All that might be true but would still be irrelevant to the argument because if we did have (and I am sure some exist) of people who are so incapacitated that they have less cognitive capacity than other non-human mammals, we would still not regard it to be morally permissible to treat those persons the way we would treat a horse or a cow.
Jim F.
---------- Original Message ---------- From: Matthias Wasser <matthias.wasser at gmail.com> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Invertebrate tool use Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:26:55 -0500
The difference between an Einstein and someone suffering from Down Syndrome is really quite slight compared to the difference between you and your dog. (Many of Pete Singer's early arguments rested on the assumption that the mentally retarded were dumber than chimpanzees, which they, well, aren't. He later revised his views, but hasn't gotten much credit for it.)
On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 11:56 AM, farmelantj at juno.com <farmelantj at juno.com>wrote:
>
> But absolute intelligence doesn't
> necessarily work well either because
> there are human beings who by virtue
> of being severely brain damaged might
> well have less cognitive capacity
> than say a dog or a horse. Yet, we
> still would not regard it to be permissible
> to kill and eat such people.
>
> Jim F.
Well, in my culture we don't eat dogs or horses either. (We do eat pigs, who are probably more intelligent than dogs.) It's a matter of personal attachment, presumably. ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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