Pages 25-48 - Oswestry School

THE DECIMUS SOCIETY 

FLESH, BEING CIVILIZED AND THE 

HIERARCHY OF EXPERIENCE 

by 

NF Lambkin MPhil, BA (Hons), PGCE 

Revised paper presented to the Decimus Society 

February 2008 

I, Niall Francis Lambkin, hereby assert and give notice of my right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the author of this essay. 

ABSTRACT 

There has been a historical debate in a number of an essentially utilitarian view regarding our relations with nonhuman 

creatures focussing on the principle of equal consideration 

philosophical/religious traditions over the issue of man’s 

relationship with the rest of the animal kingdom… In of interests. I premise my argument on what I take to be the entirely 

modern times in the West the debate centres round issues relating reasonable assumption that non-human animals are sentient, in 

to [1] animals being bred and killed for food, [2] animals being some cases self-conscious, and in the case of the latter that such 

used for medical experiments, [3] animals being used for testing non-humans have interests and in some instances may have projects 

cosmetics, detergents and other non-medical goods, [4] breeding and aspirations analogous to human projects and aspirations. My 

and killing animals for their fur, and finally [5] hunting and killing conclusion is that we do not have good reasons to exclude such 

animals for sport and the breeding and training of animals for non-human creatures from the moral community and that our 

entertainment… 

moral good standing is put at serious risk if we fail to consider 

In this paper I restrict my comments largely to the animal rights animals as legitimate objects and subjects of moral consideration. 

debate as it presently exercises western philosophical minds. I take 

ASTORY HAS IT that Pythagoras was tragically undone 

by his vegetarianism: having upset a crowd by his teaching, 

he fled in haste, gasping and panting, beaded forehead 

dripping, the very picture of philosophical perplexity. Alas, a bean 

field appeared directly in the path of his retreat and rather than 

trample the vegetables underfoot he stopped, lungs bursting, 

thoughts somersaulting, and was duly killed by the indignant mob. i 

His extraordinary attitude towards beans strikes the modern 

mind as eccentric and perhaps not a little mad—as indeed it 

probably is in view of what we now know of the life of beans; it 

is a relatively simple and uncomplicated affair. But Pythagoras had 

his reasons; his attitude was entirely rational it should be said, 

though we would also say misguided. ii The point is that rationality 

must necessarily lie at the root of conviction if any particular 

conviction is to be worthwhile and not the object of simple ridicule 

and contempt. Any arguments we have for holding the convictions 

we do should be logically sound and compelling if they are to 

deserve our respect. But whether arguments are sound or not does 

not depend upon logic alone; our reasoning may be deductively 

or inductively valid but our major and minor premises may be 

implausible, or indeed false, our general scientific laws intrinsically 

flawed, and therefore our conclusions unacceptable. It follows that 

in addition to logic we must look also to our state of knowledge, 

and perhaps also our imaginative faculties, if we are to produce 

arguments that serve to advance our understanding of what it is 

to live a rational and moral life in this, our quagmire of experience. 

In sixth-century BC the notion of kinship of all living things may 

have been a good enough reason for supposing beans to be treated 

with respect, and such a notion, coupled with the belief in 

metempsychosis, conspired to produce a certain compelling reason 

for treating beans with exceptional respect. But today the argument 

seems incredible in view of our biological understanding and our 

perception of degrees of biological and neurological complexity. 

So, the question I wish to address in this paper is this: given what 

we now know about the biological constitution of varieties of life, 

and given our understanding of distinctions to be made between 

human persons, non-human persons and the merely conscious and 

sentient, and given additionally our understanding of fundamental 

moral principles, can vegetarianism be given sufficient credibility 

and compelling moral force to transform the general carnivorous 

habits of contemporary Western man? The answer is probably yes 

if it is possible to restrict our behaviour by moral reasoning alone, 

but doubtful if we take into account also our irrational nature. It 

is the mixture of rationality and irrationality in the human mind 

that makes for the existential quagmire that is human existence 

and sees us stumbling and falling into one moral swamp and bog 

after another. 

What I want to do in this paper, therefore, is briefly outline the 

largely superficial reasons modern human persons have for taking 

up vegetarianism and then offer a more detailed and unusual 

consideration of why vegetarianism, under certain circumstances, 

is compellingly the most civilized moral stance to take with regard 

to our relation to non-human creatures. 

Certain modern vegetarians have been responsible for the 

caricature which begs mockery and ridicule, but the ancient 

philosophical roots of vegetarianism, and the fact that 

vegetarianism is still of philosophical, political and economic 

interest today, means that as a ‘form of living’ it needs to be looked 

The Oswestrian 25


at seriously This means that our minds should be open to the 

cogency or otherwise of the arguments that underlie it. 

The vegetarian perspective can be traced back to at least 1000 

BC where it was given voice in the Hindu Upanishads as a 

consequence of the doctrine of reincarnation. Buddha taught 

compassion for all sentient beings and Buddhist monks were not 

allowed to eat animals or to eat flesh if they knew that the animal 

had been especially killed for their sake. The Jains iii follow a rule 

of non-violence towards any living creature and so accordingly do 

not eat meat. 

The Western tradition begins with Book 1 of the Bible (Genesis) 

where it is suggested that Man’s initial state was one of 

vegetarianism and that permission to eat meat was not granted till 

after the Flood. After that, however, Jewish, Christian and Islamic 

scriptures are not enthusiastic about a vegetable diet. As mentioned 

already, philosophical vegetarianism was a respectable stance in 

ancient Greece, especially among the pre-Socratics, but vegetarian 

sympathies can be found in the works of Plato also. Plutarch’s essay 

On Eating Flesh iv makes interesting reading, arguing that we should 

refrain from eating meat on grounds of justice and the humane 

treatment of animals. 

The 19th century saw a revival in vegetarian fortunes on 

grounds of health and humanity towards animals. Prominent 

vegetarians included the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Henry Salt v 

and George Bernard Shaw. In Germany Schopenhauer remarked 

that ethically we should all become vegetarian but for the fact that 

the human race cannot exist without meat—‘in the north’ as he 

put it. It seems that in this respect at least, for Schopenhauer taste 

and gastronomic pleasure transcended demonstrable ethical 

imperatives and points to the notion that imperatives are at least 

sometimes contingent on physical circumstances. 

The late 20th century, however, from the 1970s to the present, 

has seen in the Western world a significant rise in the number of 

vegetarians. There are principally four reasons for this increase: 

health, ecology, sentimentality and a deeper concern for the welfare 

of animals. I shall deal briefly with each of these in turn and then 

turn to the deeper philosophical considerations that are a sine qua 

non of coherent moral experience. 

HEALTH 

This is a fairly simple scientific issue at root. Not eating meat is 

either beneficial to health on the whole, or it is not. That is, if the 

nutrition required by the human body can be provided by eating 

non-flesh products, and can be so provided in a qualitatively 

superior manner, then it would make good sense from the point 

of view of bodily (and perhaps mental) health to take up 

vegetarianism. There could be a moral dimension here if good 

health is seen as an intrinsic ‘good’. If health were viewed in this 

way (ie, if a healthy body and mind were perceived to be necessary 

parts of a good vi life) then it would be the moral duty of the 

individual (and perhaps of society) to deliberately seek it vii . 

ECOLOGY 

Like the health issue the ecological arguments against eating flesh 

are largely scientific in nature, but may be given an ethical slant. 

The main concern arises out of the well documented inefficiency 

of animal-raising. Intensive farming methods come in for particular 

criticism because grain is grown on good agricultural land and is 

fed to animals confined indoors, or in the case of cattle, in crowded 

feed halls. It is suggested that much of the nutritional value of the 

grain is lost in the process and in addition this particular form of 

animal production is energy-intensive. Inefficient use of land and 

energy make for clear ecological incompetence. If ecological 

competence is to be desired meat production of this sort should 

be reformed or cut out altogether. In addition there is the issue of 

third world impoverishment and hunger, in part sustained by first 

world meat production. These ecological considerations can take 

on political and economic attitudes such that they become 

ideological. However, the possible ethical slant is significant. It 

might be thought that efficiency (a) is good in itself, or perhaps a 

justified means towards some recognized good end. If this is the 

case then vegetarianism may take on an imperative character. 

Likewise, the preservation of an environment which is as near 

natural as possible may be seen as a ‘good’ (b), and if vegetarianism 

entails a greater degree of preservation than meat production then 

the imperative character creeps in once more; that is to say, if (a) 

and (b) are ‘goods’ and vegetarianism promotes them, then we are 

morally obliged to stop eating meat. However, in reality it is difficult 

to see why efficiency, or a state of nature, or near state of nature, 

should be considered in themselves as goods. We can be efficient 

about a whole range of things we do not approve of—for example, 

ethnic cleansing. Viruses are natural objects, but we do not wish 

particularly to preserve them. It is for this reason that ethical 

considerations grounded in economics and ecology are not 

persuasive. Concern for the preservation of land, for widespread 

hunger, for energy conservation—these are important concerns 

but in themselves they have a political or economic flavour to them. 

To produce more philosophical concerns, the ethics of the situation 

have to be grounded in something more radical and fundamental, 

like animal rights and more profoundly the general importance of 

quality of experience. 

ANIMAL RIGHTS 

Animal rights is a highly contentious issue. What precisely the 

concept might mean is a complex matter in itself, even before we 

attempt to make decisions about how we ought to behave towards 

animals which might be said to enjoy such rights. For example, the 

concepts of duty and responsibility are usually linked with that of 

rights such that one enjoys a right if one is responsible and willing 

and able to carry out one’s duty towards others who might also 

enjoy such a right ie, show sufficient respect which accords dignity 

on the individual. Such rights are conferred by some authority. It 

is a hopeless confusion, however, to confer a right to a stone because 

a stone is not something which might reasonably be said to be 

willing and able to take up responsibilities and carry out its duties. 

Extrapolate with respect to the animal kingdom and we find the 

same confusion is likely to hold if we attempt to confer rights on 

slugs and rats and sloths. It might just begin to make sense with 

respect to the higher primates and cetaceans—but the idea remains 

unconvincing. 

It might be argued, however, that the rights which animals 

allegedly have are in fact ‘natural’; they are conferred by Nature 

and are therefore inalienable and must be respected. But here 

again, it is difficult to see what precisely a natural right could be; 

what is the authority of Nature in this context? Bentham said that 

the very idea of Nature creating moral imperatives was just plain 

confusion, claiming that ‘natural rights is simple nonsense; natural 

and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon 

stilts’ viii . 

It is enough to say that although the animal rights issue is still 

open, it is quickly closing as coherent thinking is brought to bear 

upon this central ethical issue. It can be stated as it presently stands 

fairly simply. If some animals have rights, or are entitled to have 

their interests given equal consideration with the similar interests 

of human beings (staying alive, for example—reproduction, the 

avoidance of unnecessary pain and suffering etc.) then it is not 

difficult to see that eating animals may have serious ethical 

implications. It would be difficult to see where our right to eat meat 

26 The Oswestrian


deliberately killed for our benefit, could consistently come from. 

The force of the ethical vegetarian argument is that (1) by killing 

some animals for our food we violate their rights (interests), and 

(2) that on utilitarian grounds we cause more suffering through the 

animal industry than we gain pleasure by eating animal flesh. 

I find none of the above reasons for vegetarianism, formulated 

as they are, in the least compelling. What is lacking is a carefully 

formulated general rationale, already hinted at, that will guide us 

through difficult practical moral issues—a fundamental moral 

principle, in our case, that will allow us to arrive at sound 

conclusions regarding the moral status of animals. If we can 

produce such a principle then we shall be in a position to give 

weight to the idea that our present attitude towards certain nonhuman 

creatures is morally questionable. 

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE EQUAL 

CONSIDERATION OF INTERESTS ix 

A pre-ethical position might be this: act only according to one’s 

own interests—that is to say, given a choice of action decide on 

the course which is most likely to realize your personal interest, 

regardless of what consequences there might be for the interests 

of others. In such a pre-ethical state I simply put my needs before 

yours, or anyone else’s, and it is precisely this bias that makes my 

position pre-ethical because behaving ethically entails that I do 

not give preference either to myself or any designated group. To 

take an ethical stance is crucially to move beyond mere personal 

interests or the interests of any particular group (a group in which 

one might have a vested interest). In other words, to take a moral 

stance is to move beyond the individual and particular to the 

universal—to take an impartial view of states of affairs by achieving 

an ‘objective’ standpoint outside the world of particular interests. 

At the level of human intercourse it seems straightforward: the 

principle of equal consideration of interests states that I must not 

put either my interests or that of a preferred group above the 

interests of other individuals or groups; I must treat all interests 

with equal impartiality. This means that from my individual position 

I am accepting that my own interests cannot count for more than 

the interests of anyone else simply because these interests are mine; 

if they are to count for more then there must be other compelling 

reasons that this should be so. 

This leads me to take up a fundamentally utilitarian position 

(though not necessarily so) regarding how I make decisions 

regarding conflicting courses of action. In the context of whether 

I should kill non-human creatures (or allow this to happen) and 

eat their flesh, I may, according to the specific circumstances, take 

a classic utilitarian approach or one that is based on maximizing 

preference for the satisfaction of interests x . My simple question is 

therefore this: keeping in mind the universalisability of ethical 

judgements: am I ethically justified in killing non-human creatures 

(or condoning others doing so) in order that I might unnecessarily 

eat their flesh? 

