Resolved: free family pigeons kept for racing.

Cons arguments in brief are (1) who cares, (2) chattel rights, and (3) numerical feelings. Twice in as many paragraphs Con dismisses Olivia's sensibilities on the basis of "who cares". According to Con, keeping pigeons purely for racing purposes does not meet his standard of cruelty. He proceeds to identify examples of what -- in his judgement -- is real cruelty: dog fighting and slaughter houses. Alas, the issue is not what is offensive to Con's sensibilities, for it is given that Olivia considers her cousins cruel. Con's sense of what is inhumane is to be respected, but is not relevant. It is Olivia's judgment that counts and, as stated explicitly, Olivia thinks that her cousins are cruel to the pigeons. Con then turns to a bit of modus tollens pivoting on chattel rights. The pigeons are property; specifically, the property of the cousins, not of Olivia. Setting them free is unauthorized loss of property and tantamount to theft. As a general principle, one ought not to steal. Therefore, Olivia ought not to set the pigeons free. Alas, Con begs the question by embedding a key conclusion [pigeons are property] in the premises. Are the animals we keep as pets on par with other property at our disposal? We might think someone silly for smashing his or her ipod, but would not recoil in horror (OK, maybe if it was an iTouch, I'd recoil a bit). On the other hand, who would not condemn that person for slaughtering a puppy because, ah well, it was but property? We are the guardians of pets. Their keepers, true, but charged with their safety and welfare. Olivia expresses a special fondness for avian welfare (freedom rather than caged imprisonment being their natural state) and so would hardly equate the birds with chattel. It has become apparent then that Con's argument fails not only for begging the question, but for using "property" equivocally. Con lands finally and squarely on Bentham's dictum that "pushpin is as good as opera". I will clarify this phrase in a moment, especially since it does the opposite of what Con intends, but pause in astonishment that Con invokes Bentham for support. Con likes Bentham and Bentham likes pleasure in quantity. For him (Bentham, I really do not know Con all that well), all varieties of happiness are equal, whether from art, drugs, religion, or masochism. Now I am not attacking Bentham, and certainly not reproaching Con, but have to wonder how this form of hedonism helps Con's case. Mill, however, finds that pleasures differ in quality. Here my worthy opponent cites part of a classic quotation. "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question." -- John Stewart Mill, Utilitarianism, chapter 2. That quotation has utility for Olivia. It illuminates the difference between happiness and contentment. Those who have experienced both the higher and lower are best qualified to judge a pleasure's quality. And now we are at the heart of the matter. On the basis of sources invoked by Con, who is best able to judge the merits of liberating the pigeons? The cousins experience contentment in their birds not as pets but as vehicles for racing pursuits hardly different from slot cars. Olivia, however, identifies clearly higher level pleasure, genuine happiness, as she revels in appreciation for the birds as they "loft with life and beauty, with grace beyond mere words". For exactly the reasons Con supplies, he must conclude, having invoked Mill's qualitative difference, that Olivia is best fit to judge the merits of freeing the birds versus locking them away. And Olivia, as we know, set them free.