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Sangbin Park
Professor Gillespie
Honors 231 A: Animals, Environment, Food & Justice
14 February 2015
Week #6 Reflective Journal: Animal Hierarchy and Animal Emotions
In this week of class, our discussion topic was about the hierarchy of animals and animal
emotions. I took particular interest in the Marc Bekoffs writing in which he talks about animal
emotions. He makes it clear that animals have rich emotional lives. The degree of emotions
experienced by animals may vary from humans, but animals are, undoubtedly, emotional beings.
Using his writing piece as a starting guide, I moved onto other readings to learn more about the
animal hierarchy created men.
Our society preaches that all human beings are created equal, yet we do not see all life as
equal. Animal lives are ruled out of the equation for equality of all lives. The hierarchy of
animals created by men is for pure interest of men. Of course, humans are at the top and it
descends in the order of value to human. Some may argue that humans are the rulers of the world
because we are the animal equipped with the highest intelligence. Although that may be true, it
might just as well be a mere coincidence that humans were the lucky animals that ended up with
high intelligence. Can we really say that our intelligence give us the right to assign values to
other non-human animals?
The concept of hierarchy of animals is truly interesting. It seems like nothing more than
human favoritism. In essence, whichever animal that humans like the most gets the most care.
For example, household pets such as dogs and cats are important animals because we are close to
them. Another example is that we care about animals such as lions, dolphins, and pandas while

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we do not give much attention to some other animals that are going extinct. I also find it
disturbing that humans value animals with higher intelligence and more emotions than animals
with lower intelligence and fewer emotions. Does it really matter that some animals are
conscious of their mind or emotional state? We know exactly what makes us happy and sad. Why
cannot we just apply the same standard to animals?
After reading upon the course readings, I was struck by how little I value the life of an
insect compare to animals. I noticed that many people, including me, tend to devalue insects. It is
easily observable in the way we do not hesitate to kill ants and spiders that intrude our living
spaces. This shows how little we think of their lives. It is interesting how differently we see
animals versus insects. There are many organizations that support and protect the rights of
certain animals, but there are not that many organizations that do the same for the insects.
Beckoff mentioned that the emotional states of many animals are easily recognizable (863).
Compared to animals, insects emotions are hard to detect. Perhaps, we value insects less because
we cannot observe their emotions easily. Our perspective of other forms of life has become so
normalized and ingrained in us that it is hard to see it in a different light.
Clearly, we understand that animals have emotions. We recognize that we treat different
forms of life differently. I believe that we have to reflect upon ourselves and critically evaluate
what changes we must make for a better tomorrow.

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Work Cited
Bekoff, Marc (2000). Animal Emotions: Exploring Passionate Natures, BioScience, 50 (10):
861-870.