Although I was sometimes confused by the philosophy jargon in Keith Peterson’s presentation on The Anthropocentrism of the Anthropocene, I found that his central concepts regarding the impacts of the anthropocene and its title on humanity were quite relevant to our class discussions in ST297 and to earlier presentations. I was particularly interested in the ideas of valuation, and what Peterson defined as the axiological idea that human interests trump all other interests. For animal rights activists, animal’s interests should also be taken into account when making ecological and environmental decisions. However, as we discussed in ST297, most animal rights activists are only taking into account macro-scale animal life, such as the rights of dogs, chimpanzees, and other larger animals. Many animal rights activists also fight for the rights of smaller animals such as lab rats. However, I have never heard of an animal rights activist advocating for the rights of spiders or ants. Because life-forms that are this small are considered to not really be animals, it isn’t “animal abuse” to kill a spider, and bug sprays and pesticides are common place. On a smaller scale, taking antibiotics kills the very small-scale “animals” and organisms that cause illness. Although I don’t think that bacteria should be given the same rights as chimpanzees, it is interesting to consider where the line is drawn in terms of which life-forms are considered animals, and are therefore afforded some rights. It also calls into question how the complexity of organisms (consider single-celled microorganisms versus mammals with a fully developed nervous system) is taken into account in terms of how much humans value them.