On Sun, 28 Aug 2005, Nathan Newman wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Miles Jackson" <cqmv at pdx.edu>
> -A chicken understands the worth of its own life? How could we begin
> -to test this claim? (Back to Wittgenstein!)
>
> You evaluate it at some level -- possibly mistakenly -- by seeing if the
> chicken tries to avoid death, which they do when people try to kill them.
> That shows some awareness of the value of life, even if we might argue it is
> a robotic instinct without self-awareness. But the difference in actions
> upon the threat of death is at least a clear distinction of why different
> vegetarians treat eating different animals differently.
Okay, plants move away from dark and cold; a paramecium moves away from an organism that tries to engulf it. Aren't those living things "trying to avoid death"? (We're in deeper philosophical waters than it appears here!)
Miles