From: tsr00@duts.ccc.amdahl.com (Ted Robinson)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: Universal ethic and meat eating
Date: 16 Oct 92 00:36:35 GMT
Reply-To: tsr00@duts.ccc.amdahl.com (Ted Robinson)
Organization: Amdahl Corp, Sunnyvale, CA

In article <1bhr5qINN3ab@agate.berkeley.edu>, timi@chloroplast.Berkeley.EDU ( 
Tim Ikeda) writes:
 
> I do tend to agree with the ethic that "the less pain inflicted,
> the better."
> I do not, however, accept it universally.  Being an omnivore, I believe
> there are additional ethical considerations (as alluded to in the original
> article).  I accept that these other considerations are arbitrary.

Great. Can you tell us what they are? By arbitrary do you mean they have no 
apparent justifiction?    

> An extension of the ethic Ted first posted would be that "actions leading
> to the prevention of pain are desirable." 

Yes, but the pain avoided this way is weighted much less heavily than the 
pain you personally inflict. For example, killing someone yourself is 
ethically much worse than allowing someone to die. Else every day makes us 
all murderers. This is where the concept of rights comes in: if I get sick 
and feel pain and you don't relieve me of it, that's one thing. But for you 
to walk up to me and hit me to create the exact same amount of pain, that's a 
lot worse. I have a "right" not to be hit, and this right serves to 
tremendously amplify the ethical weight of the resultant pain. Because of 
this amplification it's typically much more important for me to worry about 
not inflicting pain than to worry about preventing it.

 
> Ergo, in the absence of other,
> arbitrary considerations, it would be better to act to prevent uneccessary
> suffering of all the world's creatures. 

Don't forget the original ethic: avoid inflicting pain. Looking ahead, it 
becomes important now to generalize the meaning of pain. It's not just the 
physiological pain we're used to thinking of, it also includes psychological 
pain. More generally, anything that impedes my efforts to increase my 
personal happiness can be lumped together as pain. I know this is pretty 
fuzzy, but please try to work with it.

I'd hoped to avoid making this generalization so early, as it's hard to 
communicate crisply and will undoubtedly lead to controversy, but you've 
forced my hand. One advantage of doing so, however, is that it makes the 
original ethic even more fundamental. From our one basic ethic we can now 
derive proscriptions against actions such as theft, imprisonment, painless 
murder, etc. If you think this through I think you'll see how widespread this 
more general version is in our society. (Of course, this more general version 
undoubtedly also opens the door to more counter-examples, which I'm sure will 
be forthcoming). The chief one I have trouble with is competition, such as 
economic competition. If the success of my superior product in the market 
contributes to the failure of your inferior one, am I ethically liable. I 
think the answer might be yes, but I haven't worked through this one. It 
looks like the answer should be no, but in fact mightn't it be ethically even 
better if I can succeed without causing your failure.
   
> How could we justify
> such a major disruption in the life cycles of the affected animals?

Note here the importance of a broader definition of pain. You're not just 
"disrupting", you're inflicting pain.

> Well, even if they (the affected animals), do not understand the
> ethic proposed, we do: And, for further justification, the animals that
> were once hunted and painfully slaughtered (more painfully than most
> cattle, incidently), would be freed from the tyranny of the food chain.
> If the resulting population explosion could be controlled through
> aggressive birth-control measures, a better world could be ours.

As mentioned above, the concept of "right" amplifies the "badness" of 
inflicting pain, as compared with that of failing to preventing pain. As a 
result, the inflicted pain of this process must be quite minimal to justify 
the effort. Current technology and resources are nowhere near this 
capability.  
> 
> Sounds ridiculous? 

No. It's only ridiculous because of the limitation of our current wisdom and 
technology. In trying to do the above, we'd muff it and cause plenty of pain. 
And there's no way we'd get close to the minimal pain infliction called for. 
If in the distant future we acquire these capabilities then yes, this might 
be an ethically better path. 

As a sidenote: another ethic that I'd add in, which would bear on this, is:  

   empowering others is better than making them dependent on me

Perhaps this is an example of the additional artificial considerations you 
mentioned.

> Of course.  This is the pitfall of "one ethic
> mentality."   

As I've tried to make clear several times, I'm suggesting a *multi-ethic* 
approach and have merely proposed one ethic as a starting point. Until this 
message sinks in, little progress is likely on this thread.

Note also that I've been trying (unsucessfully) to get the omnivores to state 
the additional ethic(s) needed to support their dietary choices. Come on, 
meat eaters - have at it!
 

Ted Robinson
tsr00@duts.ccc.amdahl.com
These views are mine and not Amdahl's, etc.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals