thomas> --- ravi <gadfly at exitleft.org> wrote:
>> if (as i would agree) the life of a rat is as sacred as that of a
>> cow, then how about the lives of ticks and other such creatures
>> that live on farm animals and which, i presume, are killed using
>> various means by farmers?
thomas> I am not unsympathetic to the moral concerns of
thomas> vegetarians/vegans. However, if you pursue the line of
thomas> reasoning far enough, you have to ask about the morality of
thomas> killing plants. After all, they are living beings too,
thomas> aren't they? And just because they do not have a complex
thomas> nervous system, does that mean they should be eaten?
[Thomas, before you object that you weren't referring to Singer's views, yes, I realize that. I just thought your message provided a nice means by which to make the following points.]
>From Singer's perspective, being a "living being" isn't the point;
being a living being *with interests of its own* is. This is why a
human child born without a brain, which is a "living being", has no
interests of its own, and why the parents interests in keeping the
child alive or not count. Plants, whatever else one may want to say
about them, can't have interests insofar as having interests is
inextricably tied to having certain kinds of central nervous system
-- at least, that seems to be the philosophical and scientific
consensus. (In other words, the debates don't seem to be about whether
having certain kinds of proper-functioning nervous system is a
necessary (and sufficient?) condition of having interests of one's
own; but, rather, what role interest-possession should play in moral
deliberation, whether the species boundary is morally relevant, and so
on.)
thomas> Anyway, ALL life is sacred and not just animal life.
Actually, Singer spends a lot of time showing that life itself, per se, is *not* "sacred" or precious. That's earned him many enemies, but it's important to understand his position, which is *not* based on the sacredness of animal (or any other kind of) life.
Best, Kendall Clark