From: young@serum.kodak.com (Rich Young)
Subject: Re: animals in research
Originator: young@sasquatch
Reply-To: young@serum.kodak.com
Organization: Clinical Diagnostics Division, Eastman Kodak Company
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 00:32:17 GMT

In <1992Nov10.215213.5981@clpd.kodak.com>, Bob Black writes:

In article <1992Nov2.152851.20701@athena.cs.uga.edu>, 
   hulsey@athena.cs.uga.edu (Martin Hulsey) writes:
mh> 
mh>  Despite a couple of challenges, no one has disputed my claim that there 
mh>  is no (non-extinct) species that would sacrifice its own members to save 
mh>  members of another species.

[...]

rb>      1.Woman and children escape burning house.  Woman then dies of smoke 
rb> 	inhalation, after running back in to save pets.

[...]

>In my dictionary, sacrifice involves giving up something valuable for
>something deemed even more valuable - so point taken as far as "sacrifice"
>implying some foreknowledge.  But that does not rule out the possibility
>of a sacrifice here.  The specific motives - whether the woman gave up
>certain safety and returned to the burning house in order primarily to
>(1) "feel better" or to (2) "save members of another species" - don't
>seem relevant IF she had foreknowledge that she was giving up her own
>life or even placing herself at great risk.  It's not clear from my
>example whether this foreknowledge was present.

	I agree that it's not clear at all...which means that no claim for
	refutation of Martin's theory can be made from this example.

rb> Whether or not the
rb> woman intended to sacrifice herself, she most likely knew that her own
rb> death was a possibility....

ry> 	"Possibility" and "certainty" are clearly not equal.  If I KNOW
ry> 	that I'll be arrested for speeding, I'll choose not to do it, but
ry> 	if it's only a possibility, I may well take the risk.

[...]

>If the woman had communicated, just prior to the rescue attempt, that
>she knew she would die but was going ahead nevertheless, would this IYO
>(or in Martin's) meet the challenge?

	Martin DID say "species", not "individual", which implies an action
	common to the huge majority of species representatives and not just
	a suicidal few.  I submit that a vanishing minority of Homo sapiens
	sapiens would knowingly exchange their own lives for that of their
	pets.

	In the case of this particular woman, her communication might well
	be the world's first documented case of altruism...assuming, of
	course that she wasn't doing it simply for the posthumous recognition
	she'd be accorded for making the attempt, and thus deriving personal
	pleasure from the anticipation of her impending fame.  Or perhaps
	she'd be motivated by the thought that she'd quite literally be unable
	to live with the knowledge of her pets' painful deaths, so what the
	hell: she'd die one way or the other and she might as well be a hero
	(to herself, if no one else) and go out in a rescue attempt.

[...]

rb>      2.Pit bull attacks young girl while horrified family looks on.
rb> 	Family German shepherd intervenes between pit bull and girl,
rb> 	thereby slowing the attack long enough for help to be summoned.
rb> 	Shepherd dies but the girl's life is saved thanks to the extra
rb> 	time provided by the shepherd for help to arrive.

[...]

ry> 	I'm not sure of your point, here.  I don't see a difference with
ry> 	Martin at all: your example is simply not valid because there
ry> 	is no INTER-species component, at least as far as the dog is
ry> 	concerned.

>First, how do you know this? How did you get inside the dog's head to
>determine that he was unable to distinguish between species?

	I'm not an expert in canine psychology, but the literature is rife
	with proposed theories of canine behavior with respect to humans,
	and most seem to agree that today's family dog is a product of
	millenia of breeding for neoteny (so it looks to US for food,
	rather than hunting for its own), and the cultivation of the
	"pack" instinct, which is what made them useful to us in the first
	place: they'd follow orders.

	Cats (in general) are NOT "pack" oriented...and we all know how well
	THEY obey our every command.   :*/

	This is pretty standard stuff, but it is, admittedly, still theory...
	...albeit one which seems to match the observed actions of domestic
	canines quite well, as many have pointed out.

[...]

>Secondly, either dogs can distinguish between species or they can't.  If
>they can, then the shepherd in the example was at the very least putting
>himself in very great danger for a member of another species.  This
>seems to threaten Martin's claim that all species are speciesist (or at
>least that all members of all species are speciesist all the time).  

	Not at all, as I see it: it has been proposed that ALL behaviors
	are undertaken to protect the ability to propagate one's own genes.
	This results in a kind of "hierarchy of importance" beginning with
	the individual and expanding outward in waves of lesser importance
	to those creatures which can affect said propagation of genes.

	Members of one's own pack are clearly more beneficial to the
	propagation of one's genes than members of a pack which competes
	for resources, or even mating rights.  But even here, wolves (for
	example) don't regularly kill and eat each other as a normal source
	of food: the species is protected.  Other species, however, are
	"fair game."

	I don't see that the general idea of "speciesism" is compromised in
	the least simply because self-interest supercedes it occasionally.

[...]

>If the shepherd had communicated, just prior to the rescue attempt, that
>he knew he would die but was going ahead nevertheless, would this IYO
>(or in Martin's) meet the challenge?

	No...it's not INTER-species.

[...]

ry> 	Please name one human activity that CANNOT be explained by one of 
ry> 	these:
ry> 
ry> 	   1. the desire to increase pleasurable ("good") feelings in the 
ry>    		one performing the activity, or,
ry> 
ry> 	   2. the desire to decrease or avoid unpleasurable ("bad") feelings
ry>    		in the one performing the activity.

>It seems reasonable to me that every human activity probably CAN BE
>explained by either or both of these two motivations.  But this does not
>tell us that all human activity CAN ONLY BE explained by these.  Nor
>does it tell us that all human activity IS driven by these.  Remember
>that "can be" does not equal "is."  A big leap is needed in order to
>bridge the gap. 

	You're quite right, it's not PROOF, but if one verifies the presence
	of a particular microbe in every case of a given disease, then one
	would be silly to automatically assume that the disease is caused
	by another agent, would one not?  The mere presence of the microbe
	is not proof, of course, but it certainly bears investigation, does
	it not?  Similarly, if all human activity can be reduced to these
	two motives, is it not rather cavalier to dismiss them as irrelevant?

	Any human action, no matter HOW altruistic it may seem, can be 
	explained in selfish terms.  It seems unreasonable to deny this
	out of some misguided sense of human superiority.  We explain the
	actions of virtually ALL other animals in these terms, why should
	we be materially different?  Because our brains are more complex?
	Please.  The leap you envision may not be all that large.  Indeed,
	it would seem that a far larger leap is required to retreat from
	our non-human heritage.

	One note of caution: we should not let our judgement be colored by
	the normally pejorative connotation of "selfish."  Instead, we should
	use the term to mean "for the benefit of oneself."  In addition, it
	should be noted that an act, even though demonstrably selfish in
	motivation, may well prove to be beneficial to others, or even other
	species.  Rescuing a stray cat, for example: the motivation would be
	the avoidance of the guilt one would feel at ignoring the cat's
	plight, but the cat benefits nevertheless.


-Rich Young (These are not Kodak's opinions.)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals