Dear Prudence,
My girlfriend and I are having a disagreement. I posed to her the
following hypothetical situation: Would you rescue from fire and certain
destruction the last surviving copy on earth of the complete works of
Shakespeare or a single puppy? My girlfriend says that she would rescue
the puppy because the puppy is a fellow living being. She is highly
educated and claims to have great respect for Shakespeare. But I think
my girlfriend’s choice is the wrong one. I would rescue the Shakespeare,
not just because of the aesthetic enjoyment we get from his work but
also because of all the moral insight it provides us (including possibly
the insight that enables the concept of animal rights in the first
place). We’ve argued a lot about this. I cannot take her answer
seriously, but I find it rather disturbing nonetheless. She never
rejected the hypothetical question out of hand or said that the two
things aren’t even comparable. She says that preserving a living
conscious thing is more valuable than preserving Shakespeare. My
girlfriend loves animals, especially her poodle, and is a die-hard
vegetarian. I am, on the other hand, obsessed with Shakespeare and
rather neutral toward animals. What is the best way for us to diffuse
this situation?
-Fireman