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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