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 19:44:18 GMT
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Viewed:
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2879 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> So humans (at least Bangladeshis) are prey too? Because they are hunted
> sometimes by predators.
Absolutely! Just as I would be prey if I slept unprotected on the veldt,
and just as the poor guy a few weeks ago (in Canada? I can't remember) who
was eaten by a bear.
> How's this: In addition to being prey, deer are a great many other things,
> and I don't think that their happenstance role as prey in the food web is
> their most important attribute.
Being prey doesn't preclude being other things, too. Many predators are
also prey, but not all prey are predators. Humans aren't usually prey, and
few if any animals hunt humans as the primary foodsource, but as you indicate,
happenstance happens.
> When my local deer travel through an acre of yummy grass and nettles to get to
> my apple trees, raspberries, and fresh greens, I think the deer is expressing
> a preference for those things over the otherwise appetizing fare that my
> extreme back yard has to offer. By espressing such a preference, I think it
> is showing desire. It remembers from yesterday where my fruit is, and seeks
> it out when it could just eat whatever is around.
Hmm. Preference vs. desire. That's interesting. Obviously there's a
connection, if not an equivalence. Part of this connects to your earlier
question about competing drives; if your apple trees were warded by several
chained wolves and an electric fence, I expect the deer would browse
elsewhere. Still, by selecting certain foods over others, they are exhibiting
choice. One might suggest that the high-energy foods in your yard are
biochemically more attractive to the deer's physiology, but I recognize that
that's a flimsy point.
Perhaps my mistake has been in trying to set a black-and-white want/desire
criterion, since there are obviously exceptions to nearly everything. Do you
accept that humans are, by and large, better able to identify and control
their drives than animals?
> I just meant that the doe might remember the 'satisfaction' of mothering fawns
> and in whatever way she can, she might want that feeling again. I think that
> there is so little evidence, that my thinking this is every bit as valid as
> thinking that it is impossible...and more so because I'm leaving a broader
> possibility (the use of might rather than can't).
Unfortunately, it's still conjecture and steeped in anthropomorphizing.
> > How do you suppose an animal might remember something fondly, and how might
> > that animal connect the memory with a complex sequence of actions, such as
> > motherhood achieved by mating, gestation, and birth.
>
> I doubt quite seriously that a deer can connect so many things. But it
> doesn't seem like the same ballpark to connect motherhood memory from season
> to season.
But if the doe "wants" to be a mother again, as you'd suggested, doesn't
that imply that she'd work to achieve motherhood once more? How can she do
this if she doesn't make the connection? And, if she doesn't make the
connection but gives birth again anyway, how can it be said that her "want" to
be a mother led her to become a mother?
> > I don't see how a desire
> > felt but unable to be acted upon because of failure to divine its source
> > counts as a want and not a simple drive. Desire/want implies to me cognitive
> > awareness of a source.
>
> OK, what about the desire for apple tree bark instead of grass or poison ivy?
I don't know the precise nature of a deer's digestive system, but if the
deer suffered uncomfortable rashes as a result of ingesting poison ivy, while
at the same time not enjoying especially great nutritious value, I'd say that
this qualifies as the cattle-prod-or-hose external stimulus I discussed
earlier. The learned response of fruitless (no pun intended?), low-energy
consumption can lead to conditioned behavior, in that the deer that can't
outrun a predator due to poor diet will be killed, might also explain why they
brave the hazards of your yard in the name of apples.
Incidentally, we don't like fruit because it's sweet; it's sweet to us so we
enjoy eating it, because it provides a lot of energy.
> > Free will, for purposes of this discussion, implies for me an ability to act
> > in defiance of one's drives, such as an ability to remain celibate despite
> > high levels of testosterone or a dieter's ability to resist tempting food
> > despite hunger.
>
> What about when people fail to do so. There are many examples of humans
> successfully defying their drives, to be sure. But many of the opposite as
> well. Does that color your take on free will, or is the ability to
> deny impulse, determined even just once, enough to put an organism over the
> threshhold of self-deterministic?
We're splitting hairs where I don't believe they need to or can be split.
