Subject:
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Re: Why is cockfighting bad? (was: Pokemon (was: Harry Potter Lego Line))
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 21 Jul 2000 19:52:38 GMT
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Viewed:
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1597 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> > I am equally convinced that anyone who every person who eats plants must
> > acknowledge the fundamental equality between vegetarianism and carnivorism
> > insofar as the both pertain to the consumption of (once) living
>
> They are equal in that life is extinguished by both.
>
> > (and, as I
> > explain below, sentient) matter,
>
> I'll get to you description below, but for now: Bzzzzt. Thanks for playing.
Oh, brother. I always marvel at the cleverness of that answer.
> > and titling vegetarianism "superior" is arbitrary and inconsistent.
>
> Maybe somewhat arbitrary, but not, I would say inconsistent.
Since you're arbitrarily deciding what does and doesn't qualify as sentient,
I'd say you're being inconsistent. You've demonstrated that you don't care to
confront this in any consistent framework, so I guess I'll let you go.
> I tend to think of nerves and some kind of processor as being needed to really
> consider it sensation. But maybe it's fuzzier than that. I'm not sure your
> plant-based examples count. A rock gets hot when the sun shines...is the rock
> sensing the sun?
But the rock is not changing anything in its internal makeup to respond to
the sun, other than simply getting warmer. The plant's body is reacting to a
specific stimulus and responding in a reflexive manner, in much the same way
that a animal subjected to pain will flinch or cry out.
> > Given these facts, how can one distinguish between animals'
> > sentience and that of plants;
>
> Well, we can clearly state that plants don't _know_ anything about their
> surroundings. They don't feel pain. They don't have purpose or drive. They
> autonomically react to chemical etc. stimuli.
Crying out in pain is a similarly autonomic response in an animal, as is the
hormonal response to estrus. If that's you're sentience-escape-clause, I'd
say it applies at least as well to animals as to plants. In addition, if we
breed animals with no brains or pain receptors, are we then free to slay them
for food, since they won't feel pain or know anything about their
environments? Using your criterion, I'd imagine you'd be comfortable
consuming a brain-dead human who felt no pain and knew nothing of his
environment.
> > that is, how is it therefore morally less wrong to eat plants than animals?
>
> My set of values is satisfied by the fact that the plant doesn't mind being
> eaten, while most animals do.
Would you agree to eating a sponge or similarly insensate animal? Why not?
> Please note that on the very simple end of
> animals many of my arguments about plants apply too. So I'm not
> differentiating between them in the exact sense of the Linnaean taxa, but
> more between those big fuzzy things and those big leafy things.
Well, okay.
> > > What we are genetically a bunch of things that we should consider hurdles.
> > > There are many of those. We are told by our genes to protect our woman,
> >
> > Do you have any actual sources to cite in this regard?
>
> No.
'Nuff said.
>
> > From what I've read,
> > the genome product hasn't yet pointed out the "protect the woman" gene. Such
> > protectiveness could just as easily be explained as a result of environment
> > and upbringing rather than some kind of genetic hardwiring.
>
> Yes. I should have stated it as an opinion or a hypothesis.
Fair enough--I'll stop being a smart alec about it.
> The actualy line drawn by my morals is based on suffering. So I am allowed by
> my morals, but not my preferences to eat very simple animals too.
Disregard my sponge question, since you've answered it here!
> The line between the two kingdoms would be as arbitrary as the lines that I'm
> complaining about, but I don't think that my actual line is.
"Suffering" is still a dangerously nebulous word. I accept and respect your
preferential choice to be a vegetarian, but I don't accept that there's some
clear-cut or self-evident reason not to eat meat.
> > > > I'd rather we just grew beef and chicken muscle in vats but we're
> > > > not there yet.
> >
> > That's what we do now, while it's still attached to the cows and chickens!
>
> I think you probably know what we're talking about.
Lighten up Chris; I was being facetious. I'm actually greatly intrigued by
the notion of vat-grown food, as well as its implications for organ production
for transplantation.
> > Heh. I don't know that I could prove to you that *I* feel pain, but I'm
> > pretty sure about it. Interestingly, I've read that the octopus has a
> > specially-protected status somewhere (the UK?) due to its apparently
> > sophisticated response to pain stimuli.
>
> That's interesting. Did you catch in what way it is notably sophisticated?
I'm not sure--it was on the Discovery Channel about a year or so ago.
Something to do with the size of its brain and the way it responded to pain
stimuli made some people worry that subjecting it to painful experimentation
would cause it unjustifiable (a word I've chosen for convenience here--not the
word they used) suffering. As such, if I recall correctly, the octopus is
banned from certain types of animal/product testing.
> > > > We're not talking about sentient things when we talk about chickens and
> > > > roosters, though.
> > >
> > > As I pointed out, we are. What exactly marks the difference between us and
> > > them?
> >
> > But as I pointed out, your definition of sentience arguably applies equally
> > to plants. What exactly marks the difference between us and the vegetables
> > you eat?
>
> See above.
I did, and I still don't buy it. Are definitions of "arbitrary"
and "sentience" are obviously incompatible, so I suppose we must leave it at
that.
Dave!
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