PHILOSOPHICAL OVERVIEW xi 

Contrary to what Descartes believed, animals are living, feeling 

centres of consciousness and in many cases self-consciousness xii . 

This fact is disregarded by factory farmers, vivisectionists, furriers, 

big business. And this disregard is of the same logical type that 

underpins the moral dereliction that allows humans to be 

outrageously maltreated in pogroms and other ethnic cleansing 

exercises. It is also the same failure of the imagination that allows 

us to attend to our personal and desirable immediate physical 

welfare (often to excessive measure xiii ) whilst millions of our fellow 

human creatures throughout the globe go hungry or without the 

other basic requirements of elementary welfare. Whilst we might 

be obviously failing in our moral duty towards our fellow humans, 

it is not immediately obvious that we are similarly failing in our 

moral duties towards non-human creatures. The issue of what 

precisely our relationship should be towards the non-human animal 

world has become sharply that of whether such non-human 

creatures can be considered part of the moral community. If they 

are not included then our present treatment of them seems to be 

justified, at least in a rather thoughtless kind of way (one would 

think that natural sympathies might suggest ‘humane’ attitudes xiv ); 

if they are included then this will entail radical changes to how we 

morally conduct ourselves in the biosphere. 

In order to continue to treat animals in the way we presently 

do, and do so with a clear conscience, we have only to deny that 

non-human creatures are, or even can be in principle, members 

of the moral community. Michael Fox xv made a prima facie plausible 

case for denial of membership along the following lines: animals 

are not members of the moral community and so humans have 

no moral obligations to them because animals cannot in principle 

be members of such a community for they do not possess the 

required qualities that are a sine qua non of membership. Fox 

stipulates that “a moral community is a social group composed of 

interacting autonomous beings where moral concepts and precepts 

can evolve and be understood. It is also a social group in which 

the mutual recognition of autonomy and personhood exist” (Fox, 

1986a, p 50). According to Fox an autonomous person is one who 

is critically self-aware, able to manipulate complex concepts, 

capable of using sophisticated language, and has the capacity to 

plan, choose, and accept responsibility for actions. Even a superficial 

reading of such a stipulation clearly rules out the possibility of 

membership for all non-human animals we know of on this 

particular planet (given our present understanding) xvi . In Fox’s 

words “full members of the moral community may use less valuable 

species, which lack some or all of these traits as means to their 

ends for the simple reason that they have no obligation not to do 

so” (p 88). 

Fox argues in a fashion with a well worn tradition in 

demarcation; x is y if and only if x possesses z which is a necessary 

and sufficient condition of y. Herein lies the problem of 

differentiation and careful definition; witness Descartes’ stipulation 

that possession of a soul was at least necessary for moral 

consideration to be taken into account. We can discount Descartes’ 

position because there is no reason to suppose it is true and if we 

insist on taking it as true we must do so on irrational grounds (that 

of faith). Such grounds are not logically respectable (unless 

argument is impotent without it) so if we wish to differentiate 

ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdom we must do so on 

measurable grounds, à la Fox. The problem here is that for each x 

that claims to be a y there is at least one x that lacks the stipulated 

qualities and yet continues to claim to be y (by other xs) xvii . If it is 

the case that a sloth (for example) is not a member of the moral 

community because it cannot manipulate language, say, and cannot 

therefore take up propositional attitudes such as ‘desires’, ‘beliefs’ 

or ‘intentions’, then it is entirely arbitrary to suppose some other 

creature who lacks that same language competence is, nevertheless, 

a legitimate member of that community. But this is the position 

we take when we allow human infants (or the severely mentally 

infirm) membership despite their lack of language competence. 

Our refusal [a] to deny membership to such humans, and refusal 

[b] to accept membership to non-human individuals who do match 

the criterion, rests upon our bias in favour of our species. This is 

a form of prejudice known as speciesism and is on a logical par 

with such unacceptable attitudes as racism and sexism. It has been 

suggested (by Fox in recognition of this problem) that deficient 

human individuals should be included in the moral community 

The Oswestrian 27


because “charity, benevolence, humaneness and prudence” demand 

that the moral community includes “undeveloped, deficient or 

seriously impaired human beings” (Fox, 1986a; pp 61-63). But 

contrary to Fox’s intention this logic forces us (correctly) to accept 

all creatures for whom we are capable of feeling sympathy (human 

and non-human) as legitimate members of the moral community. 

Fox came eventually to believe “that our basic moral obligations 

to avoid causing harm to other people should be extended to 

animals, and since I could not see any justification for our benefiting 

from harm caused to other humans, I inferred it would likewise 

be wrong for us to benefit from the suffering of animals”. (Fox, 

1986b; 1987) 

Frey xviii draws a slightly different conclusion from the notion 

that if a creature is capable of suffering then it must be included 

in the moral community, though status within that community will 

depend upon the precise nature of the individual member’s 

capacity for suffering and quality of life. He assumes that a fully 

functioning adult human person who enjoys complete autonomy 

has a greater quality of life than that possessed by a non-human 

individual or a human who is deficient. Given this not unreasonable 

assumption Frey concludes that it cannot be the case that we are 

justified in invariably using non-human creatures in preference to 

what he refers to as ‘marginal’ humans: “…the only way we could 

justifiably do this is if we could cite something that always, no 

matter what, cedes human life greater value than animal life. I 

know of no such things”. (Frey, 1988; p 197) 

If it is the case that all creatures who have the capacity for 

suffering should be included in the moral community (even if after 

Frey there is a hierarchy of membership which may have 

unfortunate consequences for those occupying the lower levels) 

then we might begin to talk in terms of rights governing the 

behaviour of one member with respect to another. What could we 

mean by such ‘rights’ in these circumstances? Regan suggests the 

following: beings that have rights are beings that possess inherent 

value xix . To possess inherent value is to possess value regardless of 

goodness or usefulness to others, and a right is what protects such 

value from being harmed or violated. The possessors of inherent 

value are what Regan calls ‘subjects-of-a-life’ and such subjects are 

self-conscious beings who have beliefs and desires, can conceive of 

the future and entertain goals. According to Regan all mentally 

normal mammals of a year or more are such self-conscious beings 

and so possess inherent value and have the right for such selfpossessed 

value to be protected from unnecessary violation. These 

rights are moral and universal (because moral), that is they are 

extended to all members of the moral community regardless of 

their sex, colour, race, nationality and species. According to Regan 

all beings that possess inherent value possess it equally. 

Here I meet a problem: am I to suppose that the inherent value 

I possess as a subject-of-a-life is of the same order as the inherent 

value possessed by my dog qua subject-of-a-life? Whilst it may be 

true that my dog is self-conscious in the manner required to be a 

member of the moral community, is it to be supposed that my 

desire to develop an education system that would properly prepare 

students for an ethically responsible life carries no more weight 

than my dog’s desire to eat the meaty bone in its kennel? Despite 

my desire to extend the moral community and respect all its 

members, I am left with the forceful notion that there is a reasonable 

hierarchy of membership and that normal mentally robust human 

beings occupy the upper levels xx . However, whilst there are 

problems with this notion of rights we can see in what sort of way 

members of the moral community need to be governed in order 

to preserve respect for inherent value, even in a hierarchical system 

which always carries with it the danger of the upper levels imposing 

unacceptably upon the lower. The question becomes: what precisely 

is my relation to all members of the moral community and how 

should I subsequently conduct myself ? 

A wholly egalitarian moral community founded on the 

assumption of inherent value possessed by all subjects-of-a-life 

living lives that are undifferentiated in terms of value, seems deeply 

flawed for the reasons I have just outlined. It seems utterly 

reasonable to point to differences in members of the community 

and attempt to formulate sound protocols that allow members to 

treat each other appropriately according to where each member 

sits in the hierarchy. Where a member sits is determined by what 

qualities it possesses and these qualities will determine how a 

member should treat another (assuming the presence of the faculty 

for reasoned and reflective thought in that member) and how in 

return that member should be treated by other members. It follows 

that the higher up the hierarchy the member sits the greater his 

responsibilities towards those lower down xxi . Let us accept Regan’s 

view that a sine qua non of membership of the moral community is 

the individual’s ability to experience the world in a particular way 

ie, qua subject-of-a-life—and also Bentham’s utilitarian argument 

that all members fundamentally possess the capacity for suffering xxii . 

On this view we can acknowledge that the hierarchy has an 

egalitarian foundation: all members have the capacity for suffering; 

all members are subjects-of-a-life and therefore possess inherent 

value; all members are to be respected qua subjects-of-a-life; all 

members have their inherent value protected by rights xxiii . If we 

accept this then how might we now reasonably proceed in our 

inter-member relations? 

A utilitarian position is one which does not allow arbitrary or 

prejudicial attitudes to colour our moral judgements, and surely 

this is something we would wish for in our extended (or even in 

our present contracted-humans only) moral community. At root 

lies the principle that all like interests are counted: “If a being 

suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that 

suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the 

being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted 

equally with like suffering—in so far as rough comparisons can be 

made—of any other being”. (Practical Ethics, Singer, P Cambridge 

University Press, 1993, p 57.) I can conceive, however, of situations 

in which classic utilitarianism will entail a fully functioning nonhuman 

being given preference over a human operating at less than 

his best—a chronic depressive, for example. Here’s the situation: 

I am undergoing extensive treatment for my bipolar condition and 

this is costing the public purse a significant amount of money; I 

have not had a happy thought for many years and I am not 

responding very well to my treatment, consequently my 

contribution to the gross sum of happiness in the moral 

community’s hedonic coffers is minimal (I have at least one friend 

who is glad that I am at least alive and his gladness is a positive 

contribution due in part to me, in part to his good nature). An 

audit is made of the public purse and a decision must be made as 

to whether I should continue to receive my treatment. 

Unfortunately for me there is a publicly subsidized zoo with a 

strong ecological interest used extensively for educational purposes 

(under-privileged, inner-city children regularly visit and leave with 

a sense of renewed wonder at nature); the animals are well cared 

for and, all things being equal, are content and clearly bring 

significant pleasure to visitors. The zoo could not survive without 

its subsidy—the animals would have to be destroyed and with this 

the benefit of the institution to the moral community would clearly 

disappear. However, the public purse cannot support both my 

treatment and the zoo. The felicific calculus clearly dictates that 

my treatment must be withdrawn and the zoo allowed to continue 

its good work in the community xxiv . 

Such withdrawal of treatment seems intuitively and rationally 

28 The Oswestrian


wrong because my perspective qua subject-of-a-life places me higher 

up the hierarchy than any of the zoo animals and suggests that the 

inherent value of a chronic human depressive is worth more than 

the inherent value of any of the zoo inhabitants xxv . Classic 

utilitarianism does not, therefore, seem to get me anywhere when 

considering what protocols should operate within the moral 

community. Singer opines that preference utilitarianism might do 

so. He suggests that self-conscious, rational human beings are 

capable of having a specific preference for continued existence. In 

my case, despite my chronic depression I still have a preference for 

continued existence because I have many valuable projects I wish 

to complete, valuable in themselves and valuable also from the 

point of view of the commonwealth. It is not immediately clear 

that the sloths, the aardvarks, the rhinoceros and hippopotami in 

the zoo have a preference for continued existence so that similarly 

valuable projects can be realized (they have given no one reason 

to suppose that they do). So, Singer’s utilitarian position appears 

to make sense given our strong impression that the life of a fully 

functioning human is worth (all things being equal) more than the 

life of a fully functioning non-human (to the best of our present 

knowledge). It might also help us decide how we should respond 

ethically to difficult cases of how humans in varying degrees of 

‘completeness’ (those who cannot survive independently) be treated 

given limited resources of public funds. 

Regarding how those who occupy the higher levels in the 

hierarchy should view members of the moral community lower 

down as possible food sources, the matter seems fairly clear and 

unproblematic: rights theorists and preference utilitarians both 

have strong vegetarian urges and for good reasons. The former 

will not eat meat because to do so is clearly to violate the inherent 

value of members of the moral community xxvi . The latter will not 

eat meat if the process that is used to raise the non-human members 

of the moral community involves a net balance of suffering. If these 

non-human members of the community live happy (as far as we 

can honestly tell), stress-free natural lives before they are painlessly 

killed, then the preference utilitarian may not object to their use as 

food. 

In the case of the higher level members using the lower level 

members for experimentation (vivisection), rights protocol would 

clearly say that such practices are simply not permissible and should 

be abolished because they are, like the eating of lower members’ 

flesh, a clear violation of inherent value. The preference utilitarian, 

on the other hand, is not quite so theoretically blinkered and allows 

in theory at least the possibility of higher level beings experimenting 

on lower level beings if it can be demonstrated beyond all 

reasonable doubt that there is a clear and unambiguous benefit 

derived from such activity. However, in practice Singer’s position 

is sceptical of such clear benefit: “in extreme circumstances, 

absolutist answers always break down…if a single experiment 

could cure a major disease, that experiment would be justifiable. 

But in actual life the benefits are always much, much more remote 

and more often than not they are non-existent…an experiment 

cannot be justifiable unless the experiment is so important that the 

use of a retarded human being would also be justifiable” xxvii . 

