again. Now there was a several fold increase in the number of times that the chimpanzees touched the dye spot on their foreheads or ears while looking in the mirror.”
Now, while these results of these tests are subject to criticism, (namely, the use of anesthesia and how it could affect the cognitive behavior the chimpanzees) they nonetheless raise several interesting questions on the ability of animals to recognize themselves. The ability of birds to recognize themselves in the mirror has been well documented. Alex the gray parrot, who was mentioned earlier, learned the color “gray” by identifying it with his reflection in the mirror. Wise also writes of Alex’s possible self-awareness:
“His use of ‘I’, ‘wanna’, ‘want’, and other words in context that make it seem clear he understands who ‘I’ is and distinguishes ‘I’ from ‘you’ strongly suggests self awareness.”
However, Wise does admit that one of Alex’s greatest talents is imitation, and that it is entirely possible all he is doing is imitating the behavior of others to solve problems. But Wise also points out that by using skills imitated from others to solve problem demonstrates at least a limited awareness of self in Alex. Researchers at Harvard University performed a similar experiment to the one performed by Dr. Gallup, but this experiment involved pigeons instead of chimpanzees. The pigeons were trained to peck at blue dots of dye on their wings, where they could clearly see the dye. Later, dots of blue dye were applied to their bibs, which they could not see without the aid of the mirror. Instead of pecking at the image in the mirror, the pigeons bent their heads down in an attempt to peck at the dots they saw on their chests using the mirror. This would mean that the pigeons knew that the image in the mirror was a reflection of their bodies, and since they knew that the reflection in the mirror was of them, they had a concept of self. Self-awareness, or at least a rudimentary sense of it, can be revealed without using a mirror. Christine Korsgaard uses the example of a tiger, which, while hunting, places itself downwind from its prey. This reveals that the tiger has at least a basic sense of self-awareness in relation to its environment. Also, a social animal, which makes gestures of submission when a dominant animal appears, is locating itself in a certain social niche. This is also a form of self-awareness, albeit a very basic and rudimentary form, but a form nonetheless.
A final point in animal awareness comes from Tom Regan. Regan presented what he referred to the “Cumulative Argument for Animal Conscious.” This argument is not so much a single argument, but instead a collection of arguments. It is as follows:

“1. The attribution of consciousness to certain animals is part of the commonsense view of the world; attempts to discredit this belief, if Descartes’s attempt its taken as illustrative, have proven to lack adequate justification.
2. The attribution of consciousness to certain animals is in harmony with the ordinary use of language; attempts to reform or replace this way of speaking, as the experiment of Hebb and his associates illustrates, also have proven to lack the adequate justification.
3. The attribution of consciousness to animals does not imply or assume that animals have immortal souls and thus can me made and defend independently of religious convictions about life after death.
4. How animals behave is consistent with viewing them as conscious.
5. An evolutionary understanding of consciousness provides a theoretical basis for attributing awareness to animals other than human beings.”

Simply put, Regan has shown that those attempting to disprove animal consciousness have failed, and that the burden of proof is still on them to disprove the idea. He argues that since animal states of mind are similar to human states of mind on an evolutionary scale, then it is not at all unlikely at least certain animals are conscious in a similar way to human beings.


Beliefs And Desires
Tom Regan, a philosopher known for his defense of animal rights from a Kantian perspective, wrote extensively on the subject of the idea of animals possessing beliefs, and thereby deserving rights. Beliefs, it is argued, denote rationality. Hence any being that has beliefs is also rational. However, the problem remains of proving that animals can in fact have beliefs. Since beliefs are linked to desires, it needs to be proven that animals can first possess beliefs. Regan cites R.G. Frey, who argued that animals cannot have desires. “Frey’s Argument”, as Regan calls it, is follows:
1. Only beings that have beliefs can have desires.
2. Animals cannot have beliefs.
3. Ergo, animals cannot have desires

