From: booninvail@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: Pain is moot
Date: 28 Jan 93 13:37:26 -0500
Distribution: world
Organization: Georgetown University

In article <swood.728234902@vela>, swood@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Scott Wood - EVENSONG) writes:
> In talking over these issues last night with some friends, one of them
> came to the conclusion that the issues involving pain are irrelevant to
> the Animal "Rights" organizations.  Regardless of how humane you can make
> trapping or hunting or slaughtering or vivesecting of animals, they would
> still not support it.
> 
> Seems that is very true.  So the harping on pain is merely an emotionally
> stimulating tactic to them.  What a shame.  I guess I was always aware of
> this, but the realization of the vividness of this fact furthers my
> opinion of how shallow these groups' agendas and belief systems are.


Your conclusion is not justified by your premise.  Suppose there is a 
practice P which causes pain to animals.  And suppose it is true that 
I believe this practice is wrong and that I would continue to believe 
that it is wrong even if it could be done painlessly.  This does not 
show that the fact that P causes pain is irrelevant to my belief that 
P is wrong.  It simply shows that the fact that P causes pain is not 
the only reason that I believe that P is wrong.  But it may still be 
one reason, and a perfectly fine reason at that.  And given this, 
there is no grounds for saying that appeals to pain are merely a 
rhetorical tactic.  

For example, suppose I think that taking a tiger out of the jungle and making 
it perform circus tricks is wrong.  And suppose that part of what is 
involved in catching it causes it extreme pain.  I might well think 
that this causing pain for such trivial human benefits is morally 
objectionable.  And since most people agree that causing a lot of pain 
for a trivial benefit is dubious, I might find that many people would 
accept that argument.  But now suppose they come up with a painless 
way of catching the tiger.  I might still think there are other things 
objectionable about the practice.  For example, I might think that 
animals which are as sophisticated as tigers are capable of having 
preferences, and that their preferences should not be violated for 
such trivial reasons.  So I might still oppose the practice.  But this 
in no way shows that my original appeal to the painful method of 
capture was irrelevant.  It was perfectly relevant.

Having said this, I should point out that it is true that SOME 
practices which cause pain would be unobjectionable if they didn't.  
For example, suppose I oppose observing changes in monkey populations 
because the only way to do so involves hooking up devices to track 
them and which cause them great pain.  Now if someone comes up with a 
way to observe them without hurting them, then I won't oppose the 
practice of observing them.  But again, that doesn't show that every 
time I appeal to pain as an objection that it is my only objection; it 
merely shows that in some idiosyncratic cases that is so.

The same, of course, goes in the case of death.  I might oppose 
killing an innocent human because it will cause them pain and still 
have other reasons to oppose it if it is done painlessly.  Similarly, 
the great pain suffered by animals raised in many farms may be a 
perfectly fine reason for opposing raising and killing them for food.  
But again, the fact that such pain is one reason to oppose the 
practice does not mean it is the only one.  It may also be a good 
reason to point out that death prevents an animal from enjoying future 
benefits it would otherwise enjoy.  That may also be a good reason not 
to kill a person in his or her sleep.

So in the end the animal rights position is not nearly as shallow as 
you seem to think it is.  This is not to say that some people who 
support animal rights are not shallow.  I'm sure a lot of them are, as 
are a lot of people who oppose them.