On Sat, 1 Dec 2007 6:34 pm, Rundle wrote:
> Ashley,
>
> See - http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2002/Mar02/vegan.htm
>
> Dedy
That's interesting. It clearly follows that decimating the population
of field animals also starves the predators that consume them.
In any case, the Least Harm Principle is notoriously difficult to
apply. It is uncontroversial that death is a harm, under most
circumstances, because it is a loss of future experiences. But is death
the *same* harm to every creature? That depends on the value of the
creature's future experiences *to that creature*. Value is a relational
term. Nothing, including life itself, is valuable except *to* some
subject. Even to humans, the value of life changes over time. My
father, when dying, refused an experimental treatment that might have
extended his life a year or so, but which also might have been quite
unpleasant. The value of his remaining life, *to him*, was measured in
quality, not weeks or months.
Ethical vegetarians are reluctant to accept the premise that the value
of life is relational, not intrinsic, because it leads to certain
conclusions, such as the conclusion that value depends on a creatures
ability *to* value, which in turn depends on its cognitive ability. If
so, then the possibility of harm depends on the same thing.
An interesting consequnce of the line I take on this is that while death
is not necessarily a harm to a creature with no frontal lobe to speak
of, and therefore no ability to even conceive of a future, let alone
value it, pain and suffering clearly *are* harm. Cattle are as capable
of suffering as we are, and the principle of Least Harm clearly does
apply to our treatment of them while they still live.
Todd Moody
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