tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827026400015685408.post72022469735962713..comments2011-06-01T09:57:14.390-07:00Comments on The Curious Vegan: Animals Like UsNathanielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10198651950757571613noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827026400015685408.post-15028363988036298582011-05-21T13:54:06.425-07:002011-05-21T13:54:06.425-07:00Comment received from Mark Rowlands
Ah – a slippe...Comment received from Mark Rowlands<br /><br />Ah – a slippery slope argument (the “bring on the butchers part”). Not worried about that: assuming there is a difference between vital and non-vital interests, there is no slide down any slope. Vital interests always trump non-vital interests. An animal’s interest in staying alive is a vital one. My interest in eating a tasty lump of meat of animal carcass is not similarly vital (although I do miss it). The animal’s interest wins.<br /><br />The death stuff then pertained to what we do when both interests are vital – a human interest in staying alive versus an animal interest in staying alive. Is there any rational reason for privileging the human interest? I argued that there was, and based it on the argument that because a human (typically, not necessarily) is more strongly tied to their future, they have more to lose when they die. Actually, I don’t endorse this account any more. First, I convinced myself that there was a crippling objection that involved the idea of the time of that a harm takes place. Generally, (in part due to the work of Nagel, see his article ”Death”) people seem quite comfortable with the idea that a harm can take place at no particular time. I think this idea is, in fact, much more problematic than people tend to think. Since, I decided, my account could give no plausible answer to the question of when the harm of death occurs, I abandoned it. Since then, I have also rejected it on the grounds that it embodies a disgustingly “simian” way of thinking about the value of life (that was in my autobiography The Philosopher and the Wolf).<br /><br />Finally, did I design my arguments to end where I wanted them to go? You bet! But that’s the great thing about arguments: they can be logically assessed quite independently of the motives of their makers. So, where I hoped they would go is irrelevant – the question is whether they can get there under their own steam. Think of an argument as an orphaned child. You do the best you can for them while you’re still around, but eventually they have to go out into the world on their own.Nathanielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10198651950757571613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827026400015685408.post-83679706852166820472011-05-15T19:15:22.109-07:002011-05-15T19:15:22.109-07:00Hi again, Rowlands is a really good philosopher, a...Hi again, Rowlands is a really good philosopher, and I'm glad you read his book. (Confession: he wrote a very friendly review of my book Frontiers of Justice, where I talk about animal rights, so I am well disposed!) One thing that is very good about Rowlands, where he and I agree, is that he sees an animal as having an overall form of life that involves more than just pleasure and pain. Utilitarians like Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century and Peter Singer in the 20th-21st have done great things for the cause of animal rights, and pain is surely one of the things that is very important to emphasize. But really respecting animals means more than just giving them a pain-free existence: it means thinking about their need for social networks, for free movement in a suitable habitat, and so on. And animals, like people, can have "adaptive preferences," meaning contentment with an unjust status quo, not longing for what you don't know or what is out of reach. So mere absence of pain does not show that all is well, something that has led many to oppose all confinement of animals in zoos, even humane ones. <br /><br />I share your skepticism about Rowlands's point about the future and killing. For one thing, many animals do have projects that extend over time, and can plan for the future. The more we know about primates and elephants in particular, the more we see that they do have all this. But can we conclude that it's all right to kill a mouse because it does not see the future before it? I find this a hard question. I think the right standard might be to make sure every creature has the opportunity to have a decently long life characteristic of its kind (my "capabilities approach"!), and then perhaps at that point it would be more permissible to kill a mouse than an elephant. But it is still a difficult issue. One thing that I think right in his approach is that the characteristic form of life of a creature affects what can be a harm for that creature. For example, it does not seem to be a harm to deprive rabbits of the freedom of religion, since religion plays no role in their form of life, whereas to deprive a human being of this is a very great harm. <br /><br />Incidentally, Rowlands would love to know about your blog I bet, so I suggest that you email him. at mrowlands@miami.edu, tell him a little about your project, and tell him that I suggested that he might like to read your blog, and make a comment if he were so inclined.martha_nussbaumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15827994983608408189noreply@blogger.com