Jonathan Ball wrote:
<...>
>> That's pretty low. Why can't you refute what I said?
>>
>> Not strawman, it's a matter of ignorance or deceit for those
>> like you who make unfounded claims about dietary morality. In
>> your case, it's deceit because you know better
>
> Among other things, because she COMPLETELY doesn't understand what the
> term "strawman" means.

I've noticed that. She also doesn't understand "ipse dixit."

<...>
>>> Not primarily for Regan, or for me.
>>
>> Yes, it is. Your moral posturing indicates as much.
>
> They can't escape the utilitarian implications of their silly
> deonotological beliefs, and in fact, Regan's "LHP" is an overt
> acknowledgment of the implications. So is the shabby critique of Steven
> Davis's position by this unknown goof Gaverick Matheny: he *explicitly*
> criticizes Davis on the basis of utilitarianism.

I think the most significant part of Matheny's response is:

The type of ruminant production Davis proposes is a world apart
from the omnivorism prevalent in the United States. I, for one,
would be delighted if U.S. animal agriculture would shift toward
Davis’s proposed system, as it would greatly improve the lives
of farmed animals now intensively confined. In fact, even a
shift from eating intensively-confined chicken to eating
intensively-confined beef would be a vast improvement.
http://courses.ats.rochester.edu/nob.../leastharm.htm

That's the whole point behind Davis' research, but at least Matheny
acknowledges that Davis' proposal has merit. Rather than fully embracing
its validity, though, the serial activist Matheny beats the tired old
drum and ends concluding that the case for vegetarianism is stronger.

> In order to continue to ignore utilitarianism, "St." Tom and Karen would
> have to maintain that, faced with the choice of deliberately killing one
> deer to feed their "families" (term used loosely in Karen's case) versus
> shredding 10 deer fawns in the course of producing an nutritionally
> equivalent amount of grain, they would shred the fawns.

They already choose that.

<...>
>>> <snip>
>>
>> Why did you not reply to that? I think the shortcomings of Regan's
>> thesis deserve greater discussion, especially by those who defend him
>> and his thesis. His thesis, indeed veganism as a whole, fails because
>> it's based on Ivory Tower utopianism rather than in-the-fields reality.
>
> Usual, Karen simply isn't smart enough to defend "St." Tom's thesis.
> She thinks she's the smartest person ever to participate here, and she
> really isn't very smart at all. She mistakes glibness for articulation.

I realized that back when we started our exchanges over Nazis and AR.

> She also views Regan as something akin to Moses: He has brought down
> the sacred "ar" texts from the mountain, and they need no defense.

She views Linzey and others the same way.

> Long before you began to participate here, I posted the following rude,
> snide response I got from Regan himself when I asked him to comment on
> the obvious problem that cell culture, a medical investigative technique
> that he and others refer to as "non animal", in fact isn't non animal at
> all: http://tinyurl.com/yqbb7

I hope you didn't buy his book after that, even discounted. Talk about a
non-response.

<snip>