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Dutch Dutch is offline
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Default "collateral included deaths in organic rice production [faq]"


<dh@.> wrote in message ...
> On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 14:09:40 -0700, "Dutch" > wrote:
>
>>
>><dh@.> wrote
>>> On Thu, 14 Sep 2006 22:08:01 -0700, "Dutch" > wrote:
>>>
>>>>"Rupert" > wrote in message
egroups.com...
>>>>>
>>>>> I am good at assessing the strength of an
>>>>> argument.
>>>>
>>>>No you aren't, you don't even listen to my arguments, you repeat them
>>>>back
>>>>to me in terms that reveal your bias, discarding the essence of my
>>>>aguments.
>>>
>>> Have you "explained" to him why you believe we should think of child
>>> prostitution and raising animals for food in the same way yet?

>>
>>I don't have to, he probably understands the analogy. You're the only one
>>I
>>know of that doesn't. Since you brought it up I will explain it again.
>>
>>The analogy is intended to discover if in judging if an action is
>>good/bad,
>>right/wrong if the recipient of that act "getting to exerience life" is
>>ever
>>a relevant factor. Obviously the contexts that apply are those which
>>produce
>>or help to produce animal life. One of those contexts is having children,
>>breeding of pets would be another, in this case it is the breeding of
>>livestock. The basic criticism requiring a response is that it is wrong to
>>kill these livestock animals for food. Can we use the argument that "they
>>only get to experience life because of us" to respond to that criticism?

>
> Of course.


I mean can we do it *legitimately*?

>>It's tempting, but does it hold up

>
> LOL! I mean: Of course.


No it doesn't, an argument to that effect is included.

>>or is it self-serving and circular?

>
> That's a different issue.


It is THE issue. If an argument is self-serving and circular then it should
been seen as suspect and discarded.

> No matter how loud you sing or how you
> dance around it, the fact will always remain that the animals are not
> cheated out of longer lives, better lives, or anything like that because
> they are raised to be eaten.


Nobody said they were "cheated out of longer lives" because they are raised
to be eaten, they are "cheated out of longer lives" because we kill them.
That's what we are defending, killing them.

>>One
>>of the ways we can examine the response is to attempt to apply it in other
>>contexts.

>
> No. That's changing the subject to something completely different,
> as I point out when you change the subject to something completely
> different.


It is legitimate and necessary to examine other contexts in which the same
kind of reasoning may be used.

>>Lets say we are criticized for our treatment of our children, can
>>we answer, "they only get to experience life because of me" or is that an
>>evasion that fails to answer the accusation?

>
> It depends on whether or not the children were deliberately raised
> ONLY to be treated that way.
> Some of us have decided IN ADVANCE
> that it's okay to raise and kill animals for food.


As I have, therefore "giving them life" is an extraneous and circular
argument to add on after you already decided that IN ADVANCE that it's
right.

> So if you're going to
> make up some grotesquery about children as you want so badly to
> do, you need to come up with something that people have decided
> IN ADVANCE is okay to raise them for.


Slaves were deliberately raised in order to be worked 16 hours a day for no
pay and whipped or hung from a tree if they talked back. Did that make it
OK? No, the issue of the decision being made "IN ADVANCE" is irrelevant.

> Using them as prostitutes
> is abusive to the children. In contrast to that, I supporting giving
> the animals LIVES OF POSITIVE VALUE.


It makes no difference what animal treatment you "support" in theory, what
matters is do your actual choices at the market support "positive" animal
lives or negative ones. If it is the former then we may argue that we are
being moral in our actions, but we can never argue that we are creating some
"net good" for the animal. (refer to the slavery analogy)

> You are--as always--trying
> to compare things which are not similar because that's ALL you can
> do. You can't think of anything else that is like the situation of raising
> animals for food, much as you obviously wish that you could.


See above. It makes absolutely no difference whether or not we intended to
do something in advance or if we believed from the start that is was right,
or if we make the decision at a later time. It's either right or not. The
issue of abusing animals once they are born only takes something that we may
have decided is right and turns into something wrong. The only possible
outcomes are that we are moral or immoral in this, we cannot be heros.
"Considering what they get out of it" is an indirect attempt to paint
yourself as a hero.