Frey’s logic is based on his argument that since animals lack linguistic
capabilities, they therefore lack the ability to believe. And since they cannot believe, they cannot have desires. This logic is obviously flawed, and for several reasons. First, it rests too heavily on the idea that desires are dependent upon having beliefs, when in reality, it is not at all necessary for a being to believe in order to have a desire. Stephen Stich writes on the subject:

“Desires can arise in a variety of ways. One way in which they typically arise is through deprivation. An organism deprived of food, water, or sexual release will acquire a desire for food, water, and sexual release, the strength of the desire generally increasing with the length of time in which the organism has been deprived.”

Stich writes further of the theoretical case of a dog having a desire for a bone. If a dog witnesses its owner placing a bone in its dish, it will form the belief that there is a bone in the dish. In short, if the dog desires a bone, it has the belief that it can satiate that desire by acquiring the bone. Therefore, animals can in fact have desires, which, theoretically, can lead to beliefs.

Secondly, Regan counters Frey’s argument that in order to have beliefs, one must be capable of language. Regan criticizes this argument using the following argument, which involves a linguistically disabled man seeing a snake:

“Suppose the man, seeing [the snake], jumps away in terror, happens not to be able to speak or comprehend any language. Both physically and intellectually, let us suppose, he lacks the necessary wherewithal to acquire the use of language. On Frey’s view even when revised, what we cannot do is attribute any belief to this man. Since he is totally bereft of any linguistic competence, he cannot believe that any sentence, in any language, is true or false. On Frey’s view, he cannot believe anything. So, here we have this man: his eyes bulge, he jumps away, his face wears an expression of extreme terror; but does he believe anything? Is there something about what our fellow traveler perceives that leads him to believe that there is something to be afraid of? On Frey’s view, there is not. Lacking in language, the traveler is lacking in beliefs also. Not only does he not believe anything, he cannot believe anything.”

Regan is essentially reducing Frey’s argument to an absurdity. We do not believe that just because someone cannot speak or comprehend language that person cannot believe something; after all, it is entirely possible and more than likely that the theoretical traveler seeing the snake only is afraid of the snake because he believes the snake can harm him. The same reasoning can be applied to animals on a more basic level. To “believe”, according to Webster’s, means “to hold as true or genuine.” Animals, perceiving something, such as Stich’s dog perceiving the bone in it’s dish or an animal threatened in the wild by a predator, hold that perception as true based on their sensory input. They believe in the most basic sense of the word. Furthermore, if an animal is suffering, it will seek to alleviate that pain, as it believes it can be free of the pain. As Franklin says: “How can a being have pain without desiring to be rid of it?”

So are animals rational? I argue that, based on the evidence seen, yes, at least some animals display at least the rudimentary sense of what we consider to be rational. The great apes in particular demonstrate capabilities in learning language and recognizing themselves as separate entities in the world, two traits that are considered to be traits of rational beings. This would allow for consideration from a Kantian point of view for at least some animals, and in the following section I will show how it is this consideration for at least some animals that must lead to the inclusion of animals in the Kingdom of Ends in order for Kant’s theory to remain consistent.


