From: young@serum.kodak.com
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: Should humans assign "status"?
Date: 29 Sep 92 17:45:53 GMT
Reply-To: young@serum.kodak.com
Organization: Clinical Diagnostics Division, Eastman Kodak Company
Originator: young@sasquatch

In <BvBoq2.6B@wpg.com>, Russell Lawrence writes:
>
>Rich Young writes:
>ry> You can argue this all day long, Russell, [and HAVE], but it is
>ry> no more true than it was when we started.  You have claimed that
>ry> it is OK to eat carrots but not cattle, although perhaps not in
>ry> those exact words.  Such a determination is an assignment of
>ry> relative rank, or "status."  
>
>Russell Lawrence writes: 
>rl> Not really.

	[Russell's tactic #208: argument by assertion.]

>From article <1992Sep29.004722.3946@pixel.kodak.com>, by young@serum.kodak.com:
>ry> If not assignment of "relative rank in a hierarchy of prestige,"
>ry> then what?  Clearly, the cow is more valuable to you than the carrot:
>ry> you are willing to protect the cow, but not the carrot.  You have
>ry> assigned an ethical value, or status, to both carrot and cow and,
>ry> not incidentally, to yourself, since you've usurped the right to
>ry> make such a determination at all...
>
>Usurped from whom, Rich?  You perhaps?   Who gave you the right to
>ignore the thoughts and feelings of cows while shedding crocodile 
>tears for the "suffering" of carrots?

	Oh, please, Russell.  "Shedding crocodile tears for carrots?"  Cut
	the histrionics.  As for "whom," I point out that I've been asking
	YOU to supply the identity of who- or what-ever gave you the authority
	to make judgements of the worth of non-human species for weeks.
	I can only assume that, since you've not answered, such authority
	was not bestowed upon you but was taken by you.  You've appointed
	yourself the Indisputable Judge of Ethical Worth.

>To the extent that I recognize the sentience/sapience of other 
>beings, I'm not "assigning" values at all.  Rather, I'm recognizing 
>values that are inherent within those beings.  

	To the extent that you simply recognize the existence of sapience
	and sentience in non-human species, you are absolutely correct; it's
	when you use these criteria to assign moral and ethical significance
	to various species that you run into trouble...you've then assigned
	a status to each species, i. e., "I can kill this one with impunity,
	but not THAT one."

>ry> Even those other creatures which,
>ry> you claim, are ALSO endowed with sentience and sapience (birds and
>ry> mammals, wasn't it?), don't presume to assign ethical value to other
>ry> species.
>
>You've implied in the past that I can't presume to know what goes on
>in the "mind" of a carrot.  Are you qualified to issue pronouncements
>about the ethical values of other animals?

	No less than you.

>In any case, what makes you think that the legitimacy of my judgments
>can be verified or repudiated by appealing to the testimony of birds?

	Let's turn that around: can the legitimacy of the judgements of
	birds be verified or repudiated by appealing to the testimony of
	humans?  You can't have it both ways, Russell.

>> ...
>rl> You have it backwards, once again.  If anyone's engaged in a "fit 
>rl> of ego" in this discussion, it's that subset of hypocritical 
>rl> thinking/feeling individuals who've claimed that their personal 
>rl> mental abilities have granted them exclusive rights to use and 
>rl> abuse others of "lesser rank".  
>
>ry> And what of the tiger?  There's an individual which "uses and abuses"
>ry> (to use your colorful, but rather melodramatic, language).  Is the
>ry> tiger a hypocrite?
>
>Do tigers engage in self-serving moral pretense to justify their own
>selfish conduct while condemning forms of behavior that don't serve
>their own personal needs?

	More histrionics, Russell?  All these flowery adjectives!  As for
	self-serving, consider that YOU are the one claiming that the world
	is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG for killing animals for food...or should we
	say that you are "...condemning forms of behavior that don't serve
	[your] own personal needs?"

	There's no "self-serving moral pretense" in my statements; simply a
	recognition that I am but a piece of a larger whole, no better, no
	worse.  It is no more immoral for me to kill and eat the tiger than
	it is for the tiger to kill and eat me.  We are both animals which
	survive on the death of other species; the mental capabilities of
	those other species are irrelevant.

	Your self-righteous indignation is reminiscent of those who supported
	Darrow in the Scopes trial...and for some of the same reasons.  You
	just can't accept the fact that you're no better than an amoeba just
	because you can think.

>ry> Food is food, Russell, not an ethical dilemma.  
>
>Is this a quote from Jeffrey Dahmer?

	Cute (in the most pejorative sense of the word), but once again a
	retreat to INTRA-species ethics when the discussion is INTER-species
	in scope and intent.

>ry> Why should I be more concerned with the putative "thoughts" of my 
>ry> lunch than the tiger?  
>
>You have the intellectual capacity to make choices.

	Which simply means that I __CAN__ make choices, not that there's
	an ethical imperative which dictates that I __MUST__.  And it most
	CERTAINLY doesn't mean that, should I decide to make choices, they
	must be identical to those YOU'D make.

>ry> Am I not simply another creature with an atavistic instinct
>ry> to survive?  ...
>
>Not really.  You don't need to eat cows to survive.

	What kind of an answer is that?  It's a complete non-sequitur!  I
	ask whether I'm just another creature and you respond with, "You
	don't need cows to survive?!?"

	Incredible.  ["In-" being a prefix meaning "not".]


-Rich Young (These are not Kodak's opinions.)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals