In Class: Freewrite 3 Sources

How do my sources tie into one another? There's the image posted online and in neuroscience books that says "thanks to animal research, they'll be able to protest 20.8 years longer" referring to sign-wielding anti animal testing groups. The next one is a video on stopanimaltesting.com that goes behind the scenes through research labs to show the maltreatment and neglect going on with the defenseless animals. The last one i found is an article on PETA's website that explains how we should approach the issue of considering animal rights as a matter of whether or not they can suffer. Each of these sources all relate to animal testing on different sides of the fence. the first one appeals to logical senses that animal research has, in fact, greatly increased the medical field's abilities for helping humans and other animals. the second two sources appeal to our emotional and ethical senses. the video of abused animals shivering in the corners of their cages or bleeding, vomiting, or screaming without necessary help is appalling to most every normal human being. nobody likes to see, or wishes to know, that animals are being hurt and are in pain, especially for our own purposes. the article on PETA's website explains that we should not be considering animal's inability to perform higher functions as grounds for using them as experimental specimen but we should be considering the fact that they can suffer and feel emotions like joy, happiness, sadness, pain, and pleasure.

what are the unstated assumptions and values that are informing these arguments and allowing them to succeed or fail? the warranted underlying assumptions in each of my texts are that we do not like unjustified dying and certainly suffering to helpless creatures. the first text, for animal testing, asserts that we need it to live the lives that we know, animal research is necessary for us to thrive. without testing on animals, humans would have to undergo these experiments or we would simply not have any of the many outcomes that have resulted from animal research. it would, at a deeper level, end up scaring the audience into agreeing with the claim that animal testing is necessary. the second two texts, against animal testing, assume that we do not like suffering, pain, and unjustified death so we will agree with their claim taht we should not use helpless animals for our own purposes.

what conclusions can you draw about the state of argument in the U.S? the culture of having the ability to achieve anything you want ifyou work hard for it uses their underlying assumptions to say more than the actual words and content can. otherwise, we would see billboards saying 'animal testing is bad' or 'animal testing is good.' we need to have reasons in the fields of logic, emotion, and ethics to successfully convince others/ourselves to agree. people, for the most part, do not go around stating their opinions without inhibition because, without supporting evidence or purpose, it is useless or even harmful.