5. Justification from Universalization
In the following section, I will explain why Kant’s reasoning, if followed logically to its end, must include animals for consideration or it will become contradictory and invalid. I have already shown in the previous section that some animals display the qualities that we could consider necessary to be rational beings, such as use of language, awareness of self, and the ability to form beliefs. In the following section, I will examine Kant’s theory of universality and argue just why animals must be included in his Kingdom of Ends, and exclusion of them risks turning his theory into one of contradiction.
According to Kant, in order for an action or belief to be moral and just it must be able to be properly universalized; that is, if we cannot, before committing an act, justify everyone else acting in the same way, then we should not choose that particular action. For example, Kant believed that lying was wrong because it trivialized and nullified the idea of truth; if everyone lied, then there would be no truth, as everyone would be lying. Its universality and absolute nature is what makes this ethical theory work so well. It takes into account what everyone ought to do and makes that “ought” into an “is”.
To clarify: stealing is wrong. We ought not to take what does not belong to us. Now, in order to explain why that is wrong, there are several ways to explain it. First, we can argue that it is wrong to steal because it causes distress to someone, namely the person we are stealing from. Secondly, we can fall back on theological grounds by saying it is wrong to steal because God (or some other “higher” authority) states that it is wrong. Thirdly, (and this is a variation of the second reason) it is wrong to steal because it is against the law. All three of these reasons run up against several problems. The first justification for why it is wrong to steal falls short because it implies that it would be acceptable to steal as long as the person we are stealing from never finds out about it. However, it is still undeniable wrong to steal from someone even if they never find out. The second and third reasons fall short because the second is based on shaky theological ground that cannot readily be argued, and the third falls short because it implies that morality is based upon the ideas of group of people.
Kantian ethics provide a very simple way of solving this problem. Kant argued that the only truly good thing in this world is a good will, and that it is the intent of the action, not the results of the action, that make that action morally worth something. This solves the somewhat sketchy territory that consequentialism wanders into. Moreover, Kant provided a very simple formula for deciding whether or not an action was right or wrong: if we cannot will every other human being to act in the same way, then it is wrong to do so. It goes without saying that according to this logic, if an action is wrong in one instance, then it is wrong in all instances. Universalization of maxims is an essential part of Kant’s philosophy, and it is in this aspect of his morality that an essential part of the argument for the inclusion of animals is found. It can be used in several ways to achieve this goal.
Universalization of Eating the Flesh of Animals
Julian Franklin writes that if the maxim “I eat the flesh of any animal I wish” can apparently be properly universalized, doing so would lead to several problems. If I am about to eat a hamburger, and if I stop to think about what would happen if everyone chose to eat whatever meat they would wish, I would at first find no problem with it. However, Franklin writes that if this maxim is properly universalized, and the “silent restriction to animals is recognized and removed” , it could lead to cannibalism, which, beyond the obvious horror of human beings eating each other, would lead to the true horror of Kantian ethics: the reduction of rational beings (humans) to mere means to an end (food). This would be unacceptable to Kant, and to most people as well, as a society that accepts the farming of human beings, as food is undeniably barbaric.
Another, less gruesome but similar nonetheless consequence of universalizing the previously mentioned maxim would be the allowance of eating any non-human animal one wishes. This is not limited to the usual cows, chickens, or pigs, but would extend to all animals. Endangered animals, such as bald eagles, Siberian tigers, and elephants, would no longer have the legal consideration that they do now, and could possibly be driven to extinction for the sake of human preference for their flesh over the flesh of another animal. Household pets could justifiably be taken from their owners and eaten by anyone that wished to do so, because if the maxim “I eat the flesh of any animal I wish” is universalized, then no animal, no matter how cherished to a family, or how rare, or how beautiful, is off limits.
One could argue that the current view that human beings have towards animals is already skewed, speciesist, and overall inconsistent. For example, a person in the West would view the Chinese custom of eating dogs with horror and disgust, and would claim that it is barbaric and “wrong” to eat a beloved household pet. They might also view the consumption of say, grub worms in Vietnam as “gross” or “disgusting”. They would do so without knowledge that most Hindus would view the Western practice of eating beef as not only barbaric but sacrilegious as well. Muslims, who abstain from eating pork due to the Quranic idea that pigs are unclean, view our consumption of pork products with a view similar to the Western view on eating insects: with revulsion. The point of this is that the proper universalization of the maxim would not only lead to blatantly and undeniably wrong consequences (cannibalism) but to many unsavory and shady consequences as well, be it the justified consumption of household pets and beautiful and/or endangered animals, or the eating of animals that many people of different customs would believe to be revolting for whatever reason.
