From: russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence)
Subject: Re: Hunters: Legitimate concern?
Organization: WP Group
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 03:59:20 GMT

In article <cfqxr9+@rpi.edu>, John S. Van Etten writes:
jve> Amen, Todd.  It must really bother these AR-types to find out 
jve> that a majority of hunters feel this way and are more concerned 
jve> about protecting a species than killing it.  :-) 

Russell Lawrence writes:
rl> Does a "species" have a mind that would permit it to experience 
rl> thoughts and emotions that, in some mysterious way, might 
rl> transcend the thoughts and emotions of individual animals?  Is 
rl> there a single "ghost" entity of sorts that animates the 
rl> collective bodies of whale species or chicken species or deer 
rl> species or whatever, thereby allowing us to rationally consider 
rl> the "species" as though it were a single entity that deserves
rl> greater consideration than the individual animals?  

From article <afsx_qd@rpi.edu>, by vanetten@unix.cie.rpi.edu (John S. Van Etten):
jve> You must have gotten an A+ in all your Creative Writing classes in
jve> school. :-)  

I didn't take any writing courses in school.   Now, would you please 
answer the questions I posed above?  

In particular: Does a "species" have a mind that would permit it 
to experience thoughts and emotions which, in some mysterious 
way, might transcend the thoughts and emotions of individual 
animals?  

jve> I do not wish to see any species go the way of the
jve> passenger pigeon simply because I feel that most (if not all) such
jve> cases are caused by man either destroying habitat or screwing up the
jve> environment in some other way (such as the deal with all the herring
jve> gulls on the garbage dump on Staten Island which have taken over
jve> almost all the nesting grounds of one of the species of plover and has
jve> almost driven them to extinction).  

If animals are "just food", as you've claimed previously, why should it
matter if gulls take over the nesting sites of plover?  If plovers are
mindless, it surely wouldn't make much difference to the plovers 
themselves.

BTW, you've hinted in the past that "rights" must be based on "might"
in some measure.  If the gulls are mightier than the plovers, does this 
not justify their success?  Is it reasonable for humans to intervene?

Incidently, if your success as a hunter depends on "artificial" 
conditions (weaponry in particular), would society be justified in
intervening on behalf of the prey?

jve> You and I caused the problem,
jve> Russell, and it's up to us to take the responsibility to fix it
jve> (rather than bury our heads in the sand -- or other places -- and
jve> pretend that all the other little animals have the same right to life
jve> as the endangered species).  Is there some reason why you don't feel
jve> an endangered species should be protected?

Please explain why you think an endangered species should be protected
more than an unendangered one.   Why is it ok for you to kill animals
that are plentiful, but not ok for someone else to kill animals that
you consider scarce?  Why do you consider it reasonable to say that 
plentiful animals are "just food", while proclaiming endangered animals
to be worthy of preservation?

rl> It seems to me that a "species" is nothing more than an abstract 
rl> class construct invented by humans to label a particular genetic 
rl> niche.  As such, I think it's rather silly to treat a "species" as 
rl> though it were a thinking/feeling individual...  and especially 
rl> so for someone who's inclined to treat the individual members of 
rl> the species-class as mindless entities.   

jve> Russell, I don't kill or not kill things because they are
jve> "thinking/feeling," as I'd hoped you would have gleaned by now.
jve> That's not the criterion I use, so your mention of it has no effect.

As I recall from our previous discussions, you claimed to base
your criterion solely on whether or not an organism is/isn't a member
of the genetic class of humans.  However, some of your past statements
pointed to serious inconsistencies:

1) For starters, you admitted on one occasion that you thought it
   would be ethically acceptable for super-intelligent aliens from 
   outer space to hunt humans for sport.   It seems to me that human
   prey would suffer just as much whether it were hunted by aliens
   with IQs of 1000 or by humans with IQs of 80.  Yet you seem to
   think that the IQ of the hunter reduces the harm that might be
   caused.  Is this a case of selective blindness, where the apparent
   glory of one individual overshadows the misery of another?

2) You claimed that it might be ok to kill nine-month old human fetuses
   in spite of the fact that such beings are clearly human in their
   genetic classification.  Yet you've insisted that brain-dead comatose
   humans ought to be preserved and protected for some strange reason.
   Don't you think it's grossly inconsistent to treat a brain-dead 
   organism as "human", while insisting that a nine-month old fetus
   with a healthy brain is "not-yet-human"?   When I asked you why you
   considered it reasonable to protect brain-dead humans, you stated
   that medical science might someday find a way to restore dead
   tissue to life?  In view of your claim that nine month old fetuses
   are "not yet alive", your optimistic position about the future prospects 
	of brain-dead adults seems grossly inconsistent.

rl> I'm still waiting for you to explain to me why you think it might 
rl> be perfectly ok for you to kill a billion individuals that you've 
rl> classed together in a group, but a great moral offense against 
rl> the "species" if you were to kill the last living pair belonging 
rl> to that particular group.  

jve> Patience, Russell.  I have the two messages I've not yet responded to
jve> archived away.  I'll get around to them soon, but please don't do
jve> anything like hold your breath.  It may take a day or two, and as
jve> ever, I would fear for your safety during that time. :-)  But I
jve> promise, I'll get to them soon...

I'm looking forward to it.

-- 
Russell Lawrence, WP Group, New Orleans (504) 443-5000
russ@wpg.com   uunet!wpg!russ
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals