From: young@serum.kodak.com (Rich Young)
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: Medicine & the Mall
Date: 12 Dec 92 15:55:13 GMT
Article-I.D.: pixel.1992Dec12.155513.17640
Reply-To: young@serum.kodak.com
Organization: Clinical Diagnostics Division, Eastman Kodak Company
Originator: young@sasquatch

In article <1992Dec11.164526.18637@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>
>In article <1992Dec11.000219.1693@pixel.kodak.com> young@serum.kodak.com writes:
>>
>>In article <1992Dec10.034005.24692@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>>>
>>>Surely complex nervous systems include a brain, which I've yet to see
>>>anyone claim for a plant...
>>
>>	And probably, no one will.  On the other hand lack of congruence in
>>	the mechanisms does not automatically preclude existence of responses
>>	to stimuli which are similar in intensity and function to that which
>>	we call "pain" in mammals.  Similarity of structure is a construct
>>	which has little but anthropomorphism to support it.
>
>I disagree.  We must base our actions on some criteria, and similarity
>of structure is probably the best one we have when dealing with
>these issues.  Otherwise, what's to stop me from arguing that rocks feel
>pain (or tornadoes, or cans of soup, or galaxies, or...you get this picture).

	What's to stop you?  Nothing, I suppose, but we WERE talking about
	that which is possessed of the quality we call "life," were we not?
	None of the above conform to that criterion.

>The question is what *kind* of structure do we believe are necessary in
>order to have the experience of pain.  All the evidence that we have so
>far indicates that a complex nervous system is required.  This is the best
>we can go on now.

	"All the evidence" says no such thing...unless, of course, one
	retreats into semantics and considers only the words and not the
	principle(s) involved.

>In any event, even if plants *did* feel pain, far fewer plants are killed
>eating vegetarian than are killed to produce a meat-based diet of similar
>nutritional value.  So, even if you *do* believe that it hurts plants to
>harvest them, the most ethical thing to do is eat them yourself, rather than
>have cows eat ten times more of them...

	Another strawman.  Is the "pain" felt by an entity somehow intensified
	because some other entity has also felt pain?  "Pain" and "suffering"
	are not quantities which can be stored and added together to produce
	some horrific "total" to support any logical argument.  Even our
	system of laws recognizes that it is the motivation behind killing,
	not the number of killings per se, that sets the "degree" to first
	or second, etc.  The question is whether "pain and suffering" have
	occurred, not whether "pain and suffering" have been experienced by
	many or few.

[...]

>[...] I agree that identical
>(or even evolutionarily similar) physiology is not necessary for feeling
>pain, ...[...]

	Even though this statement seems to be at odds with your words
	above...

		"We must base our actions on some criteria, and similarity
		of structure is probably the best one we have..."

	...it does seem that you have finally come to the most reasonable
	conclusion in this area of discussion.  As long as you are willing
	to recognize that basing such decisions on similarity of structure
	is a completely arbitrary choice which has its basis in opinion,
	not fact, then we have nothing more to discuss.


-Rich Young (These are not Kodak's opinions.)
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg