Notes and questions about the film "The Witness"
- Are there morally relevant differences between wearing fur and
leather?
- Fur was a main target of the movie, but few people wear it.
No mention was made of leather, but virtually everybody wears it.
- Are there morally relevant differences between wearing fur and eating animals?
- What are the rationales for eating animals? Taste? Nutrition?
- Are Eddie Lama's views about animal psychology justified?
- Do animals know they are going to be killed?
- Are animals who are being harmed--and about to be killed--feeling the type of desperation and helplessness that Lama did
when he was mugged and no one came to help him?
- Lama argues that there are no morally relevant differences between pets
and animals used for food and fur (pigs and mink). (They are all
"animals.")
- Internal properties (e.g., psychological abilities) the same;
relational properties are not the same.
- Might those relational properties justify differences in treatment?
- Special duties of care for pets (and those close to us)?
- Is it
morally relevant that these animals are created for different purposes
(but many eat dogs/cats...)?
- Are there morally relevant
differences between domestic and wild animals?
- Lama is someone who acts on his beliefs and works for change.
- Of
what use is a belief about right/wrong unless you are willing to act on it?
- Are some of us like those at the end of the film who see the cruelty/injustice and then keep walking (and don't change or work for change)?
- Is there a problem if someone believes raising and killing animals for
food is wrong but then continues to eat meat?
- Do they really believe it
is wrong (but are too weak to act on their belief) or do they not really believe it is wrong?
- The secretary who works for Lama is not a vegetarian and she says
Lama is respectful towards her.
- How wrong can one believe something is and still tolerate it in
others?
- If one tolerates others engaging in a practice, does that mean one
doesn't really believe it is seriously wrong?