The position we are left with is, I suggest, this: a moral 

community consisting of subjects-of-a-life and a hierarchy of selfconscious 

experience that helps us differentiate between members 

of the community in rational and ethical terms. I hinted at the 

beginning of this paper that reasoned argument was not sufficient 

to arrive at an acceptable ethical position, for we must look to our 

premises if we are to be confident that our logic is leading us in 

the right direction (one that feels right when all is honestly 

[disinterestedly] taken into consideration). This disinterested 

direction is what I call the civilized stance. We are not in a position 

to be certain that our actions are ever ethically coherent, but we 

are in a position to take all things (presently understood) into 

account and disinterestedly judge that our behaviour is of the highest 

ethical order we can presently manage. Logic attending to spurious 

premises can lead us seriously astray, so the question now is: how 

do we ensure that our premises are worthy of logical attendance? 

How can we minimize our stumbling into ethical swamps and 

moral bogs? 

Lori Gruen suggests that one way we might move forward the 

debate regarding the use of non-humans is to look to the concept 

of sympathy so that it might temper the sharpness of reason 

alone xxviii . A dog is not just a dog but also a personal pet that one 

knows and loves, for example. Kinship and closeness, she says, are 

very important elements in thinking about virtually every feature 

of our daily lives and cannot help but impinge on our judgements 

and decisions; this is what it is to be human and to balance reason 

with sympathy is our moral condition. But the key is to achieve a 

sound balance. Emotion without reason is chaotic and arbitrary, 

a forceful maelstrom of irrationality. Reason without emotion is a 

cold place with stalactite ice shafts. The achievement of balance 

is problematic, however: Fisher xxix suggests that beings with whom 

we can sympathize must be morally considered. We can sympathize 

with beings if we can recognize in them traits that in some respects 

correspond to our own (in the higher mammals this would not be 

surprising given our common evolutionary heritage), and if we 

can so sympathize then this sympathy ought to inform the manner 

in which we treat these beings. But consider beings with whom we 

cannot sympathize because they are too unfamiliar to us, yet possess 

high degrees of self-consciousness we do not or cannot recognize xxx . 

We breed these because we enjoy the taste of their flesh and when 

we process their bones we derive valuable oil. Can this be right? 

Lack of sympathy (because the sympathy cannot be felt) cannot 

be a good reason for ill-treatment. Gruen’s point, of course, is that 

if we do not include emotion in our ethical decision making then 

we run the risk of removing ourselves too far from the state of 

affairs under ethical consideration—in this case the killing of and 

subsequent eating of non-human flesh. If as individuals we are 

removed from the process of killing and flesh preparation then we 

have allowed ourselves to become distanced from our moral 

responsibilities, and being so distanced we fail to appreciate the 

moral content of our subsequent actions (eating flesh— 

unnecessarily). So, for an ordinary human being with ordinary 

sympathetic faculties and an understanding of ethical principles 

of the sort discussed in this paper, to visit a slaughter house and 

witness the process of turning a living self-conscious creature into 

steak and mushed tissue, would surely be enough to convince that 

individual that there was something morally dubious about the 

meat processing industry. 

CIVILIZED BEHAVIOUR AND THE 

HIERARCHY OF EXPERIENCE 

To illustrate the universal nature of ethics, the principle of equal 

consideration of interests, and the impact of self-consciousness 

and sentience on the manner in which non-humans are treated by 

humans I shall reference the thoughts occurring in the mind of a 

young would-be vegetarian as he works in a slaughter house. He 

is there for two reasons: he wishes to see the meat production 

process close up so that his musings do not slide into sentimentality 

and mere abstraction, and he has no immediate economic option 

but to be ground under the yoke. 

The primary business of this place is to kill animals, bolt 

their brains into insentience, often inefficiently, and turn 

their red-blooded flesh into attractive and palatable food 

The Oswestrian 29


for humans, the likes of me! The product must not in any 

sense resemble the source; the steak, or the shredded flesh 

must not resemble in any crude and vulgar way the animal 

whose flesh it is. The mind has to be focused on this end, 

and to some extent be numbed by it. My mind is numbed 

by it. I stand operating my process machine in a kind of 

stupor, an idiot working the levers and switches, pushing 

the mushy tissue into the grinders. What am I doing? 

Chillingly, the means towards this end had originally to be 

carefully designed (conceived in someone’s mind and then 

discussed in an office presumably, or someone’s study; and 

then all the machines designed by engineers, detailed plans 

drawn up on a draughtsman’s board) so that it was efficient 

(at least sometimes) and economic, nothing less. Such 

designers would have been focused on every stage of the 

manufacture of the product; but the real meaning of what 

was being designed and built would never, surely, at any 

time, have been reflected upon in the manner of some 

philosophy—except the unconscious, simplistic one which 

places man irresponsibly at the peak of a thoughtless 

hierarchical pyramid of being xxxi . At no stage would 

questions of ethics and meaning ever be raised. The whole 

process would have been understood as a series of discrete 

actions, in themselves entirely innocuous, and so the 

significance of the means would have been missed, lost in 

a sea of negligence, of omissions, of incogitancy! It is not 

so much a case of the end justifying the means because 

there is insufficient consciousness of the means. I look 

around me and I know that this is true. What I push 

through the cage mesh into the grinding teeth is a lifeless 

substance which can be turned into something attractive 

to eat. That it is flesh and was living but a short while ago, 

and was deliberately killed to satisfy a specific gastronomic 

desire (was this the creature I saw mad-eyed and trembling 

an hour ago as it was led into the Process Hall?); that once 

this flesh in its living and whole form had eaten grass and 

grazed contentedly in fields and meadows—all this is lost 

in the discrete consciousness of the job (don’t think of the 

whole process—concentrate only on the part designated 

to you [push the red spongy stuff through the mesh and 

into the teeth, pull the lever, press the switch and repeat]). 

And this is why the job is possible. To get the job done I 

have to forget the significance of the means, to suspend 

my critical faculties, to become a no-man. I cannot allow 

myself to question the value of the end. This I must simply 

accept as a given. In focusing on my trivial task—pushing 

this meat into the grinding hopper—I lose sight of the 

whole process. It is the focusing upon the whole that 

reveals the true nature of the action and allows 

the reflective mind to bear rational witness. 

If I am to carry on here (keeping the malignant 

supervisor off my back) what has to be resisted is the 

temptation to view the animals trucked here for processing 

as more than mere objects. The temptation is there because 

we possess natural faculties of sympathy—but the end 

product of the abattoir is so desirable (what culinary 

aromas of the roast, the kebab and fast-food joint) we must 

make an initial effort to slip out of reflective consciousness 

so that we can clock in each morning with a clear 

conscience. The man on the machine next to mine, a 

machine that relies upon the output of my machine, has 

dead eyes; his face is a hollow shell. He speaks, but does 

so with only papery life. He is more dead than alive, all 

desiccated being. He is the no-man who makes the whole 

grizzly enterprise possible. At the end of the day he takes 

home a plastic bag filled with the guts of the animal he 

has processed (his perquisite) and gives it to his wife to cook 

for his supper. He licks his lips as it’s placed on his dinner 

plate and he says “delicious, luv, really delicious”. 

Our ability to concentrate on the discrete parts of the 

whole blinds us to the significance of the whole, or indeed 

blinds us to the very existence of a whole at all. If the 

cow is viewed as something more than mere 

object then we understand it differently. It becomes 

possible to ask the question: does my desire to eat meat, 

not for purposes of health but purely for gastronomic 

pleasure, justify the slaughter of the animal, a sentient 

being, a subject-of-a-life? The answer may be yes. But if 

this is the case it is not obviously so. The question reduces 

to this: does my gustatory pleasure justify the death of the 

cow? The fact that I frame the question in this way suggests 

that the life of the cow carries at least some moral weight 

deserving of my attention. There may well be some 

circumstances where the value of the cow’s life outweighs 

my desire to carry out some action. For example, a cow 

might be blocking my way but instead of ramming it with 

my car I try to lead it away (who would not do this?)— 

(maybe I just don’t want to damage my car)—(I lead the 

cow out of danger and then condone its slaughter later 

that day in the abattoir; I eat a burger which I have to 

admit is delicious). However, my desire for the taste of meat 

entails that the cow is slaughtered. What is it about my 

gustatory pleasure that makes it more valuable than the 

cow’s life, if indeed it is? Would the life of the cow accrue 

more value if a perfect meat substitute were available which 

provided all the gustatory delights desired? Could I still 

justify the slaughter? 

My unease with all this comes from its brutality (I 

understand that the meat process entails unnecessary 

suffering on the part of the beasts being processed). That 

is, the nature of the task brutalizes. It brutalizes me! To 

forget the meaning of the whole—any whole— 

even for an instant, is to be instantaneously 

brutalized. It means that I see the animal merely as 

object and cannot see beyond this. That is why I can kill 

the creature and not feel its anguish and pain, (I mean not 

recognize its anguish and pain) for as a mere object it 

experiences nothing of significance (how could it—a mere 

Cartesian automaton?). And in my specifically individual 

task I forget that there ever was a sentient creature at all. 

In my gustatory delight I forget this fact (the creature’s 

variable breathing and other physiological signs of distress 

at the time of slaughter remind me of the fact). What 

makes the task objectionable, or the delight objectionable, 

is therefore the uncivilized nature of it. It is that the task 

or delight hold me back from perceiving the animal as 

more than mere object; that is, as a conscious being. As a 

conscious being it surely lays claim to certain treatment 

and such treatment cannot involve unnecessary pain or 

suffering (could my taste for meat ever justify unnecessary 

suffering?). Of course suffering is unavoidable in some 

form or other in the nature of being, but the moral weight 

that conscious existence entails demands that such suffering 

is minimized. Surely this is obvious. The no-man sniffs and 

drags his shirt sleeve across his nose. 

I look down at the concrete floor of the Further 

Process. It is wet and sweating. The hum and buzz of 

machines echo in the hall; the heavy-duty plastic curtain 

30 The Oswestrian


flaps separating the process halls swing stiffly as bloodstained 

operatives make their somniferous way around the 

factory. The no-man’s suppurating thoughts fill the 

chamber, filling the place with unconscious miasma; and 

I am here, an enemy in the enemy camp, without a gas 

mask. This red mess on the floor by my feet, at the base 

of the crunching hopper, used to be flesh and bone of a 

conscious being and the moral weight which that being 

ought to have commanded has gone unrecognized, or been 

ignored; it has certainly been violated (argue otherwise and 

persuasively). In the cold fluorescent light of the meat plant 

the refrigerated air hums and trembles with the vibration 

of machines and the noise of human intercourse, and it is 

like a form of madness: that is, the carelessness of the 

activity is madness. Considerable thought is employed to 

sustain this place. But it is not considered, rational, reflective 

thought. It is rather the calculating reflection of desire and 

profit in the absence of moral imagination. It is not the 

creative and speculative metaphysical thought which 

specifically divides man from the sub-man. Here, in the 

processing plant, all thought is dim, somnific and 

wearisome; there is absolutely no questioning of activity. 

Activity is carried on in the absence of understanding. The 

whole has been sponged out and there is 

consequently sub-mentality everywhere, like a 

miasma; like a no-man’s dream. 

At the root of moral consideration across species lies 

the inherent undesirability of pain and suffering; that is, 

whether I take a creature’s moral status into consideration 

depends largely upon whether I take that creature to be 

capable of suffering (and there may be other reasons why 

I should want to take a special moral interest in the 

creature). If I jam a sharpened stake into the flanks of a 

cow I interpret its subsequent squeals, and its jumping and 

kicking and its mad rolling of its eyes, as compelling 

evidence that it feels distress (owing to my actions)—(how 

else could I reasonably interpret such behaviour—it is not 

behaving as if it were in distress, but in fact is not; what 

Cartesian madness would that be?). Imaginatively, I 

empathize with the cow (I know what it must be like to 

have a sharpened stake jammed into my flank—even 

though no such thing has ever happened—I take it that 

there is a shared phenomenology [I have no good reason 

to think otherwise for there is a shared basic neurological 

model—this much is reasonable, surely]). So, if it is true 

that a cow can feel pain then it has an interest to avoid 

such pain; and if it is true that I too can feel pain then I 

also have an interest to avoid such pain. If the cow’s pain 

is qualitatively similar to mine then I have no good reason 

to distinguish my pain from that of the cow’s, except on 

an inter-subjective level. The moral point is that I ought 

to give equal consideration to interests, all things being 

equal. What could be clearer? But the moral temperature 

of the slaughter house is as cold as the refrigerated air that 

is pumped around its processing halls. So, what is being 

missed? The principle is simple: If pain can be avoided 

then it should be so avoided; and whose pain it is is 

irrelevant, regardless of species. 

In the great machine cavern where I work, my back 

aching from bending over the burger compressor, the 

unspoken and un-thought opinion is that the distress of 

the cow counts for very little or nothing at all. Human 

pleasure is the end and any possible pain the cow might 

conceivably suffer is mere means to that end. My pleasure 

at having meat in my mouth has, therefore, high aesthetic 

value and justifies the pain and death of the animal this 

flesh once was. This is the unreflective notion. The 

utilitarian principle is constrained in this respect: human 

pleasure is worth significantly more than animal pleasure 

and so human pleasure derived through animal distress 

(because the former is so great) can be justified (because 

the latter [granted Descartes was wrong] is gossamer in 

comparison). What benefits human beings is therefore 

permissible! I wipe my red hands upon my almost white 

abattoir lab coat. My supervisor is on an efficiency-profit 

mission, patrolling the processing halls and tells me to work 

harder—the no-man, waiting on my performance, is 

getting fidgety and irritable; he reminds me again he can’t 

do his job unless I do my mine, and he’s after a bonus and 

wants to get home early to his “that’s delicious, luv”—the 

principle of the equal consideration of interests is an 

obscure irrelevance to him. 

