SallySmith

Did you really have to go there?

Mad Kally

I'm going to join a convent and become celery.

x-member

My this puns are crisp. But if any of them make groan, I'll Squash you.

Queen of Swords

Does onion think vegetables don't feel pain? If you prick them, do they not leek?

Bill Snedden

Excuse me, but I did indeed raise issues with this parallel that have not been addressed at all.

Essentially, I made the point that human consciousness is specifically and materially different from non-human animal consciousness. There is no evidence of which I'm aware that supports the idea that any non-human animal can support the type of abstract reasoning necessary to develop complex ethical systems. Therefore, animals have no conception of ethics or morality and such concepts are moot when applied directly to them.

Animals have no conception of "murder" or "cannibalism". Lions don't murder gazelles. If a non-human animal were even capable of conceiving its place in the "food chain", it would still have no conception of the rightness or wrongness of any actions taken by the other animals above or below it.

Animals, therefore, lack what I would call a "right of self-determination" simply because they do not possess the ability to conceive it.

Humans, on the other hand, do possess this ability and ethical systems created by humans will therefore acknowledge it.

In other words, there are specific and material differences between human and non-human animals that allow us to make ethical differentiation between the two. These differentiations are obviously not based on preference, or desire, nor are they "arbitrary" as you like to claim. They are matters of objective fact and therefore cannot be other than as they are.

Speaking of objective fact, I'm going to respond to your other post to me as well.

Here it is also a matter of objective fact that you are wrong.

1) Read Hobbes, Locke, & Rousseau. You will find no mention of animals. You will find a great deal of mention of Man and his rational facilities. You will find mention of what a "contract" is and what it isn't. You will find mention of how "rights" are explicitly formalized and guaranteed via contract and not by any other method. You will see that their true aim was to develop an ethical/political system in which individual citizens (that would be humans) could be ensured of the protection of their freedoms without having to surrender to tyranny.

2) Read Rawls, Gauthier and their critics. You will find them defending essentially the same ideas that Hobbes, Locke, & Rousseau developed. Again, non-human animals are not part of the construct. In fact, one of the major criticisms of contractarian ethics is that it excludes those who are unable to enter into contracts. I suppose that might even include non-human animals.

The point, of course, is that PB and I are not distorting this theory. It explicitly excludes, and was designed to exclude, those who are unable to contract. Non-human animals are unable to enter into contracts and are thus excluded from this theory.

Your desire to somehow expand the theory to cover animals can only be understood as a criticism or attack upon the theory. In no way does your line of thinking represent contractarian ethics.

The very name illustrates your error: Contractarian Ethics. Non-human animals cannot enter into contracts. They lack the necessary reasoning abilities. They are therefore, by design, excluded.

Your claim that PB & I are somehow distorting this theory is therefore objectively disproven. Q.E.D.

Now, you can certainly attack contractarian ethics as inappropriate to the issue under discussion, but to do so you would have to reveal your own justification or foundation for whatever ethical system you believe is best. We have repeatedly asked you to do so and have been met with staunch silence.

Do you not understand the request? Do you not think it appropriate? Are you not interested in explaining to the non-vegetarians here exactly why eating meat is wrong? So far, you've failed to do this. Can we expect anything different in your next response?

[ March 15, 2002: Message edited by: Bill Snedden ]</p>

Mageth

I haven't pricked any, but I've gourd a few, sqashed one or two, and once collard a tomato who owed me some greens.

bonduca

Stomping at the Savoy (cabbage)?

Bill Snedden

Sally -

If you will edit the post, you will see that the first line ("Yes, perhaps...) has two of the QB operators in front of it. Deleting one will solve half of your problem.

Immediately after that same line is a /QB operator. If you'll notice, there's another one of these after the second line ("...at debating"). The first one (after that first line) is unnecessary. If you delete it, you'll have solved the other half of your problem.

Bill

SallySmith

Thank you kindly.

Queen of Swords

So where's spin(ach)?