steve wrote:Animals are conscious of their circumstances, can feel pain and display fear. > This is why we recognize mistreatment of animals as cruelty. > This state of awareness demarks whether or not killing something is cruel. > Babies and the severely mentally handicapped are not sentient in this way. > Killing babies or the severely handicapped is less cruel than killing conscious animals.

I can't believe that an intelligent individual as yourself gives this man any credibility. His logic is faulty, thus invalid, and smacks of utilitarianism run amok. Babies and the severely handicapped can in fact both feel pain and display fear, more so than animals. When I was about 11, I went on a class field trip to see the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In the audience was a severely mentally retarded child. When the orchestra began playing, he began screaming and shrieking in obvious terror....I'll never forget it because it startled the hell out of me and others. So the mentally retarded can display fear. They also can feel pain, and this requires no example. Babies, too, are startled and frightened by intense sensory stimulation as well and they can express these things too. They also can feel pain, and again this fact is so self-evident that it requires no example.

Just because his LOGIC is unshakeable doesn't mean the statements that the logic consists of are unshakeable. Furthermore, logic is only a small appendage of reasoning.

double post

matthew wrote:

steve wrote:Animals are conscious of their circumstances, can feel pain and display fear. > This is why we recognize mistreatment of animals as cruelty. > This state of awareness demarks whether or not killing something is cruel. > Babies and the severely mentally handicapped are not sentient in this way. > Killing babies or the severely handicapped is less cruel than killing conscious animals.

I can't believe that an intelligent individual as yourself gives this man any credibility. His logic is faulty, thus invalid, and smacks of utilitarianism run amok. Babies and the severely handicapped can in fact both feel pain and display fear, more so than animals. When I was about 11, I went on a class field trip to see the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In the audience was a severely mentally retarded child. When the orchestra began playing, he began screaming and shrieking in obvious terror....I'll never forget it because it startled the hell out of me and others. So the mentally retarded can display fear. They also can feel pain, and this requires no example. Babies, too, are startled and frightened by intense sensory stimulation as well and they can express these things too. They also can feel pain, and again this fact is so self-evident that it requires no example.

You fail to understand. Whether or not you hear something as disturbing and evocative of pain/distress, that doesn't make it the intent or the cause, it's not a question of responding to stimulus. If you harm a dog, the dog sobs or whines, and would attempt to communicate it's pain towards individuals or other dogs in the area. It's an act that seems conscious of telling those in the area "I'm hurting! Come help!" - whereas babies scream as a reflex to get there mother's attention. It's the creature's apparent understanding of it's self that gives us cause to think that the animal is aware of it's own pain. If making a fucking diabolic noise as a response to an "intense stimulus" is what makes thing sentient, then I submit that whoopee cushions are more sentient that severly handicapped babies.

matthew wrote:Furthermore, logic is only a small appendage of reasoning.

explain this comment please.

si-maro wrote:

matthew wrote:Furthermore, logic is only a small appendage of reasoning.

explain this comment please.

It's the last-but-one refuge of a scoundrel.

steve wrote:Singer is a principled guy who follows everything through to a conclusion. Often enough, that conclusion is one that makes people uncomfortable, even if they agree with the reasoning behind it. I consider this important work, because it expects and requires dilligence to comprehend or critique it, and when there isn't any, the critique is emblematic of shoddy, non-rigorous thinking.

Here's an example:

Animals are conscious of their circumstances, can feel pain and display fear. > This is why we recognize mistreatment of animals as cruelty. > This state of awareness demarks whether or not killing something is cruel. > Babies and the severely mentally handicapped are not sentient in this way. > Killing babies or the severely handicapped is less cruel than killing conscious animals.

See what I mean? He makes you follow him through pure thought to a conclusion that gives you the heebie-geebies, yet you have to concede each point along the way.

The fact that PETA is a retarded organization doesn't negate the ethical connundrum that is brought to light by the thinking. I eat all things, including animals, but I'd be lying if I said I never thought about the act of killing them. I think Peter Singer has put his finger on why. I simply suppress those thoughs while I eat. It's people like Singer who make me admit that I have the thoughts in the first place.

I also like that he draws only a living wage, putting the rest of his salary to the use of people who have less money available to them. He's living-up to his conclusions.

Not crap, Peter Singer.

so rocker once the suppression is identified, where to from there? I eat mammal flesh and suppress as well. do you ever contemplate a species restrictive diet? I wondered the other day during an iron chef show how you looked at this.

vilna43 wrote:so rocker once the suppression is identified, where to from there?

Where to? No place. I don't attempt to resolve these feelings, I just acknowledge them. Like I don't attempt to resolve the dissonance associated with paying my taxes or saying "yes, sir" to authority. There is something to it, that's all. I don't feel strongly enough about it to do anything, but I can accept that it isn't nonsense.

steve wrote:

vilna43 wrote:so rocker once the suppression is identified, where to from there?

Where to? No place. I don't attempt to resolve these feelings, I just acknowledge them. Like I don't attempt to resolve the dissonance associated with paying my taxes or saying "yes, sir" to authority. There is something to it, that's all. I don't feel strongly enough about it to do anything, but I can accept that it isn't nonsense.

Did this guy just call Steve "rocker"? Am I reading right?

This is one of the best things I have ever heard. I am going to call people I talk to "rocker" from now on. Fan-fucking-tastic!

rocker in that case was a parroted thievery stolen from the addressed himself, as it were. Or maybe more honorably a homage to some good days and nights in chicago that lately seems very too far away and ago.
this guy


speaking of tax associated dissonance, not-the-rocker, yikes!
a check in the mail to these bastards. I feel ill.

Hmmm. Where to begin? Firstly, animals do not and cannot have rights. "Rights" are only applicable to humans. They are the transition from the principals guiding an individual's actions to the principal's guiding his relationship with other humans. Rights are a moral concept and an extension of free will. Animals do not have free will, they act purely on instinct. Humans do not act on instinct, except in rare, rare, very very very rare life threatening circumtances. Situations too rare to apply to any sensible study of ethics. I think it was Matthew who said Singer's philosophy was "utilitarianism run amok". This is true, take it further. It is what utilitarianism is. It places a standard of ethics, how a human should act, outside of the individual. It is altruistic in the end and can only lead to death for humanity if carried out. It's why the fuckwit PETA shitassfucks and other animal activists place valuable, actual, not potential, life-saving research at laboratories on their hate roster. Some of them go as far to fire-bomb these laboratories. All of this is the actualization of an idea set forth by Pete Singer. I love animals. My two cats live a cush life and are treated with love and care everyday. I cannot emphasize this point enough, believe this- Pete Singer's ethical standard does not have anyplace in this universe. It is unreal and he knows it. He and (most of) his followers understand that by shutting down Laboratories using animals for research they will delay medical progress for terminally ill patients. I swear by all that I love and cherish that last sentence was a huge understatement. Their intention is absolutely malicious toward humanity. They subordinate the value of a human to an animal. He fudged the concept of rights, tried to apply it to animals and set it into action. I saw a protest here in the city and one of the protesters was whining (actual tone of voice because of his understanding of rhetoric) about how "they" could do the same kind of medical tests without using animals. HOW THE FUCK DOES HE KNOW THIS? and at what cost financially or, sorry guys, of human life? Did he bother to explain how to do the tests? No, of course not. That's not for him to worry about. That's for the people doing the research to automatically know. The clairvoyant diarrhea spewing out of this young man's mouth was staggering. Pete Singer you are a steamy piece of crap.