How is it that this meat processing exists in an age and 

place where a balanced diet need not include animal flesh? 

Can my gustatory pleasure justify this? Yes, if the animal’s 

life counts for little or nothing. But pain is pain after all. Is 

it possible to say that my pain is qualitatively different to 

that of a cow; that is, that my pain is more painful, more 

of a pain than that of the cow and that this fact lies in 

inherent differences between the cow and me? Can this 

possibly be maintained seriously? Is it only human pain 

that must count in the hedonic calculus? Surely there is 

meaning behind the look that comes into the bovine face 

when the bolt is placed carelessly against the bovine 

temple? Knowledge of bovine neurology, coupled with a 

theory of mind, surely suggests fear. This is not sentimental 

anthropomorphism—the taking pity on what is not a 

suitable object of pity. Surely the bovine experience must 

be taken into any hedonic account in similar manner as 

the meaning behind the human wince when I am clumsily 

syringed in a doctor’s surgery! But as to qualitative 

differentials the meaning is obscure: My pain or the cow’s? 

Which is worth more moral consideration? Prima facie my 

pain counts for more. By virtue of the fact that I have 

managed to form the question, while the cow has done no 

more than squeal places me on a higher level of the 

pyramid. It counts for more because it is mine and 

everything which is not mine is peripheral to me and in 

some obscure way not real. Isn’t this where scepticism 

leads—to the problem of other minds? I just can’t be sure 

of what lies outside of me—so in the end I count for 

everything—even if I grant the probability of other minds. 

It’s my centrality and level of consciousness in the end that 

dominates my horizon. If it’s my pain versus the cow’s then 

let the cow suffer. About this there is no obscurity; so, in 

the general calculus bovine suffering and happiness count 

for less than mine or other persons. However, consider: 

what if in some dark circumstance my suffering (not to any 

great degree) could save a multitude of non-persons from 

pain (cumulatively greater then mine) xxxii . Would I be 

morally obliged to undergo pain for the sake of the greater 

balance of happiness—the hedonic commonwealth? The 

answer is not clear. But what if I am being racked, and my 

screaming on the rack and my mercy-pleading and 

whimpering are awful; what if all this could extinguish the 

pain of the non-persons? What then? My suffering is 

excruciating and in the calculus must be balanced against 

the weight of non-person suffering multiplied a hundred 

The Oswestrian 31


fold. How could this predicament be calculated? What 

moral weight could the non-person command? Would I 

accept my suffering for the sake of cows but not of rats or 

cockroaches or ticks? As I approach the lower levels of the 

hierarchy of experience (subjects-of-a-life) the more obscure 

and meaningless the problem becomes. Perhaps I should 

not have mentioned rats in this context: it is a prejudice of 

mine. After all, rats are not unintelligent; nor dare I say 

are roaches, but it is not easy to grasp the meaning of 

‘suffering roaches’, and therefore not easy to understand 

what it might mean to sympathize with them. But can that 

mean that my inability to sympathize with such creatures 

entails my treatment of them lies outside the moral sphere? 

There is a good case for saying that rats come above cows 

in the pyramid. Would I then, or should I then, suffer in 

some degree if such suffering could extinguish the pain of 

a significant number of non-person creatures? Do I have a 

free, moral free, hand in how I treat creatures for which I 

have no sympathy? When a child (who understands the 

limits of normal moral constraints) pulls the wings off a 

fly or incinerates ants in an incandescent beam of a lensfocussed 

sun, is such a childish act (or equivalent adult act) 

morally reprehensible? It might well be. It might well be— 

for it diminishes the agent of destruction in the eyes of the 

civilized eye; not to live according to the perception of this 

eye is part of what it means to live in a kind of moral 

dereliction—assuming the eye perceives according 

to rational moral imperatives xxxiii . 

Sympathy can also be depressed by ideology. 

I look into the face of a cow and see its large eyes which 

resemble to some extent my own, and they regard me with 

some interest and curiosity; the udders swing large and full 

beneath a rectangular body of monstrous angular bones. 

The bovine curiosity does not last long. The large head 

tilts back and the snout reaches out for a smell of me and 

then dips down and the mouth rips grass and the teeth 

grind and chew. There is undoubted intelligence and 

consciousness here. And then I stick it with a knife, in the 

neck, and blood comes pouring out and this I catch in a 

vessel and drink for the benefit I believe it will bring me. 

The cow flinches and is suddenly wary. But it doesn’t shout 

abuse at me and it doesn’t scream in any way I should 

recognize as outrage. It seems that what I have caused the 

cow to feel has not been understood by it at all. This is not 

a person I have stuck and its reaction to me is at least 

ambiguous. I see no tears in its eyes and hear no 

whimpering. The look in its eyes is bolting but constant. 

But I do not deny that some discomfort has been 

experienced and this counts for something. I justify my 

action by saying that the nourishment I gain from drinking 

the animal’s blood is necessary for my health, and my 

welfare (over that of the cow’s) is demanded by my position 

on the hierarchical pyramid of consciousness. My 

consciousness is self-reflective and if lesser forms of 

consciousness suffer to ensure my continuity then that 

seems entirely right. Lesser forms—the principle appears 

to say—may be used to support the continuity of higher 

forms, and so I drink the cow’s blood and eat its flesh. 

Necessity of continuity lies at the root of this 

particular justification. If I did not need the flesh but 

just had a taste for it, then the moral justification would 

begin to look tenuous. I tell this telepathically to the noman 

who is boring his precipitate eyes into my back. He 

grunts. He understands nothing but the ‘that’s delicious 

luv, can I have a bit more gravy on this?’. 

If it’s protein I need I have fewer problems with roaches 

(bar disgust at the thought) and roasting a nest of these 

and serving them up in a casserole. If it’s about necessity 

roach consciousness (such as it might be) must give way to 

my far superior self-conscious decision to roast the nest. 

And even in the case of non-necessity and the simple 

pursuit of new tastes, my roasting of the roaches and my 

consumption of them is more easily acceptable than my 

slaughter and consumption of the cow on the basis of taste 

alone. This is the principle. Should I move further up the 

pyramid to more equivocal levels, say to that of the great 

apes and that of cetaceans, I begin to be more anxious 

about my decisions, even in the case of clear necessary 

consumption. Would I be justified in killing an ape or a 

dolphin to ensure my continuity? Perhaps, but not 

obviously so. Could I, with moral justification, cause pain 

to or kill a fully functioning fellow human in order to ensure 

my personal continuity? Here I run against a more 

obviously severe storm of outrage. As a matter of principle 

(it seems) I must not benefit through the suffering of fellow 

human persons where the identity of those persons is 

unequivocal unless there are compelling reasons why I 

should do so (even then doubtful) (assuming the state of 

personhood is not in doubt) (what could these reasons be?) 

(The equal consideration of interests) (Am I similarly 

constrained with respect to non-humans similarly 

constituted?). I might, therefore, hesitantly accept the pain 

of the dolphin in my favour (because I lack the information 

that would clearly establish one way or the other the 

dolphin’s moral status—are its interests on a par with 

mine?). The dolphin might speak (via an interpreter) and 

claim violation of the liberties of the moral community. 

What then? Only the imaginatively inert could not see the 

point. Whether the creature involved in my predatory 

activity is a member of the moral community or not is of 

great importance—and whether it is a person or not, it 

seems to me, is of even greater importance. Important also 

is whether or not my activity is based on necessity or mere 

taste and convention. Necessity springs from the differential 

of consciousness; thus, if it is necessary that the lower 

levels suffer in order to ensure the continuity of 

the upper then that suffering is justified (a horse 

may die in the necessary interests of a man—but 

what precisely constitutes ‘necessary’ is all 

important) xxxiv . 

And what does this speculation matter in this place, 

the chilly Further Process of no-men acting out their part 

in accordance with the design of moral incertitude? 

Surely quality of consciousness is not purely a matter 

of biology but of nurture also, at least amongst the 

community of self-conscious beings. It is surely possible to 

move from one level of consciousness to the next above 

through sheer dint of hard moral work. The true seeker 

of wisdom will train his mind in the arts and sciences so 

that his powers of discrimination lift him up, as it were, to 

a higher plain. He now sees beauty where once he saw the 

mundane. He now sees order where once he perceived 

confusion; anxiety and anguish, puzzlement and frustration 

become springboards for spiritual growth rather than 

precipices above despair. This transportation from the 

valley floor to the mountain slopes can be self-generated, 

surely. It does not happen spontaneously but demands a 

journey upon a path of re-invention of self, and this is not 

32 The Oswestrian


to everyone’s liking; not the liking of the no-man and his 

considerate missus. The path (there is no reason to suppose 

it does not exist) must first be perceived to be taken. It is 

there for each individual to take if he chooses to seek it. 

Some do but reject its rigours. Such beings fall back into 

what becomes an odious mire of experience in the light of 

their new realization, and they sink steadily into cynicism 

and self-pity xxxv . Others cannot conceive of such a path 

(are blind to it when it opens yawning up before them) and 

these live the life of the no-man. If the utilitarian principle 

is right, and it is right also that lower level consciousness 

can legitimately suffer to benefit higher level consciousness 

no matter what the benefit, then those on the valley floor 

can be sacrificed in favour of those on the mountain peaks. 

Should human persons accept this conclusion? Is this 

morally acceptable? 

‘I reject this thesis’, I beam to the no-man. He swears 

and spits on the concrete floor below the fluorescent strip 

lights. 

Consider this: What if we, a technologically and 

scientifically developed and sophisticated self-conscious 

species, a species that subordinates all non-human animals 

to our needs and desires, were presently being observed 

by an extra-terrestrial species whose level of self-conscious 

and technological and scientific development was as far in 

advance of ours as ours is in advance of cows. This species 

has certain needs and desires and for reasons which are 

unimportant and beyond our understanding, destroying 

the whole of Earth’s biosphere would satisfy those needs 

and desires. Would this species be justified in carrying out 

its act of destruction? xxxvi Let us suppose that the degree 

and intensity of happiness this species would experience 

as a result of its action would far surpass, qualitatively, the 

totality of happiness on Earth experienced by the planet’s 

biosphere. The classical utilitarian calculus tells us that we 

would have to give way. It is something we can ethically 

and intellectually understand. But would we understand 

it on some other level—the instinctive, say? It is more likely 

that our sense of outrage would be unbounded. We would 

fight and die as we proclaimed our right to live and live in 

well-being, despite anything the hedonic calculus might 

suggest. It would almost certainly appear to us that 

satisfaction of the alien need and their subsequent pleasure 

was perversely negative and wholly immoral—such a race 

would be one of sadistic tormentors bent on satisfying 

unjustifiable desires (this would be clear to us, would it 

not?). 

If pain and distress is eradicated would I then be 

justified in killing and processing the animal? There is, it 

seems, no clean distinction to be made between me and 

other animals—and I am an animal, lest that be forgotten. 

Certainly there is an unmistakable difference of form; but 

my genetic material is of the same kind which informs all 

animal and insect life, and the form of patterning and 

organization is similar also—different only in degree. I sit 

atop the hierarchical evolutionary pyramid, but the levels 

below me are not strictly discrete; in biological terms I am 

connected to all the sub-levels and differ more in form than 

in kind (I am at one end of a continuum of being, the single 

cell at the other) xxxvii . The cow, therefore, is my biological 

cousin, made of genes and flesh and blood and bones and 

nerve cells and complex electrochemical activity. It is 

sentient certainly, conscious (perhaps self-conscious) and I 

am self-conscious (unambiguously so) and so it seems I am 

obliged—qua responsible member of the moral 

community—not to slaughter it and eat its flesh, but offer 

it instead a kind of generous benevolence, a sympathetic 

accommodation without extending to it the full spectrum 

of human expectations. That is, I extend to it a benefit of 

any doubt concerning its existential status. That is, if I 

am in a position to do so. A cow is not a human but 

it does not follow from this that it should be treated in an 

inhuman fashion. I may slaughter and eat its flesh if I have 

no other reasonable option and I justify doing so by 

pointing out the consciousness differential and the natural 

tendency to protect oneself and members of one’s own 

species. If it came to the crunch I’d kill the cow rather than 

another human being (all things being equal), if one or the 

other had to die xxxviii . 

What is there about living beings of a relatively high 

order, besides their experience, which is relevant to how 

they should be treated—how we should treat them? Inner 

life or inner being is a strange thing; one can never be 

completely sure something is going on in the inside. To 

deny inner being to humans would be insane (I think thrice 

about the no-man); but would it not be insane also to deny 

it to higher animals? 

Descartes once spoke of animals as mere automata xxxix . 

How could he ever have thought this? He was searching 

for the grail of demon-proof certainty and can perhaps 

be forgiven for confusing in the end the whisperings of his 

own methodology of scepticism with unsound ontological 

conclusions. He must have been in an excitable frame of 

mind to so downgrade animals. This is what comes from 

separating the mind from the body and we get all confused 

by the problem of other minds and the desire for objectivity. 

There is the objective school of animal behaviourists who 

temper their automatic and natural tendencies to interpret 

behaviour patterns as indicating real consciousness by 

exercising reasonable caution. It is so easy to be fooled, to 

draw false conclusions, they say. Better it is to affect a stand 

of near perfect objectivity and be content merely to 

describe what one can see and can measure. rather than 

allow natural, but possibly spurious, interpretations to creep 

in. Hence, animal behaviour must be described in terms 

of physiochemical states and reactions. Animals after all 

turn out, on analysis, to be nothing but rather wonderful 

biological machines, and the notion that there is any inside 

life is too obscure an idea to be taken seriously, they say. 

