>I think my use of 'dog' has led the argument astray. Substitute 'dog'
>with some other animal, one that you may not have lived with.
OK, I'll substitute rats.
> >> (*) At the cost of misrepresenting him, I can offer a very simplistic
>>> summary of Singer's argument: we derive human ethical rules that govern
>>> our action on the basis of some universalisation (such as the
>>> categorical imperative). For instance, why do we hold that all else
>>> equal, kicking another human is wrong? Singer argues that when we flesh
>>> out these notions we will find that there is no logical basis to reject
>>> extending such considerations down the hierarchy of animals that share
>>> similar conditions and therefore the universalisation.
>>
>> Well, there is the fact that we can express ourselves to other humans
>> with language (the pen is mightier than the boot, so to speak) while we
>> can't really do that with animals.
>
>
>True. So there is some hierarchy perhaps that you could use... more
>below... in fact that would be the point... that we can use language,
>dogs can emote, trees have life, rocks are lifeless (unless you are
>animist).
>
>
>> The trouble with Singer is this assumption of his that animals share
>> "similar conditions" with humans. Which is a bit vague, probably
> > deliberately so, certainly conveniently so.
>
>
>Not at all, for if you read my post carefully you will note I wrote that
>I am offering a simplistic summary of Singer which quite probably runs
>the risk of misrepresenting him. The use of the term "similar
>conditions" is my choice, not Singer's.
Yet there must be some reason you associate the idea behind those words with Singer? So I'll blame him anyhow.
> > In my view, projecting such
>> human ethical values onto dogs and other animals is something usually
>> done by people who have very little direct experience with real animals.
>> Rather, such people are programmed by a Walt Disney cartoon view of
>> animals, that is animals which are just like people, except they have
>> fur and feather, like Donald Duck and the Beagle Boys. Creatures which
>> feel the same pain as humans and have the same hopes and aspirations.
>
>
>The first part of the above is quite off the mark in two senses: 1) in
>the description of the ethical aspect of our treatment of animals as
>"projecting human ethical values onto dogs" (we are not asking dogs to
>be ethical here), and 2) in the speculation about the people who hold
>such positions on animal ethics. I do hold such a position and I have
>had direct experience with real animals. And not in the sense of
>domesticating them or putting them to my use, but in sharing the world
>with them. Thinking in terms of Donald Duck or Beagle Boys is a sort of
>anglo-centrism, don't you think?
Sure, why not.
>As for same pains and hopes and aspirations... why would you think that
>a rabbit or chimpanzee does not feel pain similar to us (we have fairly
>similar biological systems in that regard)? And they share the
>hope/aspiration of survival with us.
I just think it would be odd if they felt pain the same as us. What makes you think they would?
Actual physical pain is, in any event, a rather minor small thing. We humans tend to exaggerate it. The bigger problem is anticipation of pain and disability, rather than the momentary pain of an injury. Animal suffer the ill-effects of anticipated injury as well of course, but in a totally different way from humans because their brains are wired differently.
> > That, quite simply, is the ethical basis for not extending to animals
>> the same rights as we demand for other humans. That is to say, they have
>> no possible way of understanding, let alone reciprocating. And of course
>> the fundamental reason we want such rights extended to all humans, is
>> that we reason that it is the best way of ensuring that we personally
>> will enjoy such rights. Humans are capable of grasping the concept of
> > reciprocal rights.
>
>
>Fundamental reason in terms of folk psychology or in terms of an ethical
>epistemology?
Huh?
>From a folk psychological view, I am not sure this is the
>case... at least not on a pairwise basis. There are various ethical acts
>we perform, it seems to me, that are not carried out in anticipation of
>reciprocal treatment,
Of course, most of the time we behave ethically simply out of habit. That is the way we were brought up to behave and it doesn't occur to us to act outside the norms.
But that isn't the point, the real issue is - how did that get to be the "ethical" way to behave, how in other words did it get to be the way we were brought up to behave.
This idea people have that some ethics are somehow genetically programmed is quite weird.
> except that implicit in participation in a
>law-abiding universe that aggregates such acts and allows the
>possibility of future reward i.e., reciprocal benefit is probably a good
>story on the evolutionary basis of altruistic acts, but I do not think
>it is the mechanism by which (the same evolutionary forces have shaped)
>our brains (to) reason about our acts.
>
>There are human beings incapable of understanding or reciprocating, but
>I am sure you would extend your ethical considerations to them, yes?
Sure, they are still human.
> So,
>it is not so much what the animal can do for us, but what is consistent
>with the reasoning we use to justify what we can and cannot do (to other
>human beings, as currently used).
You don't get it at all. It has nothing to do with what that individual can do for you. It is that what anyone can do to that human being, can also be done to me and my friends and family. By proscribing the doing of it to complete strangers, me and mine are protected as well.
>
>On a personal note:
>
>I have a suspicion that you lump any form of thinking about animals into
>a single monolithic animal issues ("rights" if you wish) group. As a
>person who maintains a farm and interacts with animals (including
>perhaps having to slaughter them) you figure you have grip on reality
>that the city slickers do not... and you are quite probably right about
>a subsection of the group you are thinking of (and possibly your fellow
>Aussie's philosophical extremes are distasteful to you). You also wrote
>eloquently about the details of your troubles and triumphs with your
>animals, IIRC last season. As an animal issues person, I found that
>interesting and edifying, and not an opportunity for political activism.
>In a recent post, you expressed frustration with unnecessary
>intellectual rhetoric. I think I responded to that post in agreement.
>The same is true in this case. To make a meaningful impact today, we
>need not address the broad intellectual ethical connundrums, force
>people to become vegetarians (hence the smiley in the subject), and so
>on. We have a broad range of prescriptions we would (I am willing to
>bet) agree on, such as animal abuse involved in cosmetic product testing
>(where it still happens), and so on.
Look, don't think I take any particular offense from what you say. You argue your case quite reasonably and in fact you make valid points. My concern is to put the other side of the argument. The trouble is that as human society becomes overwhelmingly urbanised and cut off from nature, the whole issue of animal welfare seems (to me) to become more and more distanced from reality.
On the one hand, industrialised animal husbandry practices do become more cruel and unnatural, yet most people have neither any direct knowledge of it, nor anything to compare it with. Then they tend to be shocked by it when it confronts them and society can over-react. Singer is an example of that, he has no idea what he's talking about.
I've worked in a poultry farm, its bad and something needs to be done about it. (Frankly, the meat and eggs produced by this process are disgusting anyhow, which is karma for you.)
Then again, people go right over the top about other silly things, like mulesing sheep (skinning the backside of ewes, to minimise fly strike.) Mulesing is horrifying to watch, but then so are many operations performed on humans. But the operation saves untold numbers of sheep from ghastly suffering as a result of blowfly larvae burrowing into their flesh. Really, the objections are based purely and simply on people's fantastic notion that sheep suffer pain the same way we do. But this just seems ridiculous to me. They get up from having this done and run around with hardly a bleat.
Whereas you can see them squirming and trying to rub their skins off when they get fly-struck. It goes on for months sometimes, unless something is done.
There's plenty of other examples, on both sides of the argument. But its no use us starting off with some idealised notion that animals are the same as people and we shouldn't exploit them or do anything to them that we wouldn't allow with other people.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas