From: russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence)
Subject: Re: steaming lobsters
Organization: WP Group
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 00:17:58 GMT

Mark Christiansen writes:
mc> Of course a fox can do a nasty number on a chicken, but that's totally
mc> natural.  And don't forget some perfectly happy vegetables are steamed
mc> to death, too, not to mention, skinned alive and chopped up.

Russell Lawrence writes:
rl> Two questions:
rl> 
rl> -- Do vegetables feel pain when they're "skinned alive"?

From article <1730@esl.ESL.COM>, by markwc@barney.esl.com (Mark Christiansen):
mc> Excellent question; does anyone know the answer?  I've never talked to
mc> a plant to know if it feels pain when attacked.  They certainly don't
mc> scream out like some animals do.

"Pain" evolved in animals as a special sensory ability that made
it possible for fast-moving organisms to get the hell out of the way
when fast-moving dangers were approaching.  In view of the fact that
plants are not fast-moving, what purpose would pain serve in the
plant kingdom?

rl> -- Does the "naturalness" of an action make it ethically justifiable?

mc> Another excellent question.  And I ask: who defines what is ethical?

Ethical decisions involve discriminating choices between 
alternative courses of action that may be expected to produce 
outcomes that are "good" or "bad" in various degrees.  As such, 
it seems to me that ethical thinking requires quite a bit of 
empirical fact finding, rather than mere definitions.  

To illustrate, we could say that it's "good" to brutally kill 
strangers at random, and with suitable brain-washing, I suppose 
we could convince some of our descendents that this "definition 
of good" comes from one of the gods and ought to be accepted 
without any further scrutiny.  In spite of such definitions, 
however, our random killings would still have a profoundly "bad" 
effect on our victims, on the victim's friends and business 
associates, and on society at large.   

mc> (It appears to me that humans do.)  Is it ethical justifiable to kill
mc> life in a way that does not inflict pain, or is it not ethically
mc> justifiable to kill life in any way?  And as we define ethically
mc> justifiable killing, at what point does killing become not
mc> justifiable?  Do we kill for food only, or do we kill for clothing, a
mc> place to live, a place to drive, a manufacturing plant for making
mc> computer parts, etc.  Is it justifiable to kill plants, but not
mc> animals?  Is it justifiable to "kill" the Earth by errecting great
mc> highways or digging great open-pit mines?  If creature inherits a
mc> method to kill in a way that causes terror (the fox and chicken
mc> example applies here), is that non-justifiable for that creature?
mc> 
mc> It seems that ethics can only be applied to humans as we can define
mc> what is ethical and act accordingly, teaching others and applying the
mc> principles that are derived from our definition of ethics.  Perhaps we
mc> could discuss what the general principles of ethical living "should"
mc> be given our present day knowledge of how we affect the world around us.

Fair enough.  I'd like to begin by exploring the methods that we're
going to use to determine whether an action is "good".   You raised
one question that caught my eye:

     "Is it justifiable to kill the earth?"

This prompts me to ask several related questions:

    "Would the earth care if we abuse it in some way?"
    "Would a mountain care if we abuse it in some way?"
    "Would a carrot care if we abuse it in some way?"
    "Would a dog care if we abuse it in some way?"

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