But from a more modern perspective it is only the 

ideologically blind who can accept this position; only 

zoophobics can relish it and only those who have never 

lived with animals can grant such a position dignity. (What 

does the behaviourist deduce from observing his own 

behaviour, which is not dissimilar in significant ways from 

the behaviour of the dog he feeds surreptitiously under 

the table during his wife’s dinner parties?) 

The inner being makes the difference and is the thing 

that matters over and above mere experience. The absence 

of pain and of any kind of distress does not therefore make 

a difference to the rightness or otherwise of the slaughter 

if self-consciousness is the issue. What is true of me is true 

also of the animal, in kind if not in degree. So, if it is wrong 

to inflict needless pain on me (for some reason) then it must 

also be similarly wrong to inflict needless pain on a being 

of similar constitution. 

Suppose that without warning I am seriously 

incapacitated through an accident of some kind, or through 

The Oswestrian 33


the contraction of some disabling disease: then I can no 

longer be the way I wish or desire to be. The suppositional 

is important. I have, in fact, certain projects, certain wants 

and needs which are integral to me being the being I am, 

but as a result of my suppositional invalidity I can no longer 

realize these. My suppositional impuissance, therefore, 

strikes me as an evil—its coming is not so much 

malevolence but an ignoble fact which interferes in a 

profoundly negative manner with my conceptions and 

dreams. This new impotence diminishes me in such a way 

that I can no longer be the being I was or become the one 

I once desired to be. I am completely changed by the event. 

And the unexpected nature of the tragedy makes it all the 

more poignant for me, for if I had known it was coming I 

might have prepared and made the necessary personal 

transformations. But it strikes out of the blue, and it strikes 

hard and cruelly, biting deep into the very idea of my self, 

disfiguring my vision of what it is to be a human creature 

in this world. To be human, I now see very clearly, it is 

necessary to act out one’s desires and needs freely within 

reasonable limits, and any kind of unreasonable restriction 

I now understand clearly an as evil. Hence, to kill me, even 

painlessly, constitutes a total restriction on my freedom to 

be as I desire and need to be, and this restricting evil has 

nothing to do with experiences. The case is that the evil 

arises out of the obstruction to my personal vision. This 

vision lies snug beneath my experience and shapes it 

meaningfully and as such constitutes the foundation of my 

moral status: I must not be killed or restricted in 

any unreasonable way because such limits to my 

freedom take from me all that is personally 

important. 

The same can be said of certain animals. That is not 

to say that all animals have personal desires and dreams 

and visions of paradise, but as conscious beings they all have 

needs and desires appropriate to their kind. One of you, 

in your more enlightened moments, might object and claim 

that such animal needs and inclinations are merely 

instinctive. But are not ours in this sense equally so? My 

desire to save my child from the burning house may be 

viewed as instinctive, but my decision to enter the house 

depends upon the extent of the blaze, the quick calculation 

of the chances of reaching her in time, the realization of 

my own possible demise; all this is judgement based in 

reason and in lightning quick time. And so too for the nonhuman 

animal watching its young being washed away in 

the flood; the instinctive impulse to throw herself into the 

maelstrom and cataracts, tempered by the judgement that 

this is perhaps not a good idea after all—better to run down 

the bank to a bridging point and take the chances there. I 

should suffer badly if I found myself in this awful position. 

Why should not the non-human animal? But let us grant 

the differential of intensity, for consciousness is more a 

matter of degree than of kind; the animal suffers in the 

same kind of way as do I but perhaps less intensely. 

The ability to abstract oneself from the meaning of 

one’s surroundings is interesting. It suggests a fragmentation 

of the self which prevents the whole picture—that is the 

whole of one’s circumstances—from ever being perceived. 

Take the hierarchical pyramid. Where on this do we 

actually sit? I can identity three moral statuses derived from 

one’s position on the pyramid and each is determined by 

a fragmentary view of the self or being xl . Status 1 is as 

you would expect at the very top and relates to a being 

which may not be sacrificed or harmed in any way for the 

sake of another organism. Status 2 relates to a being 

which may indeed be sacrificed or harmed for the sake of 

another organism but only for organisms which enjoy status 

1. Status 2 beings must not be sacrificed or harmed for the 

sake of other status 2 beings. Finally there are status 3 

creatures. These are, not surprisingly, the most unfortunate 

of all for they may be sacrificed or harmed for the sake of 

organisms above themselves or at the same level as 

themselves. 

On this scale where am I? Where are you? We are not 

(it seems) status (3) organisms, yet the Nazi concentration 

camp experience suggests that the level at which we occupy 

the experiential pyramid is a matter of mere perception, 

or whim, or ideology, rather than a matter of fact or truth. 

Each sane human individual in full control of his faculties 

knows that it would be wrong to treat another human as 

a status (3) being. It is prima facie the case that qua humans 

we occupy the peak of the hierarchy and our justification 

for using lower status beings for our purposes derives from 

this ‘exalted’ position. But on further thought perhaps it 

is not so obvious that we are status (1) organisms; think 

again of that race of advanced extra-terrestrials who 

recognize our intellectual and spiritual faculties, but only 

as we recognize the intellectual and spiritual faculties of 

apes. Or think of the alleged omnipotent Creator who has 

fashioned His Creation for His own inscrutable Purposes. 

Perhaps, on reflection, we are status (2) creatures, 

constrained not to harm each other (although we do), and 

to remain beings bound forever (if unwillingly) to be 

sacrificed according to the desires of those persons who 

occupy higher positions on the hierarchy of experience. 

Might not we, then, become the cattle in the sheds and 

slaughter houses of those who perceive us as means towards 

some unfathomable non-human end? 

Final words. It seems that this experiential pyramid 

image is therefore all wrong; at least in its present form; it 

permits undue interference with the biosphere and assumes 

discrete levels of rank and degree of moral constraint. 

It’s really all a matter of being civilized and recognizing 

the ultimate kinship of biological forms. This is why flesh 

eaters surf the waves of fiery Acheron, burning cruelly as 

they go. They surf the fiery waters and hover about the 

banks in the Stygian gloom of the lower world, sustaining 

the crude hierarchical pyramid; feeding their vested interest 

in fragmentation and division in the biosphere, leading us 

all precisely in the wrong direction. A metaphor 

pointing to interdependence and interconnection 

would be more appropriate—something like a 

circulatory system with ‘being’ flowing through 

and nourishing all the organic parts. In such a 

system it would be impossible to say that one organ in itself 

commanded more authority and privilege than the others. 

In this image maybe humans can be likened to the brain 

of an organism—the whole biosphere; its being informs 

and instructs all the organs and is at the same time 

supported by them. Here there is interdependence and 

interconnection—a complex relation of mutual respect 

producing greater degrees of global harmony. This image 

is more useful I think. 

It is not a simple question of is it right to eat meat or not. 

Anybody who reduces the issue to such simple terms has simply 

not grasped the issue. The metaphor of the pyramid is not entirely 

34 The Oswestrian


without use, however. To the best of our knowledge humans are at 

the peak of the biological pyramid—at least in this restricted part 

of the cosmos. If it is necessary to eat the flesh of creatures lower 

down the hierarchy in order to maintain a healthy existence for 

those above, then so be it. The onus is on the flesh-eater to 

demonstrate that this is the case (there will always be exceptions). 

However, if it is the case that humans can maintain good health 

without eating the flesh of lesser creatures (those on lower 

hierarchical levels), then it is incumbent upon them to do so (for 

the utilitarian reasons argued for). It is merely a question of 

civilization, of being civilized. It is a question of spiritual growth. 

I maintain that anyone who has not grasped this notion cannot be 

taken seriously in his general moral posturing; and this is an 

important point, for such a person has not thought through his 

position regarding the moral relevance of sentience, consciousness 

and self-consciousness—his moral pronouncements are 

consequently rendered impotent; they are maimed and palsied, 

reduced to gimcrackery—pronouncements utterly unworthy of 

our acceptance. In other words, anyone who eats flesh must be in 

a position to defend his position in cast-iron fashion: he must 

demonstrate that eating flesh is a necessary part of his existence 

and demonstrate further that his continued existence justifies the 

cessation of some other creature’s existence! Therein lies the moral 

challenge for the barbarians. 

Notes 

i It was a significant event and illustrative of 

the power of principle to override the 

dictates of the sympathetic nervous 

system. 

ii Pythagoras (c550-c500 BC): founder of a 

religious school or community 

characterized by common beliefs and 

observances. Very little is known of him. 

Earliest sources regard him as a magician 

of sorts—an occultist. He asserted 

‘metempsychosis’—a doctrine of repeated 

incarnation of souls, with punishments 

and rewards for behaviour in previous 

lives.It is this doctrine (along with a 

concern for health) which probably lies 

behind his vegetarianism. There was, for 

Pythagoras, a kinship of all living 

things—and this idea, although ancient, is 

vibrant today in several forms. 

iii Jainism: Atheistic school of Indian 

philosophy (c ninth century BC) older than 

Buddhism. The ethical principle of nonviolence 

is taken in Jainism to an extreme 

in both practice and theory. The Jains do 

not believe in an omnipotent supreme 

being but rather in an eternal universe 

governed by natural laws. Souls are 

caught in an endless cycle of 

transmigration and can only break out of 

the cycle by practising detachment 

through rational perception, rational 

knowledge and rational conduct. 

Compassion for all life, human and 

non-human, is central to Jainism. Human 

life is valued especially as a unique and 

rare opportunity to achieve 

enlightenment. To kill any person, no 

matter what crime they committed, is 

considered unimaginatively abhorrent. It 

is the only ‘religion’ that requires monks 

and laity alike, from all its sects and 

traditions, to be vegetarian. 

iv Plutarch (c50 AD-c120) Middle Platonist: 

anticipates Plotinus in his concern to find 

a unified and simple supreme pinnacle of 

the hierarchy of reality. 

v Salt wrote a pioneering treatise entitled 

Animals’ Rights. 

vi ‘good’ here means moral good—that 

towards which we ought to aim. 

vii This point would have interesting moral 

implications for those who choose 

deliberately to pursue life styles that 

damage individual health, such as 

smoking, or the over indulgence of 

alcohol or illegal drugs. The adoption of 

such life styles spills negatively into the 

commonwealth when the treatment for 

the negative consequences of such life 

styles is paid for by the common purse. In 

these two regards (negative individual 

consequences and negative spill into the 

community) the individual who chooses to 

pursue a less than healthy life style could 

be viewed as being morally derelict. 

viii “Critique of the Doctrine of Inalienable, 

Natural Rights” in Anarchical Fallacies, vol. 

2 of Bowring (ed.) Works, 1843 

ix The following argument is taken from 

Practical Ethics (second edition) Singer P. 

CUP 1993 

x The classical utilitarian position states that 

an action is right if it maximizes pleasure 

and minimizes pain. See Bentham/Mill 

xi See Animals by Lori Gruen in A Companion to 

Ethics ed. Peter Singer, Blackwells 1997. 

xii Descartes argued (fatuously) that animals 

have no souls (he believed humans 

possessed these) or minds and are nothing 

but complex automata that act as if they 

had minds, feelings, preferences etc. This 

position has all the hallmarks of 

ideological (in this case Catholic) 

imperatives rather than reason acting 

upon experience. 

xiii Witness the consumerist excesses of 

Western life (in 2007 in the UK an 

estimated £53 billion (on average £900 

per head of population—61,000,000 

[source: The Big Tent; Scotland’s Festival 

of Stewardship]) was spent at Christmas 

in addition to normal spending levels 

which already allow UK living to be 

experienced well beyond the level of 

‘comfortable’ (regular food in one’s belly, 

heat, a roof over one’s head, health care, 

sanitation and education). 

xiv Vegetarianism based on natural sympathy 

alone is bound to be sentimental and 

unconvincing, though such sympathy 

might well play an important 

‘humanizing effect’ when working out the 

rational foundation of the moral 

community and the subsequent treatment 

of non-human animals in the light of 

such a community. 

xv The case for Animal Experimentation (Berkeley: 

University of California Press, 1986a) 

xvi Note that the stipulation does not rule out 

non-human animals per se. It is entirely 

possible that research on the higher 

primates and some cetaceans may reveal 

high levels of autonomy and conceptual 

competence belonging naturally to these 

non-humans and that reciprocity may not 

be beyond their capacity to engage in a 

moral community. Even if this turns out 

not to be the case one can easily imagine 

the existence of extra-terrestrial nonhuman 

life that would easily measure up 

to the criteria. 

xvii A human might not possess the ability to 

manipulate complex concepts (or any 

concepts), or formulate precepts and 

follow these, or plan a course of action 

and choose amongst a variety of options, 

or be in a position to accept responsibility 

for actions (the mentally infirm, or new 

born etc) and yet still be considered a 

member of the moral community by the 

rest of that community who do measure 

up to the sine qua non criteria. 

xviii Frey, R. G: ‘Moral Standing, the value of 

lives, and speciesism’, Between the Species, 4, 

no. 3 (Summer 1988), 191-201 

xix Regan, T: The Case for Animal Rights 

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 

1983). 

xx I do not say ‘the top levels’ because it is 

conceivable that there are creatures (as yet 

unknown to us) who possess greater 

weight of value than do we by virtue of 

their more advanced being (I leave open 

in what respects such creatures might be 

more advanced, but a single look at the 

imperfections of Man might give us some 

idea). 

