From: nick@skate.cs.washington.edu (Nicholas Kushmerick)
Subject: Re: humans are smarter than ants [was Re: Are you sure you're not prejudiced?]
Organization: University of Washington Computer Science
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 92 06:39:25 GMT

I argued that because humans are highly intelligent, we should use
that intelligence to refrain from causing suffering.  I made this
argument because a common anti-animal-rights refrain is "Tigers
kill antelope; doesn't this may it morally acceptable -- indeed,
downright morally imperative -- for me to hunt deer??". I got the
following responses:

In article <viking.724232877@vincent2.iastate.edu>, viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson) writes:
|> nick@skate.cs.washington.edu (Nicholas Kushmerick) writes:
|> >
|> >Ants don't have a choice.  They can't figure out -- "reason" as you say -- 
|> >a different way to do whatever it is they do with the ants they enslave.  
|> >Birds, same thing.  Bacteria, even more true.
|> >
|> >But this argument patently inapplicable to humans, as you point out by 
|> >noting that humans can do sophisticated reasoning.  We CAN figure out 
|> >alternatives.  We DON'T need to exploit animals.  And therefore we 
|> >shouldn't, since it causes them suffering.
|> 
|> If you can
|> demonstrate reasonable alternatives to **every** use we put animals in, then
|> your argument would hold.  Until that time, you are no better than Thag,
|> [emphasis added]

Are you serious?  We must find a way to completely and totally
stop all animal suffering, before we take a single step in this
direction them, no matter how obvious or simple? I suspect that
you misspoke.  Unfortunately, I can't figure out an altervative
reading.  Perhaps you mean "for any particular way that humans
exploit animals, we need to find an alternative before we can stop
the exploitation, i.e. before we can use that alternative"?  But
this is a tautology.  Help me out here.

|> The ability to reason we
|> have, but all reasoning must be done in steps, and we're not too far
|> from Thag in reasoning terms.

You seem to be simply endorsing science as the way to decide how
best to reduce suffering.   I concur.

'itsmine@med.unc.edu (Greg Popken)' sez:
|> It is well accepted that natural selection favors those who
|> can best adapt to survive.  We (i.e.  humans) were not given
|> sharp teeth and claws.  We don't have stingers, camoflage,
|> poisonous skin, or the ability to run fast.  We have highly
|> developed intelligence (yes possibly even Russell). That is
|> our advantageL our evolutionary gift.  By going into the lab
|> and developing drugs and technics that fight off those
|> "things" that thraeten me, I am exploiting what nature has
|> given me.  The fact that other animals die in my pursuit for
|> survival, is natural selection.  Nature as it works every day
|> and has worked for millions of years.

You seem to be so close to "getting it", and yet so far.  The
reason non-human animals must cause suffering in order to be
adaptive is because the tools they have to achieve that adaptation
are, as you point out, things like sharp teeth or poisin glands. 
It is very hard for me to imagine using these tools in ways that
DON'T harm the opponent.  But the tools humans use for adaptation
(reasoning, intelligence, ...), needn't injure those against whom
they are employed.  They certainly CAN be used that way.  But they
don't need to be used that way.

We are of course left with the problem of finding non-exploitative
ways to live with the non-human animals of the world.  But its
time we stop pretending that we can use arbitrary examples from
the rest of nature as justifications for our own actions.  This
rationalization is reminiscent of the child who complains "But
Sally's Daddy lets HER eat cookies for breakfast!!".

-- Nick

PS: thin enough?
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals