Derek wrote:

> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 19:09:14 GMT, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>
>>Derek wrote:
>>
>>>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.
>>
>>His article doesn't explicitly do that.
>
>
> Exactly! You imagined it did and then asserted it.

No, I never imagined anything about his article. I
understood the point of his article - expected utility
and contributory causation - and I extended it.
Legitimately.

You'll note, ****drip - well, you would have noted if
you had read the paper, which you plainly didn't do -
that Matheny writes most of his article concerning
bandits stealing beans from the bowls of villagers. He
then extends his conclusion to cover the contributory
causation of meat eaters to the deaths of meat animals.
Following identical procedure, I have extended his
conclusion to cover the contributory causation of
"vegans" to the deaths of animals of the field.

Matheny's extension is legitimate and correct, and so
is mine.

>
>
>>Based on my extension of his mechanism, *I* did it.
>
>
> Then you cannot lie by claiming "it (Matheny's article)
> also links vegetarians to the collateral deaths caused
> by the production of the crops they eat."

I never said that Matheny's *article* explicity did
this. My apologies if it wasn't clear to you, but I
think most of your alleged misperceptions are actually
deliberate. What I meant to say is that Matheny's
exposition of expected utility and contributory
causation can perfectly well be extended to cover
"vegans'" contributory causation of death of animals in
the field. It can, and I did it (the extension.)

> What you
> should have written was that YOUR extension of it
> makes that link rather than the article itself.

I never wrote that the *article* did it. I said that
Matheny's analysis did it. The analysis does it;
Matheny just didn't do it explicitly.