The inability to put one's finger on when free will exists doesn't mean that
no such distinction exists. I think that the overwhelming majority of humans
can resist these drives, whereas the number of equally able animals is
vanishingly small. Humans, as a rule therefore, exhibit free will, whereas
animals, as a rule, do not. If you can produce an animal that generally
demonstrates free will, I won't eat it.
> > This ability to resist often comes about internally, without any harsh
> > external stimuli; I'm not aware of any other animal that can put up the same
> > resistance to its drives.
>
> I can't argue wiht this, but it's just that I don't know. Maybe deer (or more
> complex mamals) do deny their drives sometimes. How would one know?
That's not a very persuasive stance, even if you're simply urging me to err
on the side of caution. Maybe deer go around dreaming of the day when they
can appear as venison on someone's table, and their flight response is a
reflex they strive to overcome; how would we know?
> > You've given a nice outline, but I don't think awareness of the future is
> > the end-all of desire. I assert that awareness of a desire's source and the
> > ability to resist that desire are among the fundamental differences between
> > desire and drive.
>
> When you discuss the desire's source, what exactly do you mean?
The stimulus, whether internal or external, that creates the desire. A
human, aware of a desire's source, can resist it (for that matter, the human
needn't even be aware of the source, only the desire); an animal cannot resist
the desire. I'm not even sure an animal can be made aware of a desire.
> From where does your surity arise? I agree that humans have biochemical
> drives and sometimes do not act on them. And I agree that other animals have
> biochemical drives and at least typically act on them. But I don't know, and
> don't know how you know, that nonhumans _never_ act contrary to their drives.
"Never" and "always" are escalating and generally not very useful or
interesting terms in a discourse of this kind. Again, show me a deer that can
actively resist its drives, and I won't eat it.
> > A human male is not irretrievably forced to mate when driven by testosterone,
>
> I knew some guys in college who seemed to have missed that day in the what it
> means to be human class.
Me too. I'd lump them among the reflex-driven beasts, for the most part.
> > just as a human female doesn't have to entice a male when she's at the
> > height of estrus, because humans are able to curtail their drives.
>
> Or is it because estrus is a much weaker drive in humans than in most species?
Out of curiosity (as in, not to be a smart alec), is there a way to quantify
that? Perhaps animals seem to have a stronger drive because they are less able
to control it. We needn't limit our discussion to mating, either; humans can
resist the drive to eat or drink much more strongly than animals, too.
> Gotcha! I guess it seems equally clear to us, but we just don't agree. The
> difference between the motivational capacity of carrots and mink seems
> different in kind. The difference in motivational capacity of mink and humans
> seems different in amount..but I'm thinking that this is a fuzzier claim on my
> part. Maybe it is that there are more than two states (sentient and not) of
> life that account for the differences we see.
That's not a bad assertion, and it's more appealing intuitively than a
stringent yes-or-no construction. In the theoretical realm, it's easy for us
to come up with "yeah, but..." exceptions to every assertion, but a system
that acknowledges a spectrum of sentience or volition makes more sense in
reality.
> > I think I come back to the question of free will, which again I define for
> > this discussion as the ability to act in contrast to one's drives. Animals do
> > not demonstrably exhibit this capacity, in that a caged buck will drive
> > itself against its cage again and again, to the point of injury, in response
> > to the mating drive, whereas humans (for good or ill) can actively,
> > consciously, and successfully resist such drives.
>
> First, an example doesn't prove a rule, it merely provides support...at least
> if you follow the scientific method as the primary (or best) way to
> gain/create knowledge. Will every buck, if caged and presented with estrus
> scents etc. act that way, or just som/many/most?
I'd assert (admittedly without much experimental evidence, since I'm low on
bucks and scents) that any caged buck would exhibit an extreme response, not
necessarily resulting in injury to itself, but very likely resulting in highly
aggressive behavior.
> What about the people who knowingly damage themselves through sexuality. I
> know people who have had unprotected sex with partner that they had every
> reason to expect were infected with a deadly virus.
This seems different to me, in that a choice has been made after recognizing
the risks, rather than succumbing to a drive despite one's will.
It seems we're getting down to irreconcilable brass tacks, since we're
approaching the fundamentals of our respective viewpoints, and they just don't
mesh.
Dave!
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