Kairos in "The Rights of Animals" by Brigid Brophy

In her essay, Brophy denotes moral insensitivity towards animals as a particularly prevalent issue in her time by referencing, among other things, the scientific experiments that were being performed on animals. At the time, many scientists who had a blindness to the integrity of animals had a high demand for animals specifically for research, in the name of science. As a result, there arose a sort of black market for animals, including dogs, whose demand for animals was so high that household pets were being stolen. Throughout the essay, Brophy utilizes the analogy between animal slavery and what she calls human slavery, and by doing so, she points out that while her audience as a whole has come to a moral sensitivity in respect to all humans, it is now still disregarding what ought to be the same moral sensitivity in respect to all other animals. Taking her audience from a history they understand—a terrible insensitivity toward the lives of slaves so great that politicians used economic principles as its justification—to a current situation to which they are blind, Brophy highlights the urgency of the situation. In this way, she establishes kairos by wedging her ideas into public discussion, boldly claiming that while many may consider her stance sentimental and impractical, it is merely a logical conclusion of the same idea that they hold to with at least some conviction.