From: Greg Jordan (jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu)
Date: Thu May 01 2003 - 12:05:26 MDT
On Wed, 30 Apr 2003, Keith Elis wrote:
> If this aesthetic appreciation for animals is as widespread as you
> claim, then based on the fact that most people are not vegetarians, we
> can say at least the degree to which people appreciate animals differs
> significantly. I can't fathom that one would be a vegetarian because
> animals appear pleasant to the eye. If anything, you should want to eat
> them more. Perhaps there is a special case of paleodiet theory which
> says, eat what appears pleasing to the senses, as this is the default
> diet of all successful species.
By aesthetic, I mean any appreciation of value. Superficial appearance,
especially to the point of looking "tasty", is only one criterion. I was
thinking more along the lines of appreciating an animal's differences, its
lifestyle, its unique personality, its communality. I haven't compiled a
detailed analysis of what value is to be found in animals, what enjoyment
is possible in their living forms - it's not something I've struggled
with. I find views like yours mysterious. I don't think animals look
particularly tasty. There's an entire cable channel devoted to animals,
with specials directed at young people, who supposedly like animals even
more than adults. The focus in on animals' lifestyles, not their tastiness
after death.
Ancedotally, I've noticed people who raise animals for food tend to
appreciate even the livestock as individuals; they just cultivate a sort
of hardness/mental block to enable them to slaughter the animal as
necessary. They also appreciate their other animals, like horses, or wild
birds, that they can interact with without eating.
> No doubt there is an evolved instinct to react negatively to the death
> of an animate creature. Of course there is, because all the animals who
> stuck around to watch other animals being eaten by predators became
> seconds. But your reasoning from default insincts to a not-so-obvious
> aesthetic conclusion which somehow implies a particular diet is a
> muddle.
It may be a muddle to you, but it's not a muddle to me :) I'm not talking
about human instincts, about which we know very little. I also tend to be
suspicious of the "just so" stories of evolutionary
psychology/sociobiology. I'm talking about enjoyment you could
(possibly) access in the present, yourself. Watch a few nature
documentaries, interact with a friend's pet a bit. See if you don't get
some pleasure from animals other than chowing down on their burnt muscles.
> themselves. Our far-from-ordinary brains do many intractable things, and
> we sometimes invent words to facilitate discussion of them, such as
> 'happiness', 'reason', or 'thought'. To say an animal is 'happy' or
> 'sad' might help children and bad poets understand animal behavior a
> little better. But it certainly doesn't help me, and it certainly
> doesn't imply anything profound to me.
Inferring animal emotion and rationality (ability to calculate with
various algorithms) helps animal trainers, farmers, even hunters -
everyone who really has to understand an animal in immediately practical
terms. It may not be necessary for someone who has no interaction with
live animals, or who has a vested interest in promoting human value
superiority across every domain.
Humans aren't the only animals that are unique or that have special tricks
of the trade of life. Bird brains can do things mine can't, and that I
might wish it could. (We are just now developing the technology to allow
us to imitate some of its features and adapt it for our use).
> I gather that you feel pain and care about what happens to yourself. But
> this does not imply anything about animals, or even me for that matter.
You really can't infer much more about me than you can about animals. You
may be being sidetracked by nominalism. Happiness is more than a word.
gej
resourcesoftheworld.org
jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu May 01 2003 - 12:16:40 MDT