On Sun, 23 Mar 2008 20:52:40 -0700 (PDT), Rupert wrote:

On Mar 23, 6:15*pm, Rupert wrote:
On Mar 23, 1:13*pm, dh@. wrote:





On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:25:21 -0700 (PDT), Rupert wrote:
On Mar 21, 7:57 am, dh@. wrote:
On Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:56:27 -0700 (PDT), Rupert wrote:
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about how to proceed. I might
include a discussion of R. M. Hare's views, in particular his essay
"Why I am Only a Demi-Vegetarian". That might do something by way of
addressing your points.

* * You could consider the lives of everything. You could compare
the lives of broiler chickens of 6-8 weeks, with those of any wild
birds who live for that period of time or less. You could do the same
with battery hens and cage-free egg producers. If you do it open
mindedly I don't see how you could come to the conclusion that
no livestock animals' lives are or could be worth living, especially
comparing them with equivalent length lives of wildlife.

Your question about whether speciesism can be
"justified" in nonhuman animals strikes me as ill-posed.

* * Saying that only humans need worry about the "rights" of
other creatures and whether or not we are speciesist, seems
very speciesist to me. Even in trying to avoid it you still end up
doing it anyway.

There will
probably be some discussion of this point in the project as well.

* * Will you include that fact that if we didn't remain speciesist
we would eventually be overtaken by animals who are, or
haven't you thought it through to the point of accepting that
fact?

I do not currently have any preconceptions about what conclusion I
will arrive at.

* * My guess is that you want to support the elimination
objective.

It is probably best to let me finish my thesis and write up the first
chapter before we discuss the matter further.

* * That would depend on how open minded you want to be.
If you just want to support the elimination objective then you're
probably ready to go, but if you're actually going to consider
any alternatives to be ethically equivalent or superior then I
get the feeling you haven't even begun the first inch of real
thought in that direction so you should discuss it with people
who have a good bit before you attempt writing about it. Do
AW minded people write anything, or is it only elimination
minded people? Come to think of it, there is tons of propaganda
to support elimination, but damn little to support decent lives.

We've already mentioned R. M. Hare. There's also Carl Cohen.

* * Wow. Have there really been two other people who can
appreciate billions of livestock experiencing decent lives of
possitive value?

Carl Cohen has not commented on the issue of whether it is a "good
thing" to bring animals into existence so that they can have lives of
"positive value". In his essay "Why I am Only a Demi-Vegetarian", R.
M. Hare takes a position similar to yours. You might like to have a
look. The essay appears in the anthology "Singer and his Critics". I
can find the original reference for you one of these days.


You might find it profitable to look at Part IV of Derek Parfit's
"Reasons and Persons". That is an exploration of some issues about the
ethics of decisions which involve bringing individuals into existence
who would not otherwise have existed. Parfit explores theses issues
and discusses some paradoxes which he does not know how to solve. Also
of interest might be Appendix G to that book, "Whether Causing Someone
to Exist Can Benefit This Person". That might give you ammunition in
your debate with Jonathan Ball.

For the most part Goo's side of the debate is no more than
lying about things. The only thing about it I'm aware of that
may not be a lie is his claim that things don't benefit by
actually coming into existence, but even if they don't the
Goober still can't explain how that could prevent them from
benefitting from lives of positive value after they do. In other
words: Goo has nothing.

I would suggest that reading these parts of Parfit's book, and maybe
some of the literature which that part of the book has generated,
would help you to think more clearly about these issues and strengthen
your arguments for your views (assuming you still retain them, another
possibility is that exploring the literature might lead you to change
your views).

My views are based on what I've learned from life itself.
If there are some in that book that you feel are particularly
significant then I'd be interested in reading them if you
want to present them, but it's not worth the effort for me to
hunt down and obtain the book and then try to figure out
what you find significant myself.

The objection I usually raise

Right. You need to find it and present it, not suggest
that I try to do it. You could probably find enough of
whatever you have in mind already online that you could
just copy some of it and present it that way, if you don't
feel like trying to hammer it out yourself.

against your views is "Do you
distinguish between the human and nonhuman cases, and if so on what
grounds?" I have never really managed to get clear on what your answer
to this one is. I think you need to do more to clarify this issue.

There are a number of ways to think about it. Maybe
we can sort of chart it out or something.

Consideration for the potential humans:

- Would they rather be raised by other humans than have
no life at all? I've never heard of human slaves refusing to
have children. Even if they sometimes did, it obviously was
not the general way to feel. I've never heard of mass suicides
among slaves. Even if there sometimes were, it obviously was
not the general thing to do. So, even though the people
suffered from the knowledge that they were slaves, it appears
that they would rather be slaves than have no life at all at
least in the vast majority of cases. From there we can see that
not raising humans as slaves is not necessarily always out of
consideration for the potential slaves.

Consideration of livestock in comparison:

- They don't know they are being raised by humans and
therefore don't suffer from the knowledge as human slaves
do. From their position it's easy for some people to feel that
it would be in the animals' best interest to provide livestock
with decent lives of positive value.

Consideration of our own interests:

- Most of us have grown up believing human slavery is
wrong and we accept that as being the case regardless
of whether the slaves would have lives of positive or
negative value. That means even if we think the slaves
would rather exist if given the choice, we would still be
opposed to it because we personally don't like the idea.
That part has nothing to do with consideration for the
potential slaves. The same is true for people who are
opposed to raising animals for food, etc.

- The slaves would cause such competition with
working free people that it would change our society
completely. I saw a documentary about modern slavery
in which men were trying to *become* slaves because
the slaves lived better than the free laborers could.
That doesn't mean they lived well, it just means that
they weren't dying of starvation.

Practicality

- It would be much more impractical to raise humans
than it is to raise the animals we are raising. It would
also be much harder to provide humans with an
environment that would give them lives of positive
value, than it is to do so for the livestock we raise.