Subject:
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Re: Responsible Hunting (was Re: We are what we eat. Or is that "whom we eat?")
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 31 Jul 2000 15:09:51 GMT
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Viewed:
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2708 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> > What can it [a deer] "choose" to do, other than to
> > make a few very minor alterations to its behaviors?
>
> It doesn't matter. Whatever choices a deer has available, it has available.
> We have more. So what? It can use those choices and options to make whatever
> purpose it can conceive of. I don't know to what degree deer are capable of
> such thought.
>
> > Can it choose not to be prey?
>
> I think deer (like everything) choose this as often as possible.
I disagree. They are prey regardless of what they choose, but sometimes they
are eaten and sometimes they are not.
> > I don't understand how you feel deer can "make whatever purpose they
> > want" or even how you would define what a deer "wants".
>
> I wouldn't define what a deer wants. That isn't within my abilities beyond
> fairly gross observation and assumption. (e.g., we can assume deer don't want
> to be hungry since they continue to eat)
But is it a "want"? Their hearts keep beating, but not because they want
them to.
> > Mostly all they'll do is try to live as long as possible and procreate. That
> > purpose -- being good enough for them -- is good enough for me.
> >
> > Deer do not "want" either of these things;
>
> Demonstrate that to me.
Ignoring for the moment that there is no way to demonstrate anything
conclusive about an animal's "thoughts," I would suggest that because the deer
cannot do anything to stop their drives to live and to procreate, these drives
are distinct from "wants."
> WRT procreation, I find it hard to believe that the males want that. I
> suspect they just want to feel good during copulation, and so they do.
Or, to look at it another way, the accumulation of testosterone and the
response to estrus urges them to copulate, and so they do, regardless of
their "wants." In this light they do not choose to copulate; they are driven
to it.
> And I doubt that females associate copulation with mothering, but it strikes
> me as quite possible that mother deer remember from year to year being a
> mother fondly (for lack of a less human word).
This is wholly conjectural and therefore not of particular value for this
debate. Even assuming that the doe remembers motherhood fondly, that's not
the same as "wanting to procreate" or even "wanting to be a mother." You're
asserting that the doe associates procreation with motherhood, or you're at
least asserting that the doe connects fond memories with wanting to be a
mother. I don't see any way to draw this conclusion other than by a great
deal of speculation and presumption of the animal's drives.
> If they do view it this way, then who are you to say that they don't want to
> be a mother?
That's a circular proposition: if she wants to be a mother then she wants to
be a mother.
> WRT to longevity, I am comfortable with my stance that they do want it. They
> avoid danger, they eat, etc. They may not consider living a long and happy
> life with a rocker on the porch and great-grand-fawns all around, but I think
> that they want to live rather than die.
I would assert that they are driven to live rather than die. It's a fine
point of contention, but a significant one, and I'll stand by it.
> > they do them out of hard-wirded genetic programming.
>
> Like humans?
I made a similar assertion in another post, and you rejected it as SciFi.
http://www.lugnet.com/off-topic/debate/?n=6183
> > The notion of choice, in anything other than an avoidance or embrace of
> > stimuli, seems to me little more than anthropomorphizing animals with a type
> > of programming fundamentally (and inescapably) different from that of humans.
>
> I disagree. I think that it is a difference of degree, not kind.
This is interesting to me, since you're asserting the same things about
animals that I recently asserted about plants, for the same reason, and (to
the opposing view) for similarly arbitrary reasons.
Dave!
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