A review by gobblebook
Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight about Animals by Hal Herzog

5.0

This is a fascinating look at the relationship between humans and animals, focusing primarily on the ethics of human-animal relationships. Herzog examines the various relationships we have with animals: we eat some (but different cultures eat different animals), we keep some as pets (but different cultures and even different people have different ideas about what animals are acceptable pets), we use some for sport (hunting, cock fighting), and we use some for medical experiments. Some people devote their lives to fighting for animal rights. At the root of all of these interactions are some major ethical questions about what we should and should not do to animals. Why is it okay to eat some and not others? Why is it okay to feed a rat to a snake, but not a kitten? Why do some people keep mice as pets, but then kill mice they find in their kitchens? Ultimately, our relationship with animals is full of ethical conflicts. If you believe that any animals have rights, then logically those rights must either extend to all animals, or you must deny human rights. There is no logical way to decide what animals have what rights, or whose lives are more valuable than others. Herzog examines how these paradoxes play out in situations like cock fighting and medical research. Ultimately, he concludes that we have to come to terms with the inherent paradoxes in our relationships with animals, and we have to be comfortable with the fact that there is no logically/ethically consistent way to define human/animal relationships. This makes for some really interesting reading, and requires a lot of soul-searching from the reader.