On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 18:52:18 GMT, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>Derek wrote:
>> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 16:09:08 GMT, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>>
>>>Matheny has another article: Expected Utility,
>>>Contributory Causation, and Vegetarianism. It's in the
>>>Journal of Applied Philosophy, and is available in PDF
>>>at http://www.veganoutreach.org/spam/thresholds.pdf
>>>(requires the Adobe Acrobat reader).
>>>
>>>The task he has set himself is to take apart the
>>>occasionally encountered omnivore's argument that a) he
>>>doesn't personally kill the animals he eats, and b) his
>>>meat consumption doesn't bring about the whole meat
>>>industry, so "he" cannot be held accountable. Matheny
>>>attempts to show that all meat eaters together are in
>>>fact accountable for all the deaths of animals they
>>>eat, based on expected utility considerations.
>>>
>>>His analysis is fair enough, and I don't have a problem
>>>with it as far as it goes. What is curious, however,
>>>is that it also links vegetarians to the collateral
>>>deaths caused by the production of the crops they eat.
>>
>> No, it does not.
>
>Yes, it does.

Ipse dixit and false. Show where Matheny's article links
vegetarianism to the collateral deaths associated in crop
production, and after you've done that show where his
article concludes that the vegetarian is responsible for
them.

>> The paper sets out to prove that, while
>> some argue that act-utilitarianism cannot provide an
>> adequate critique of buying meat, on the basis that a
>> single meat purchase will not actually cause more farm
>> animals to be raised or slaughtered, act-utilitarians
>> cannot use actual utility as a decision procedure and
>> must instead use expected utility to prescribe actions.
>
>Next time READ THE WHOLE PAPER

I have read it, and nowhere does it even suggest a link
between vegetarians and the collateral deaths caused
by farmers in crop production. You've read something
into it that doesn't exist.

>> that such a mechanism
>> links vegetarians to the collateral deaths associated in
>> crop production.
>
>Irrelevant.

No, it is not. Matheny doesn't show that such a mechanism
links vegetarians to the collateral deaths caused by farmers
in crop production. Read it again without imagining the words
"collateral" and "deaths" exist in it.