The Oswestrian 35


xxi Clearly such responsibility can only kick in 

when a certain level of competence is 

reached—it is not to be supposed that 

dogs have responsibilities towards those 

members below them, say field mice. 

xxii “The day may come when the rest of the 

animal creation may acquire those rights 

which never could have been withholden 

from them but by the hand of tyranny. 

The French have already discovered that 

the blackness of the skin is no reason why 

a human being should be abandoned 

without redress to the caprice of the 

tormentor. It may one day come to be 

recognized that the number of the legs, 

the villosity of the skin, or the 

termination of the os sacrum are reasons 

equally insufficient for abandoning a 

sensitive being to the same fate. What else 

is it that should trace the insuperable line? 

Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the 

faculty of discourse? But a full-grown 

horse or dog is beyond comparison a 

more rational, as well as a more 

conversable animal, than an infant of a 

day or a week, or even a month, old. But 

suppose they were otherwise, what would 

it avail? The question is not, Can they 

reason? nor Can they talk? but Can they 

suffer?” (Introduction to the Principles of 

Morals and Legislation, Chapter 17, 

footnote.) 

xxiii These are the rights referred to by activists 

and theorists when they speak of ‘animal 

rights’. In the context of my ‘hierarchy of 

experience’ within the moral community 

I prefer not to imply differentiation at this 

level—so, the term ‘right’ in this context 

refers to the fundamental right of all 

members of the community to have their 

inherent value protected in an 

appropriate way. 

xxiv With my treatment withdrawn I could slip 

into irreversible depression and that the 

felicific calculus could (in principle) 

dictate I was put out of my misery and 

everyone else’s, for the benefit of the 

commonwealth; I am killed and the zoo 

animals live because their positive 

contribution to the general sum of 

welfare (happiness) in the community is 

greater than mine. The same calculus 

could also be employed to justify all sorts 

of (presently) ethically dubious practices 

such as widespread euthanasia—killing 

off (painlessly) the old and infirm (a huge 

drain on the public purse) and other 

undesirables such as criminals. Such acts 

would be acceptable if and only if it could 

be shown that [a] classical utilitarianism is 

coherent, and [b] it could be 

demonstrated that such acts would result 

in an overall net gain in happiness for the 

commonwealth. 

xxv A note of warning here: it would be easy 

for some human individuals or groups of 

individuals to argue that their position in 

the hierarchy was above that of other 

humans and groups (human and nonhuman). 

Whilst it would be possible to 

plausibly argue (on utilitarian grounds) 

that certain individuals and groups were 

indeed higher placed and for good reason 

(fully functioning adult humans above 

new born humans), it would be 

intolerable and illegitimate for any 

individual or group to argue for a higher 

place on grounds of mere race, or sex, or 

species. A careful reading of history will 

show that the positions occupied in the 

hierarchy must be argued for cogently 

and soundly. 

xxvi Human cannibalism would be wrong for 

the same reason. 

xxvii Singer, P: Animal Liberation (1975); 2nd end 

(New York: New York Review/Random 

House, 1990). 

Singer’s point here is that if we want to know 

something about the human condition 

from the biological, physiological, 

neurological point of view it would make 

more logical (not necessarily ethical) 

sense to use human beings with similar 

abilities to the presently vivisectionally 

used non-humans; such humans may give 

us the information the vivisectionists 

pursue. To use the non-human in 

preference to the human is speciesist and 

being speciesist is unethical, in the same 

way being sexist or racist is unethical— 

this is Singer’s point. Note that on this 

view, in theory at least, beings occupying 

the higher hierarchical levels might (if the 

circumstances allow) use beings on the 

lower levels if and only if it can be clearly 

demonstrated that beings on those higher 

levels will significantly benefit. Let us 

hope that from our own perspective that 

there are no beings in the universe who 

occupy a higher level than us. 

xxviii Op. cit. 

xxix Fisher, J: “Taking Sympathy Seriously”, 

Environmental Ethics, 9, no. 3 (Fall 1987), 

197-215. 

xxx These beings are too far removed from us 

to recognize their value—see Lem, S. 

Fiasco Andre Deutsche, London, 1987. In 

this novel the beings are destroyed; they 

are so far removed from human 

experience that they are not even 

perceived; they are in effect invisible. 

xxxi The design of the Nazi death camps such 

as Auschwitz-Birkenau could only have 

been achieved by leaving behind normal 

faculties of sympathy and understanding 

and conceiving the beings to be processed 

as being far removed from the beings that 

would carry out the processing. 

xxxii Perhaps I shouldn’t use the term ‘nonperson’ 

because of its obscurity; ‘nonhuman’ 

would be clearer—but it’s not 

really what I mean. I mean by ‘nonperson’ 

a consciousness which is not 

reflective and therefore relative to 

‘persons’ stands upon a lower level on the 

pyramid of consciousness. Such nonpersons 

can be happy—but they will not 

know they are happy. 

xxxiii There is no obvious way in which our 

present education system attempts to 

teach and cultivate this moral eye; instead 

we rely upon a rather murky ad hoc 

approach to building civilization; we tend 

to make things up as we go along. 

xxxiv According to the principle of equal 

considerations of interests it may well be 

acceptable for me to eat a fellow human 

in order to ensure my survival if the 

circumstances are such that would, on 

utilitarian grounds, allow consumption of 

my companion i.e, applying the principle 

of equal consideration of interests it 

becomes clear that my interest in this case 

(to survive in order to satisfy future desires 

[I am not yet dying and know that in all 

probability a rescue party is being 

organized and will arrive within a 

month]) carries more moral weight than 

that of my fellow human who lies dying 

in the Andean snow (he is terminally 

injured and will be dead within twentyfour 

hours; his desire being a reluctance 

not to be eaten—he will die and not have 

the opportunity to satisfy any remaining 

interests he has). Will I have needlessly 

thrown away my life (something I don’t 

want to do) if I do not eat the body of my 

dead companion? What could the moral 

justification be if both of us die when it 

was possible for one of us to survive? I 

could not prevent the death of my 

companion, but I could prevent the death 

of myself. How could a third party 

coherently justify my death through my 

non-consumption of my companion? 

xxxv Hear echoes of Plato’s cave allegory: 

Republic 

xxxvi A la Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Adams, 

D, BBC Radio 4 1978 

xxxvii Whilst humans do not formally resemble 

insects it should not be assumed that 

humans and insects have nothing in 

common. 

xxxviii This could be justified on the grounds 

that the human had the possibility of 

realizing more interests than the cow. 

However, if matters were not equal (the 

case of the cow is too obvious) then 

different decisions might be made. For 

example, perhaps it were a chimpanzee 

that was involved (our nearest genetic 

cousin). The chimpanzee is normal in 

every respect but the human is severely 

intellectually and emotionally disabled (on 

objective assessment the chimpanzee is 

considerably in advance of the human in 

the ‘personhood’ stakes). Under such 

circumstances it would be right to forfeit 

the life of the human according to the 

principle of equal consideration of 

interests. 

36 The Oswestrian

TWO SCHOOL CLUBS 

Chess Club 

THE SCHOOL’s chess club has had another successful 

year, following the established pattern. In the 

Michaelmas term we concentrated on improving 

everyone’s game by studying techniques and strategy as 

well as playing plenty of practice games. 

In the Lent term we participated in the UK Land Chess 

Challenge, now the world’s largest chess competition with 

around 75,000 competitors. We played the school-based 

rounds, in which Sam Skubala triumphed and took the 

trophy, despite one surprise defeat at the hands of Kyle Real. 

Furthermore, four players qualified for the regional 

megafinal in Hereford. They were Richard Herbert, Richard 

Christie, George Tomley and Sam Skubala. 

The megafinal took place on Saturday 3 May and it 

welcomed around 200 players from a large area of Wales 

and the English border counties. Competition was very keen 

and three of our players, Richard H, Richard C and George 

played around the mid-level of the tournament. 

Sam Skubala was more successful still, scoring four out 

of six points. This meant that he qualified for the next stage 

of the tournament, which was the northern semi-final (called 

Richard Christie, Richard Herbert, Sam Skubala and George Tomley 

the gigafinal) in Manchester and which took place in July. 

CR Hooper 

Metal Modelling Club 

ITOOK OVER the metal modelling club when I arrived 

in January 1993 and it has been a popular club for year 

7 and year 8 pupils ever since. The group photo on page 

2 is just a selection of past and present pupils who were 

metal modellers in their day! 

When I was first asked to run the club I had visions of 

large pieces of metal and a welding torch. Of course it was 

nothing like that! Last year, when I visited Ireland for a 

I’d heard how good metal modelling club was and I 

was really looking forward to it when I moved into 

year 7. I was not disappointed—it has been fantastic! 

At first we had to learn about safety. Then it was on 

to the really exciting bit—making the models! 

I chose to make the British foot soldiers and the 

French cavalry. To make a model you first need to 

prepare the mould by dusting it on the inside with 

talcum powder. This helps the alloy to fill all of the 

mould. Next you melt a small piece of the metal bar 

in a pan. I love the smell as it melts and like watching 

the molten metal as it runs around the pan. Once it 

has all melted you pour it into the mould and wait 

for it to set. One of the best bits is seeing how your 

model turns out. The highlight for me was making 

26 perfect model foot soldiers in one hour! 

Matthew Masters 

Every Thursday after school for the last two terms 

Mrs Hart, our science teacher, has been taking some 

students for the metal modelling club. Around twelve 

year 7 and 8 students attended each week and made 

numerous metal models ranging from the 82nd 

Highlanders to Napoleon’s army. These models 

included men, weapons, treasure, some students even 

complete chess sets! 

Some students decided to leave their models 

unpainted as they looked great all silvery and 

polished, and others decided to paint their models so 

they looked bright and shiny. Either way they looked 

great! 

Sadly Mrs Hart is leaving at the end of term, and 

all of us in the metal modelling club wish her well 

in her retirement! 

Charles Fryer-Stevens 

holiday, I discovered that the Prince August factory (where 

the metal and the moulds originally come from) was en route 

to the Dingle Peninsula, so I stopped off to have a look 

round. As it was a Saturday the factory was unfortunately 

closed but I did buy some new moulds that were no longer 

available from the Hobbies craft shop in London. I do hope 

that the club will continue to flourish! 

M Hart 

The Oswestrian 37

Academic 

The Library 

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of 

library.” 

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) 

“I find television very educational. The minute somebody 

turns it on, I go to the library and read a good book.” 

Groucho Marx (1890-1977) 

Conor Roche, Freddie Kynaston-Evans and Sam Johnson at Fuse 

IT HAS BEEN an exceptional year for the library. The 

physical environment has been dramatically improved 

thanks to the PA’s investment in tables, tub chairs, 

pictures and curtains, and new computers have 

revolutionized the speed of internet access. We hope our 

library has always been as functional and inspirational a 

place as those of Samuel Johnson and Groucho Marx. Now 

it is comfortable and up to date as well. A library for the 

young people of the 21st century. 

Normal library activities have continued. High points 

were a Tudor costume history and dance session, the annual 

book exchange in March for World Book Day and a jazz 

session with regular library visitors Eddie Matthews and 

Jenny Miller, who usually perform at the Mytton and 

Mermaid in Atcham. 

Last year the 1407 and all That literary and living history 

event was so well received by the seven to thirteen-yearolds 

who were involved that we decided to establish an 

annual book festival and include writers and storytellers to 

work with all the age groups in the school. Finding suitable 

and inspirational educators and performers to work with 

children from the age of two and young people up to the 

age of 19 was a demanding task but the response we got 

from pupils of all ages repaid the effort involved. 

The Booked Up festival ran from 5 May to 9 May. The 

youngest children in the school had storytelling sessions 

from Helen East, a local performer with a national 

reputation. Pupils from years 3 to 7 learnt how to write a 

non-fiction book with children’s author John Malam, met 

football detective series author Tom Palmer and competed 

in a quiz and penalty shootout session with him, learnt about 

Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce (the book voted by the 

people of Oswestry to be the summer’s “big read”), had 

talks from Peter Edwards—school governor and National 

Portrait Gallery exhibited artist—and Heather Rodenhurst 

from the public library, and were educated and entertained 

with the stories of the Firebird and Jason and the Argonauts 

by storytelling group Annamation. 

Pupils from years 8 to 13 had a different show performed 

by Annamation. Aimed at a teenage audience, the Tongue 

and Groove show effortlessly conveyed the folk stories of a 

hundred different cultures and had the audience on the edge 

of their seats. Then year 9 had interpretative workshops with 

members of the group, year 10 and 11 had comic writing 

workshops with Dave Smith—a comedian with a track 

record from Jongleurs and the Comedy Club—and years 12 

and 13 had creative writing workshops with Dave 

Armstrong, an Oswestry author with a national readership. 

With John Malam 

38 The Oswestrian

THE LIBRARY 

In the library during World Book Day 

The pictures say it all, and I wish there was room to print 

more! The event was varied, demanding and inspirational. 

We discovered some previously unknown talents for comic 

prose (the best probably from George Hugheston-Roberts) 

and the power of the written and spoken word was 

highlighted for the whole school and our visitors from 

Richard Herbert in Tudor costume 

Morda, the Meadows, Trefonen, St John the Baptist and Ysgol 

Bro Cynllaith primary schools and the Marches and Rhyn 

Park. The book week will be an annual event. All suggestions 

for authors and storytellers for next year will be gratefully 

received! 