Universalization of the Treatment of Animals
The second problem that is encountered when it comes to properly universalizing maxims is based upon Kant’s own teachings. As mentioned previously, Kant believed that cruelty to animals was wrong because, in short, it both cheapened our infinitely valuable rational nature by changing it from an end to a means, as well as it breeds in us an insensitivity towards the suffering of our fellow men. However, Kant believed that cruelty to animals could be justified under certain circumstances, i.e., food, certain experiments, clothing, etc. This is at first consistent, but under further examination, it fails to be.
Kant’s morality is absolute in nature. What is wrong once is always wrong. It is always wrong to lie, because if we can justify lying once, then we can justify always lying and never telling the truth. Even if the consequences would be horrible for someone to not lie, lying would still be wrong. Now, that being said, Kant stated bluntly that there are times when cruelty to animals is wrong. Torturing an animal is wrong, no matter what. Hunting for sport is wrong. In short, “any action whereby we may torment animals, or let them suffer distress, or otherwise treat them without love” was wrong. It is indirectly wrong, because Kant believed that by demeaning animals we were in a roundabout way demeaning ourselves, but he still argued it was wrong nonetheless. If we take what is common in everything Kant said was wrong to do to an animal, it is this: they cause animals pain and suffering, and that is wrong. Moreover, such practices make an animal a means to an end, whether that end be one’s own amusement, the satisfaction of one’s desire for the taste of that animals flesh, or knowledge gained by experimenting on that animal. Properly universalized, this statement includes eating meat, wearing leather, animal experimentations, etc. In short, according to Kant’s own system of ethics, and based on his own writings, since it is wrong in at least one instance to cause an animal pain then it is always wrong to cause an animal pain. Furthermore, and more important to the subject of this paper, Kant also wrote that we should never treat an animal merely as a means to an end. A horse used to plow should be treated with love and respect, as one would treat a fellow human being. Since it is wrong to treat an animal merely as a means to an end in one instance, then, if that maxim is properly universalized, it is always wrong to treat an animal as a means to an end. This also includes the farming of animals for meat and leather, as well as dairy farming, egg farming, fur farming, animal experimentation, and any other practice that value what an animal can either do or what can be done with the animal rather than the life of the animal itself.
Conclusion
It has already been noted several times that Kant was quite insistent upon keeping membership of the Kingdom of Ends exclusive to what he believed were the only rational beings on earth: man. For him, it was that rationality that set us apart from the animals and raised us above them. Being rational gave us an infinite sense of value, one that went beyond instrumental value. For Kant, human beings had an inalienable right to be treated, at all times, as ends in and of themselves and never merely as means. But does his system of ethics entirely exclude animals? No, as Kant believed kindness towards animals was necessary to fully realize the goodness in man. By being kind to animals, we were cultivating kindness in ourselves towards other human beings. But he also stressed animals, as non-rational beings, could be treated as means to an end. This blatant exclusion of animals has led many to dismiss Kant’s theory as permissive to using animals however we please. However, is this true? Does Kant’s argument, logically followed, allow animals to be treated as mere means? I argue that it does not. I have illustrated that at least some animals are capable of what we consider to be rational thought. The great apes display a capacity for the use of language, and there have been instances of certain subjects displaying the ability to create entirely new phrases out of words they already knew in order to express an entirely new idea. So it appears that Kant’s argument, despite what Kant himself said about his system of ethics, can allow for animals to be treated as ends in and of themselves, despite what Kant himself said on the status of animals. After all, there are no logical contradictions that arise when animals are included in the Kingdom of Ends; after all, as rational beings, they have every right to be treated as ends in and of themselves. It has been written “having ceremoniously ushered animals out of the front door of the moral universe, Kant has, with commendable discretion, tried to smuggle them in again through the back.” As I have argued, I believe that not only has Kant tried to smuggle them in again through the back, he actually, without knowing it, succeeded in bringing animals back into the Kingdom of Ends.