"We cannot experience abstractions" moral responsibility for "Eternal Treblinka"

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

    Abstract

    In The Lives of Animals, the fictional Australian writer and academic Elizabeth Costello compares the treatment of nonhuman animals in food production and biomedical research to the Holocaust. Like her creator J. M. Coetzee, Costello is a passionate advocate for animal rights and a vocal critic of industries which exploit animals for commercial gain. She makes the strong claim that like citizens of the Third Reich who turned a blind-eye to the plight of the Jews, people today are "wilfully ignorant" of an omnipresent "enterprise of degradation, cruelty and killing." When Costello says, "only those inside the camps are innocent", the implication is that people who are only indirectly connected to the suffering and killing of animals are nonetheless morally responsible for it.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)213-222
    Number of pages10
    JournalSoutherly
    Volume69
    Issue number1
    Publication statusPublished - 2009

    Keywords

    • animal rights
    • responsibility

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