From: Keith Elis (hagbard@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Tue Apr 29 2003 - 17:40:50 MDT
Greg Jordan:
> I do not believe in morality, but I have an aesthetic
> appreciation for animals, not just as a class, but as
> individuals. It's a definite lift for me to know animals are
> getting along well, and it's a tragedy when one is lost
> unnecessarily, by something I did and could easily have
> avoided. It's not so much about minimizing suffering as
> maximizing happiness. Nature already kills and tortures
> animals every day - including humans - but humans have the
> capacity, rarely used, to empathize with others, including
> animals. This empathy is a plus, an expansion of potential happiness.
I think you would probably fare better if you stuck to the aesthetic
argument. At least that can be reduced to personal preference, which
cannot be disputed. Here, you're making an odd argument which
anthropomorphizes animals, exacerbated by the equally odd implicit claim
that you know what makes animals happy. This argument would apply
equally well down the food-chain until, at some arbitrary point in the
taxonomy -- say, just below the nematode and just above blue-green algae
-- it becomes absurd.
Keith
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