A Gonzalez 

Charles Fryer-Stevens, Cian Roche, Mr Stockdale, Isabelle Makin and 

Lucy Whitthread during Private Peaceful day 

Promoting Private Peaceful 

As part of Oswestry’s “Big Read”, promoting the 

National Year of Reading, Oswestry School 

championed Private Peaceful, by Michael Morpurgo. Set 

during the first world war the book tells the story of Private 

Thomas “Tommo” Peaceful, who lied about his age in order 

to join up. Tommo wants to be with his older brother, 

Charlie, who was bullied into enlisting by the spiteful local 

squire. Michael Morpurgo is one of the country’s foremost 

children’s authors and was Children’s Laureate from 2003- 

2005. Here are the comments of some of the students: 

Private Peaceful is a gripping novel by the fantastic writer 

Michael Morpurgo. It is set in the First World War. It is a 

story of innocence, love, courage and cowardice. 

Lucy Whitthread 

In the library 

Private Peaceful was Michael Morpurgo’s 100th book. It 

is a great novel told through the voice of a young soldier 

called Tommo Peaceful. My personal rating gives it *****. 

Charles Fryer-Stevens 

No matter how many times I read it I still cry. I really 

thought I was with Tommo all the way. I taste his first mug 

of sweet tea in the stinking, dilapidated trench, I smell the 

deadly mustard gas, I hear the sound of silence waiting for 

the Germans to attack. The best book I have ever read! 

Isabelle Makin 

From when I first opened this book I knew I would find 

it hard to put it down. You could swear the account was 

coming straight from the mouth of an actual grunt down in 

the trenches. I found this book highly enjoyable and look 

forward to reading more Michael Morpurgo. 

Cian Roche 

The Oswestrian 39

ART 

Art 

THIS YEAR, Mrs Stonehill, head of art, ran the third 

summer art exhibition in the gym. The second 

exhibition formed part of the sexcentenary 

celebrations and revealed some unusual pieces and living 

sculpture. Gyles Brandreth, the guest speaker at Speech Day, 

was so impressed by the range and diversity of the artwork 

and the living statues that he was still talking about it on his 

way to the BBC the next day! A film crew televised the art 

installation for its summer series of broadcasts. 

This year the exhibition revealed many large scale 

sculptures inspired by the works of Claes Oldenburg. It was 

again very popular with parents and friends who visited in 

extremely large numbers. 

The department also made many visits during the course 

of the year, including ones to life-drawing courses both in 

school and at the Tate Gallery in Liverpool. Further visits to 

the Clothes Show in Birmingham and to the DLA Piper 

Series (an exhibition at the Tate Gallery) provided varied 

and unusual inspiration for the pupils. 

A Stonehill 

Pupils, parents and governors at the 2008 summer exhibition 

From the Bellan art workshop 

Bellan pupils visit Mrs Stonehill’s classroom for an art workshop 

Living statues at the 2007 art exhibition in the gym 

From the summer exhibition 

Story teller Michael Quinn with the art gifted and talented group 

40 The Oswestrian

ART 

Kristina Kingolts’ work at the 2008 summer exhibition 

A sculpture set in the school grounds by Abigail Jones 

Kristina Kingolts 

Polly Morgan at the Tate Gallery 

Abigail Jones preparing for the summer exhibition 

Vivien Lee 

Mr Fred Rowson by Luke Broster 

Victoria Martoccia 

The Oswestrian 41

MATHEMATICS 

Mathematics 

MANY STUDENTS throughout the school were 

once again involved this year in the National 

Mathematics Challenge competitions and World 

Maths Day. 

On World Maths Day on 5 March 2008 we contributed 

44,586 correct answers to the new world record of 

182,455,169 correct answers that were completed in one day 

around the world. 172 students participated in one of the 

four individual challenges. A team of year 8 and year 9 

pupils represented the school at the regional final of the 

junior team challenge and, for the first time, four members 

of the sixth form (Ajeeratul Abdullah, Elizabeth Ashby, 

Norhanisah Haji Abd Rani and George Read) competed in 

the new senior team challenge competition, coming fourth 

in the regional final at Wolverhampton University. 

Why don’t you try some of the questions yourself at the 

bottom of the page? Calculators are not allowed! 

EM Scott 

SENIOR MATHEMATICAL CHALLENGE 

SILVER Gao Wen (Best in School), Iqbal Caesar, George Read, 

Desiree Wong, George Yu, Jialong Yu 

BRONZE Ajeeratul Abdullah, Elizabeth Ashby, Carlos Ip, 

Martin Menzel, Renee Poon, Martha Twigg 

INTERMEDIATE MATHEMATICAL CHALLENGE 

TEAM CHALLENGE Y8 AND Y9 

REGIONAL FINAL (11th place) Emily Bromage, Rhys 

Gaynor-Johnson, Natalie Renwick, Victoria Whittingham 

SENIOR TEAM CHALLENGE Y12 AND Y13 

REGIONAL FINAL (4th place) Ajeeratul Abdullah, Elizabeth 

Ashby, Norhanisah Haji Abd Rani, George Read 

GOLD Geraint Jones (Best in School), Rebecca Long, Sam 

Wong 

SILVER Callum Morris, Natalie Renwick, Ruth Reynolds 

BRONZE Leo Banks, Catherine Bateman, Emily Bromage, 

Ben Chan, Sean Crompton, Anastasia Derzhiruchenko, 

Millie Evans, Laurence Huang, Annie Keogh, Jonathan 

Molesworth, Zak Real, James Rogers, Charlie Underhill, 

David Ward, Victoria Whittingham, Lucy Williams, 

Viktor Yushyn 

JUNIOR MATHEMATICAL CHALLENGE 

GOLD Matthew Henderson, Leon Parkes 

SILVER Emily Bromage, Joe Collinge, Emma Duncombe, 

Henry James, Ryan Morris, Jack Nyhan, Daniel Renwick, 

Daisy Tickner 

BRONZE Christian Blount-Powell, Louis Fisher, Charles 

Fryer-Stevens, Edward Green, Matilda Hicklin, Isabelle 

Makin, Matteo O’Mahoney, Samuel Skubala 

EUROPEAN PINK KANGAROO (by invitation only) MERIT CERTIFICATE Geraint Jones 

1. The equilateral triangle XYZ is fixed in position. Two 

of the four small triangles are to be painted black and 

the other two are to be painted white. In how many 

different ways can this be done? 

A 3 B 4 C 5 D 6 E more than 6 

X 

Y 

Z 

2. The square of a non-zero number is equal to 70% of 

the original number. What is the original number? 

A 700 B 70 C 7 D 0·7 E 0·07 

3. In a certain year, there were exactly four Tuesdays 

and exactly four Fridays in October. On what day of 

the week did Halloween, October 31st, fall that year? 

A Monday B Wednesday 

C Thursday D Saturday E Sunday 

4. The mean of a sequence of 64 numbers is 64. The 

mean of the first 36 numbers is 36. What is the mean 

of the last 28 numbers? 

A 28 B 44 C 72 D 100 E 108 

5. What is the largest prime number that divides exactly 

into the number equal to 2 + 3 + 5 × 7? 

A 2 B 3 C 5 D 7 E 11 

6. The shaded region is bounded by 

eight equal circles with centres at the 

corners and midpoints of the sides of 

a square. The perimeter of the square 

has length 8. What is the length of the 

perimeter of the shaded region? 

A π B 2π C 8 D 3π E 4π 

7. What is the value of 2006 × 2008 – 2007 × 2007? 

A –2007 B –1 C 0 D 1 E 4 026 042 

8. Which of the following gives the exact number of 

seconds in six complete weeks? 

A 9! B 10! C 11! D 12! E 13! 

{Note that n! = 1 × 2 × 3 × … × n.} 

9. How many whole numbers between 1 and 2007 are 

divisible by 2 but not by 7? 

A 857 B 858 C 859 D 860 E 861 

10. How many hexagons can be found in the diagram if 

each side of a hexagon must consist of all or part of 

one of the straight lines in the diagram? 

A 4 B 8 C 12 D 16 E 20 

1 D, 2 D, 3 A, 4 D, 5 C, 6 D, 7 B, 8 B, 9 D, 10 D 

42 The Oswestrian

A RESTORED HONOURS BOARD 

For Honours Past Received 

SCHOOL LIBRARIAN Arabella Gonzalez was 

intrigued to find out what was on the large brown 

gloss-painted board on the wall of the library and 

made arrangements with a specialist to have the board 

carefully stripped and for the writing revealed to be 

repainted. Just in time for the end of term, the honours board 

was returned, allowing visitors to the library on Speech Day 

to have a glimpse of Old Oswestrian academic success. 

The board is only for the years 1892 and 1893, (there is 

a large gap beneath the writing). This was the first year of 

the headmastership of John Jordan Lloyd-Williams MA, said 

to be a very able headmaster and a good classical scholar. 

In his book A History of Oswestry School, Oakley states that, 

under Lloyd-Williams, “there was success at the universities 

surpassing any other public 

school of the same size”. 

Seven different names are 

listed on the board. The 

following information has been 

found out about some of them. 

ET Baines Oakley adds 

only a brief “very good 

cricketer”. 

ET Davies, Tom, was the 

elder brother of Sir Walford 

Davies, Master of the King’s 

Music from 1934 until 1941. 

Oakley states that Tom was 

also a brilliant musician, emigrating to Australia where “he 

made his mark”. Wikipedia on the internet tells us that Tom 

“followed a family tradition by entering the ministry”. 

AA Maclardy was the middle of three brothers, John, 

Archibald and Hugh, who all came to Oswestry School. For 

many years, according to Oakley, AA was a master at King 

Edward’s School, Birmingham, probably a classics master 

as he is also the author of two Latin text books, first 

published in 1899, which are still in print today! 

Interestingly, the boys were the sons of John Maclardy, 

born in Argyllshire in 1842, who settled in Shrewsbury but 

moved to Oswestry where he was a portrait and animal 

painter, landscape and art photographer, according to 

Industries of Shropshire and District Business Review of 

1891, in premises above 4-6 Church Street, becoming a 

councillor in 1889 and mayor in 1902. One of Maclardy’s 

employees was Harry Sheldon Whitford, son of Richard 

Whitford, “animal painter to the Queen”. 

Ever wondered what people did before there was 

Facebook, the social networking website where people can 

view each other’s friends and social connections as well as 

their activities? In the 1860/70s there was a craze called 

cardomania where people traded carte de visite (CDV) 

amongst friends and visitors. CDVs were small, inexpensive 

photographs, each the size of a visiting card, which became 

enormously popular. Cardomania spread throughout 

Europe and then quickly to America. Albums for the 

collection and display of cards became a common fixture in 

Victorian parlours—sound familiar? Maclardy’s studio 

produced many CDVs and also postcards of local scenes. 

E Armitstead The Armitstead family is atypical of the 

gentry of east Cheshire in the late 18th and 19th centuries. 

The Rev John Armitstead (grandfather of E Armitstead) came 

from a Yorkshire family and was a clergyman. He purchased 

land in the Cranage area and shortly before his death in 1814 

he bought Cranage Hall. Three of the Armitsteads were 

clergymen associated with Sandbach continuously from 

1828-1941 and also at various times with Holmes Chapel 

and Goostrey. 

It seems that Edward and his older brother Lawrence 

were both educated at 

Oswestry—to their dismay. 

Here is what Kenrick 

Armitstead says about the 

brothers in The Cheshire 

Armitsteads: 

“Edward, who was born on 

the 10th September 1872, was 

educated at Oswestry School. 

As his elder brother John had 

been superannuated from 

Westminster School after two 

years, his father in a fit of pique 

decided to send his other sons 

to Oswestry Grammar School, for which, my father said, 

they never forgave him. He went up to Magdalen College 

Oxford and then succeeded his uncle Willy as vicar of 

Goostrey in 1907, remaining there until 1923. 

“In 1918 he married Cecilia Mary, daughter and heiress 

of John Kirkland Glazebrook of Twemlow Hall, and they 

moved into Jodrell Hall, as the vicarage was considered too 

small for them! In 1923 he became vicar of Barthomley where 

he made a great impression. A keen sportsman, he retired 

in 1936 to Richards Castle. His wife died there without issue 

in 1938 and he died on 15 October 1950. 

“Lawrence was born on 20 February 1870 and educated 

at Oswestry Grammar School and Magdalen College Oxford. 

He became rector of Malpas, Cheshire in 1894 and remained 

there until he retired in 1936. He was an honorary canon, 

and later emeritus canon, of Chester. He married Mary 

Elizabeth, daughter of Lt Colonel John Kennedy. He died 

on 19 July 1938 as a result of a road accident, leaving two 

sons.” 

It may not have just been pique that brought the boys to 

Oswestry; headmasters Dr Donne and his son, the Rev 

Stephen Donne, had brought the school an excellent 

reputation at this time, particularly amongst ecclesiastical 

families, resulting in pupils such as Col Fred Burnaby and 

the Rev Canon WA Spooner attending the school. There is 

also a link between the Armitstead family and the governors 

The Oswestrian 43

A FRENCH EXCHANGE TRIP 

of Oswestry School during this period; in 1917, Edward 

officiated at the wedding of his sister to the bishop of St 

Asaph (governor) when the best man was Sir Watkin 

Williams-Wynn (also a governor). 

