From: russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence)
Subject: Re: Closure on Sport Hunting.
Organization: WP Group
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 18:11:52 GMT

From article <16em1qINNbmc@agate.berkeley.edu>, by linan@argon.berkeley.edu (Mike Linan):
rl> Of course you do.  And you're welcome to believe that the earth was 
rl> created 6,000 years ago, and that life began in the Garden of 
rl> Eden, and that the sun stood still when Moses voiced his 
rl> commands, and a host of other things, but surely you recognize 
rl> that the mere act of believing a given idea doesn't necessarily 
rl> mean that it's true.  
rl>  
rl> As an example, just because quite a few anti-bellum clerics believed
rl> that the enslavement of blacks was "good" in the eyes of "god" didn't
rl> mean that blacks didn't suffer when they were kidnapped from their
rl> african homes and sent to the americas in the cargo holds of filthy
rl> ships, and henceforth work for free.  Right?

ml> It might have to them.  It wouldn't have to me.

You're confusing the word "truth" with the word "honesty".  One 
man may believe that the universe was created fifteen billion 
years ago, whereas you apparently believe that the universe was 
created 6,000 years ago.  Both ideas may be honest, but they 
can't both be true.  

> ...
ml> Can you PROVE deer are thinking and feeling animals?  

rl> Yes.  Assuming, of course, that you weren't preparing to introduce
rl> what philosophers call the "other minds" problem, in which case it
rl> would be impossible to prove that Mike Linan himself is a thinking/feeling
rl> being.

ml> Exactly right.  You can't perceive what is in my mind or how a 
ml> turnip can be deprived of anything just because you kill it.  Do 
ml> you think that just you can't imagine or perceive something that 
ml> it must not be?  You CAN conceive or imagine a deer being just 
ml> like a human in it's emotions and ability to feel pain.  But, 
ml> there is no way to prove that a deer feels pain AS WE KNOW IT or 
ml> feels emotions AS WE KNOW IT.  Just because you can imagine it or 
ml> there might be some evidence that might suggest it doesn't make 
ml> it so.  You have never been a deer or a turnip so you don't know.  

To the extent that I consistently respect the arguments raised by 
the "other minds" problem, we'd be unable to prove that you feel 
pain as I know it or that I feel pain as you know it.  
Nevertheless, most of us would agree that our perception of pain 
is quite similar in view of the similarity in our behavioral 
responses as well as the common features between your 
pain-sensing mechanisms and my own.  

If deer demonstrate the same pain-avoidance responses that I would
observe in Mike Linan, and if anatomical studies show strong 
similarities between deer pain-sensing apparatus and Mike Linan pain-
sensing apparatus, then it would be reasonable to assume tha pain is 
just as unpleasant to a deer as it may be to a Linan.  To the extent
that you invoke skepticism in just those cases where it suits
your convenience, it would be reasonable for me to assume that your
philosophy is inconsistent, and hence, unsound.

> ...
rl> You've stated previously that you consider cruelty to dogs and 
rl> cats to be morally wrong.  If dogs and cats were mindless things, 
rl> like simple, windup toys, would it be possible to treat them 
rl> cruelly in any meaningful way?  

ml> How could you.  They are not alive.

You're contradicting yourself again.  Do you know for a fact that 
windup toys do not feel pain... simply because they don't contain 
self-replicating proteins?  

What's the basis for your assumption that dogs and cats feel 
pain?  If it's simply a matter of their status as living beings, 
why are you opposed to dog and cat shooting but not opposed to 
plant killing?  

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