Have you ever had the experience of finding a handful of colorful, speckled bird eggs laying in an intricately built nest laying up in the rafters, thinking about who should be sitting on these eggs? Or maybe you have considered how a golden retriever can guide a person through a busy grocery store. Possibly you take a little to consider where the steak you’re eating is coming from? In “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace, ethics and deeper thinking is brought to light by asking questions that force you to manage your morals. Wallace writes about the rags to riches history of lobsters in American culture, honing in on the east coast’s annual marketing and the ethics behind how most people cook their lobsters, boiled alive. Wallace quickly gets philosophical when he writes, “Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure… What does ‘all right’ even mean in this context? Is the whole thing just a matter of personal choice?” Wallace explains throughout much of his text that he is a fan of lobster as many people are, so how does the lobster size up to other animals we value as a society? Taking a look into Wallace’s theories unearths further questions and deeper connections. “What the Crow Knows” by Ross Anderson covers ethics, theories, and stories about animal cognition. Anderson brings up almost identical connections to Wallace with the ethics behind animal pain and cognition. When writing about laboratory work on fish Anderson writes, “Such actions call the ethics of research itself into question. But the experiences of lab fish are nothing compared with those endured by the trillions of aquatic animals that humans yank, unceremoniously, out of oceans and rivers every year.” These articles raise seemingly simple, yet very complex issues. Where can the line be drawn between treating animals as sentient beings and consuming them as food? 

The food industry from my perspective is a thunderstorm of a story based on efficiency and greed. Many beliefs flood today’s media as to which diet is best, or which foods to stay away from. I believe that the food you choose to consume reflects heavily on your lifestyle, however being able to choose the food you consume can look very different between people of different cultures, economic standing, and can even vary greatly from household to individual. Wallace brings deeper consideration to where your food is coming from, as well as helping you consider the small things. Wallace introduces the idea of the pain experienced by  animals as they are prepared for our enjoyment. He strongly supports his feelings towards these methods when he says “However stuporous a lobster is from the trip home, for instance, it tends to come alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water”. Although thinking of the lobster in this way can seem serious to some and fruitful to others, there is value in considering the cause and effect. Anderson looks beyond lobsters when putting his thoughts onto paper, analyzing how humans perceive consciousness. He writes “we know that death looms, and grieve for the loss of richly imagined futures, it’s tempting to imagine that our own pain is the most profound of all suffering”. When reading this I think about all things bigger and smaller than us. Does a cow mooing in pain translate into a broken language of anger and swearing? Whatever you choose to call organisms, animals, or beings, obviously animals can be seen exhibiting a pain response. It’s up to your own conscience to determine what you’re dropping into your pot, and maybe think about where it came from.

Putting more thought into the reality of what animals are can be eye opening to some and just another thought coming in the front door and right out the window. The same genetics that make the lion hold its head high through the savanna, have created the house cat which can be found kneading biscuits in a fuzzy blanket from dusk till dawn. It is apparent that there is a difference between the mind of a lobster and the mind of a human. It wouldn’t be right to leave the science behind when thinking about who feels what, and comparing  complexity. Wallace dives deeper into the scientific workings saying “The nervous system of a lobster is very simple… It is decentralized with no brain. There is no cerebral cortex, which in humans is the area of the brain that gives the experience of pain”.