An interesting fact about this family is that Edward’s 

uncles Willy, John and Henry were very keen cricketers and 

founder members of the Free Foresters Cricket Club, and it 

was Willy who introduced the custom of umpires wearing 

a white coat. During a match between the United England 

XI and a team of 15 Free Foresters at Manchester in 1861, 

Willy stopped the game, complaining that he could not see 

the ball against the drab figure of the umpire. The complaint 

was upheld, and in the words of the day “the umpire was 

vested in a nightshirt”. 

Ever since, umpires have worn white. 

HP Yates 

Modern Foreign Languages 

The first leg of the French exchange 

WHEN I RECEIVED the brown envelope 

containing the information about the French 

student I had been partnered with, I was a bit 

worried about what was inside. However, to my relief, Julia 

seemed really friendly in her letter and we had some things 

in common. This meant I was a lot less nervous about her 

arrival. 

On Sunday 9 March my dad and I walked down to 

school to meet Julia, who would be staying in our home for 

the following week. As we reached school, I was very 

anxious. This was mostly owing to the worry that we 

wouldn’t be able to communicate and we would spend the 

following week in awkward silence. After Mrs Chidlow had 

introduced my dad and me to Julia, I knew that this wouldn’t 

be the case at all, as she was lovely and friendly. At home, 

we had a bite to eat and got to know each other a bit more 

and then went to bed as she had had a long day. 

The following day, I did my morning routine as normal 

as it was important that she got a taste of our family life. At 

school, they came to our whole school assembly and had a 

tour around the school. During break there was a reception 

given by the headmaster in the archive room and then our 

partners came to the next lessons with us, which was PE for 

me. In France they only do the practical side of PE so it was 

good for Julia to see what a PE theory lesson consisted of. 

Each day, the French exchange students went to a 

different place in the area. They visited Shrewsbury, Conway, 

Chester, the theatre at Mold to see The Elephant Man and 

Liverpool. The students spent the evenings with their host 

families and I tried to do something different each night. We 

had a family meal most nights so this was a good 

opportunity to get to know each other a lot more. 

On Monday nights I play netball in the women’s league 

and I found out that they don’t play netball in France. This 

was an opportunity for Julia to see the game for herself. On 

Tuesday, it was my birthday so in the evening I invited 

Hannah, Katy and Abby and their exchange partners to 

come over in the evening so we could all mix and all get to 

know each other. 

A netball team meal had been planned for the 

Wednesday night, so Katy and I brought our exchange 

partners along with us and I know that they both really 

enjoyed themselves. Thursday night was the Songs and 

Scenes night at school and I know this was again really 

enjoyed by all the exchange students and it was good for 

them to see what sort of things go on at our school. Julia said 

that they don’t do things like that at their school in France 

so it was really enjoyable for her. On the Friday night, Tom 

Alister Talbot, Charlie Underhill and Adam Lloyd 

All the students and staff at Liverpool 

44 The Oswestrian

THE MFL DEPARTMENT 

Back row—Katie Hughes, Emily Middleton, Mrs Smith, Mrs Chidlow, Christopher Harvey, JJ Crawford; 

seated front—Nathaniel Gliksman, Kristina Kingolts, Anna Shpilman 

had a party, which was fun and I know that the exchange 

partners who went loved it because everybody made them 

feel welcome and they did a lot of dancing. 

On Saturday we all went to Liverpool. Unfortunately, it 

was another early start so we were all quite tired. When we 

arrived, we visited the Beatles Museum where we were 

given walkie-talkie headphones to listen to as we walked 

around. This was soon called to a halt when the fire alarm 

went off, which turned out to have gone off all around the 

Albert Dock. We didn’t have time to stand around so we 

went on to our next destination which was the Museum of 

Slavery. We went there because the French students were 

doing a project on the role of Liverpool in the growth of the 

slave trade. 

Following this, we made our way down to the ferry port 

where we took a boat trip on the Mersey and this is also 

where we ate our lunch. It wasn’t the highlight of everyone’s 

day as a lot of us suffered from sea sickness. Much to 

everyone’s delight it was shopping next but before we all 

went our separate ways we went down into the original 

Cavern Club where the Beatles started out. It was an ace 

little club and it was really good to see. It was now time for 

some shopping and we were told where to meet in the next 

hour and a half. We met up a little earlier so the people who 

didn’t finish the tour of the Beatles Museum had another 

chance. While they looked around it again, some of us went 

to the cafe next door. 

Our final part of the day was a trip on the Yellow Marine 

Duck which took us on a tour around the city and then 

finally it drove into the Mersey and turned into a boat. It 

was a really lively tour as the tour guide was a young guy 

who made it fun and it wasn’t at all boring. By the end of 

the day, we were all very tired and the rain had begun. It 

was time for us to return home on the coach. At home, we 

bought a Chinese takeaway and both had an early night as 

we had had a busy week. 

The Sunday was a family day, so my parents, Julia and 

I went to the waterfall at Llanrhaeadr. It was a good day to 

go because the waterfall and rivers were high. We went for 

a walk then went for a hot chocolate in the cafe. We wanted 

to show Julia some of the Welsh countryside and I am sure 

that she appreciated it. When we arrived home she also had 

a taste of the traditional English roast. 

Monday meant leaving day and it was sad but it was 

good to know that I would be seeing Julia again. Before they 

got on the coach to leave for the airport, we all said our 

goodbyes and it made us all excited for the second leg of 

our French exchange. 

Throughout the week, we tried to talk English to Julia 

because this was why she had come on this exchange. She 

really made an effort to contribute to different conversations 

and if she didn’t know how to say it English, I tried to say 

it in French so it was a good experience for both of us. As 

the week went on my confidence in speaking French 

improved, as hers did in English, so this made it easy for us 

to have conversations. We both gained so much from this 

week and I am very happy I agreed to take part in this 

exchange. Julia was absolutely lovely and I can’t wait to 

spend another week with her France. I think I can say on 

behalf of the French students that they have taken a lot home 

with them and they have had an amazing experience as I 

know we all have. 

Thank you, Mrs Chidlow, for arranging the exchange. 

Katherine Stockdale 

The Oswestrian 45

A MODERN LANGUAGES DAY 

THE MEADOWS PRIMARY SCHOOL INTERNATIONAL DAY 

Oswestry School was once again invited to take part in this important day. Normal lessons were cancelled 

for the children in Key Stages 1 and 2, who instead benefited from a better understanding of the 

languages and cultures of various countries. 

Assistant tutor Nick Jensen introduced New Zealand, while assistant tutor Martin Diaz and year 13 student 

Brooke Simons-Akwah spoke about Chile. Languages teacher Miss Shaw and Italian pupil Nicolo Pancini 

delivered lessons in Italian and Mrs Chidlow co-ordinated the smooth running of the sessions. There was a 

scary moment for Mrs Chidlow when she was wrongly introduced to the class as Lucy Pare, one of her former 

pupils who is now a primary teacher in Coventry with a special interest in Japanese. 

Lower sixth modern foreign languages day 

The day began with an early start of 7.30am, much to 

everyone’s delight! After having waited for the final 

person to arrive (who will remain nameless) we were able 

to set off in pursuit of expanding our knowledge of the 

language we were learning, and hope that we would return 

fluent, native speakers. These high expectations daunted us 

at such an early hour. However the mood of the keen 

linguists was lifted after Hannah Bick, a French speaker, 

announced to the minibus that she had several bags of 

Haribo for all to share. 

We eventually reached our destination of Market 

Drayton after about an hour’s journey. The group was in 

high spirits after playing numerous rounds of Martha 

Twigg’s infamous “would you rather” game. 

After being presented with our welcome packs and name 

tags we were seated in the auditorium for our welcome. The 

first lecture for French students involved us listening to a 

rather catchy and enjoyable song by Serge Gainsbourg. The 

next French lecture taught us about the difference between 

slang and formal French language. A short refreshment break 

preceded the next session in which all of the French students 

at the conference were split into several groups led by 

students from Keele University. Each group then had to 

either argue for or against the installation of a wind farm in 

a remote French village, the result of the debate being 

undetermined. 

A brilliant lunch of food from all over the world satisfied 

the hungry language learners and gave us (or rather Katy 

and Vicky) a chance to introduce the non-French speaking 

students to the song that we had learnt that morning. 

The afternoon’s lectures began with an informative talk 

on why languages are so important in successful careers, in 

this increasingly multilingual world. 

The final lectures of the day were sessions on learning 

the Russian and Chinese languages. These two sessions were 

led by wonderfully inspiring native speakers and were 

enjoyed extremely by all of the students. 

The group then left the conference on the minibus and 

were able to eat their second lunch of the day owing to 

packed lunches being provided! Katherine Stockdale was 

especially excited about this extra treat. We arrived back at 

school for the end of the day, feeling fulfilled and ambitious 

to learn more, as most of us were still not fluent quite yet. 

A special thanks must be given to our fabulous bus driver 

and head of MFL, Mrs Chidlow, and also to our Frenchspeaking 

gap-year student, Nick Jensen, who accompanied 

us on the trip and wowed us all with his language skills. 

Abigail Jones 

Brooke Simons-Akwah, Catherina Baum, Elizabeth Ashby, Tom Llewellyn, Liam Chambers, Katy Yates and Victoria Martoccia at the conference 

46 The Oswestrian

SCHOOLS IN GERMANY 

How German schools differ from ours 

Lara Hopkins, Lucy Niblock and Katherine Stockdale at the conference 

German student Melanie Barth, from the 

University of Leipzig, was welcomed into 

the department in September last year. She was 

keen to observe how languages are taught here 

and then teach some lessons herself as part of her 

teacher training course. Her lessons were always 

meticulously planned, highly interesting and 

relevant. 

She also worked closely with Mr and Mrs 

Stonehill in Guinevere boarding house, carrying 

out duties and helping with activities for the 

children and was greatly missed when her sixweek 

placement came to an end. We send her our 

grateful thanks and all good wishes for her career 

in education. 

• There are no morning assemblies. A notice board 

provides all the information needed. 

• Chatty chat chat… If there is something important that 

they need to hear they will be told to listen. 

• The day starts at 8am and finishes at 1pm. You have the 

rest of the afternoon to do anything, including 

homework. 

• There is a cafeteria but hardly anyone uses it—they go 

home for lunch. 

• There are in-depth discussions in class. 

• Students take notes, as well as referring to textbooks. 

• A bell commands you to leave! 

• A lot of girls don’t wear any make-up at all. 

• No chapel but church three times a year in school. 

• Teachers move to lessons, not pupils. This means there 

are fewer displays on the walls. 

• There are only a few whiteboards and none of the 

teachers have laptops. 

• Own clothes can be worn, anything goes. 

• Hair can be any length or colour. 

• Lessons are less formal and structured. 

• Most of the pupils arrive on bikes or by bus. 

Cian Roche 

What I noticed in Germany 

• They have really big radiators. 

• The light switches are bigger and squarer. 

• Crazy drivers. 

• Always trying to give you more food. 

• The houses are all different. 

• They get up very early. 

• BEAUTIFUL TOWNS! 

• They speak better English than we speak German. 

• Clean streets. 

• English adverts in the shops. 

• English programmes on German TV. 

• English songs on the radio. 

• Parties are later. 

• SAUSAGES! 

• The school bell. 

• Not as green as England—more vineyards, less grass. 

• Massive pillows! 

• The zips are the other way round. 

Alice Redmond 

Mrs Chidlow, Mrs Tickner, Nick Jensen and Mrs Payne 

Mrs Alison Tickner, mother of Daisy and Jasmine, and 

former member of staff Mrs Mary Smith, worked in 

the MFL department following an unfortunate accident to 

Mrs Jacqueline Meyer in early September. Colleagues and 

pupils were all most grateful for their hard work and 

enthusiasm during the Michaelmas and Lent terms. 

The Oswestrian 47

A STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS 

Spooner Cottage 

The following piece of writing is called a “stream of 

consciousness” and is written non-stop without regard to 

normal rules of punctuation or grammar—or anything else for 

that matter! Why not give it a try? You may well surprise 

yourself! 

I really enjoyed reading this piece; it reminds me of some of 

the old Monty Python cartoon sketches. 

C Eve 

Squirrels and dandelions dance on the mad boat to 

somewhere that I don’t know but I bet it’s pink and floaty 

and has a paddling pool the size of Manchester or Bill Gates 

or something but what happened if sharks lived in these 

waters and all smoked pipes and ate beans on toast with 

marmalade evil marmalade that would take over the world 

but luckily super pear and his sidekick the chimp were here 

to save the world they took a plane to England and went to 

their house that was made out of jelly but it wasn’t there 

because I ate it and it was yummy but the jellyfish didn’t 

think so because he was a vegetarian and this jelly was meat 

flavoured but the clouds liked to rain and rain and the 

sunshine was mad because of this so he blew up and 

Mrs Eve 

destroyed everything except king Cosmos and his brothers 

who were lions and the three biceps who had feet and 

swords so beware king Cosmos said lets make a new 

universe so they made a new universe using their eyelashes 

as paint brushes and painted a new world which was called 

platypus paradise until the sharks came back and they were 

angry they smoked their pipes inside the non-smoking areas 

but luckily a huge contact lens came and squashed them all 

God picked up the contact lens and put it back in should 

have gone to specsavers! Maybe the window sills will tell 

the future! 

Henry Brown 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

48 The Oswestrian

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