Mike Robinson wrote:

> On Wed, 13 Jul 2005 00:07:42 +0000, rick wrote:
>
>
>>Why would they be concerned about bugs and such while they
>>contribute to the death and suffering of millions upon millions
>>of real animals. Mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish.
>>Their entire food chain of crop production is all about killing
>>animals. The only thing they 'worry' about is having any little
>>micro-bits of meat in their food. They care nothing about the
>>animal dying, as long as they don't have to eat it!
>
>
> I'm not concerned about bugs at all (except for rare ones, as I support
> biodiversity), but some vegans clearly are. I want to know how we can
> assign value to life. The purpose of my original post was to illustrate
> how the "all animal life is equal" philosophy is never followed in
> practice, and should be considered invalid. This seriously complicates
> the CDs "counting game", as everyone I've asked considers a common mouse
> death as much less serious than a cow death, but if we heavily value
> biodiversity some CDs may be much more serious.
>
> There are other factors to consider when evaluating how wrong a death is:
> how painful it was, how good a life the creature had, the purpose for
> which the animal was killed, whether the animal actively competes with us,
> whether the animal would otherwise follow a boon/bust population cycle,
> etc.

As far as bugs, the question is complicated. Honey Bee populations for
example are in danger, and as we all know they pollinate foods. Yes, we
can probably live without many insects, and I have no problems for
example killing mosquitos. Blanket killing of bugs does disturb the eco
system, and generally when people disturb the eco system, in spite of
people thinking they know all consequences, often negative, unforeseen
consequences are invoked.

Take for example Teddy Roosevelt decided to shoot all the wolves on a
specific island so the deer population could grow. It did indeed grow.
But then instead of the wolves killing the weakest, the food supply and
disease became the limiting factor and in fact, while there are more
deer, they are much less healthy. Mind you, I think Teddy Roosevelt was
a great man, an innovative environmentalist, yet even he made mistakes.

>
> I'm interested in whether it is possible to construct a logical and self
> consistent moral philosophy that takes all of this into account, and what
> lifestyle it would consider optimal.



There are those that think all life is sacred. While I can see that
argument, I'm more concerned with unforeseen consequences.

Another example. Red South African Ants came to Florida with bananas.
It is estimated that predators would have destroyed their colonies.
Instead they tried to poison their colonies and instead the red ants
survived, the predators were killed, and now red ants have displaced
most other ants in Florida. Living in Florida I can tell you I hate read
(stinging) ants. They are spreading north. They destroy native species.