10/11/13
Dear Professor,
I am writing you because, having examined your work, I believe you would be interested in the
contrasting ideas of David Foster Wallace and Kwame Anthony Appiah. In some regards their arguments
synchronize, especially when it comes to the reasons for human action. But on other points, Wallace
uncovers a greater truth about human nature, especially in the arena of moral and cultural discussion.
In Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace urges his readers, the culinary community, to
examine the morality of consuming animals for gastronomic pleasure. He also extends and applies this
query to the greater masses, asking to what extent they weigh a decision against its moral validity. The
whole article exemplifies the Main Lobster Festival as a platform on which to discuss these issues.
Wallace explores different aspects of eating lobster- how it’s cooked, the lobster’s nervous system,
economic interest- to open up discussion about rationalism and greed in America. The tone of the article
is critical, and Wallace includes much disturbing evidence about the preparation of meat for market and
the misleading propaganda of the invested parties. Ultimately, Wallace realizes that people have the
desire to care about the impact of their choices. However, people choose not to learn more about the
effects of an action because it might lead to a moral obligation to give up a pleasurable act. When
talking about lobster and how they’re prepared for market, he says “there’s much more to know than
most of us care about”(pg 55), implying that people might be affected by what they learn, so they
choose to ignore new information. What Wallace exceeds in doing in this article is bridging the gap
between different interested parties. However, Wallace has the opportunity to appeal to a greater
audience with his message, and falls short at the culinary community; unless one is to read the article
deeply and examine Wallace’s prose, it is difficult for the lay reader to feel the gravity of Wallace’s
convictions.
In Moral Disagreement, Kwame Anthony Appiah describes that from culture to culture, customs
vary for a number of reasons. He says that we must recognize why and how this is true in order to open
up discussions about morality worldwide. The bulk of Appiah’s article is centered on defining the
language various groups use to outline cultural practices and how they translate across borders. He
categorizes this language into thin and thick. Thin concepts are usually universal and can easily translate
between cultures. Thick concepts require more inquiry, and delve deeper into the meaning of complex
cultural identities. He says “Thin concepts seem to be universal; we aren’t the only people who have the
concepts of right and wrong, good and bad… the most fundamental disagreement occurs when one
party to a discussion invokes a concept that the other simply doesn’t have”, meaning that thick ideas are
culture-specific, and often don’t hold meaning in other places. For example, he talks about how some
action in Polynesia, eating “bush meat” is akyiwadee, and “doing one of these forbidden things leaves
you ‘poluted’ and there are various remedies, ways of ‘cleaning’ yourself”. Describing foreign customs
like this brings to light values which are unknown to us Americans, highlighting the differences in thick
values that we hold. Overall, Appiah thoroughly applies his conviction to the world as a whole, but in
doing so fails to really resonate with any individual who might be reading this article. There is no
compelling call to action or emotional connection to Appiah’s content that urges any one reader to
apply the concepts of the article.
In conjunction, the two help fill in holes in one another’s argument. For example, Wallace argues
that many people don’t examine their actions because they are pleasurable. He says “the moral
comparison here is… the value of one animal’s life vs. the value of on human’s taste for a particular kind
of protein.”(pg 64) And yet “there’s much more to know than most of us care about”(pg 55). Here
Wallace contrasts directly peoples pleasure vs. the affects of their pleasure. If people don’t know the
affects, he says, they never have to make the comparison, thereby never having to sacrifice their
pleasure. Enjoyment, therefore, is a key motivating factor in how people choose to live. Appiah
corroborates that still other people do not examine refrain from an action because they get stuck on
their instinctual disgust for that action. He says “ people are disgusted by the drinking of orange juice,
that has had a cockroach in it, even if they know the cockroach was rigorously cleansed of all
bacteria”(pg 142) This evidence shows that people have a tendency to listen more to their instinctual
repulsion rather than reason and logic; repulsion says that cockroaches are gross and the juice should be
left alone, where reason says that the juice is perfectly safe to drink. Tying these together, Wallace says
that people ignore important information in order to justify doing an action, and Appiah says that
people ignore pertinent information in order to justify not doing something. When combined, the two
arguments solidly prove that some human instincts, such as hunger for lobster or disgust of bugs, serve
as a barrier between people and the reasons behind their actions.
Also, Appiah has one oversight that Wallace heavily underlines in his essay. Appiah assumes that
most people want to have intercultural discussions about our motives behind an action, but Wallace
points out that for most people this is an uncomfortable endeavor. Appiah says “It’s often part of our
understanding of these terms that their applications are meant to be argued about”( pg. ). In this
instance “terms and their applications” refers to our cultural codes and how we live them. This
statement makes it sound easy to discuss differences of opinion from one person to the next as though
it were a daily occurrence. The word “meant” conveys “purpose”, sounding as though Appiah expects
people to feel the obligation to discuss their differences and the reasons why they stick to cultural
mores. But Wallace counters with, in the case of the MLF, “The truth is that if you… permit yourself to
think that the lobster can suffer and would rather not, the MLF can begin to take on aspects of
something like a Roman circus” (pg.) and that on the whole, it is uncomfortable to reveal truths about
our actions, especially if it relates us to “a Roman circus”, and that most would rather leave that arena
of conversation unmolested. Delving into deeper comparisons uncovers dark truths about our unjust or
unreasonable actions, and that’s something very few willingly expose about themselves.
I hope these points open up some conversation for you. I would be interested in what you have
to say, and if your analysis on their contrasting arguments differs from my own. Please write back with
your thoughts.
Sincerely,
Robin Hunt
P.S. This letter addresses 2nd outcome because it facilitates conversation between two texts In addition
it uses evidence from the two texts to support my central claim about their effectiveness in relation to
each other.