X-Message-Number: 16984
Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2001 10:29:28 -0700
From: Lee Corbin <>
Subject: Re: Re: Why beings of the future WILL reanimate us

Peter McCluskey wrote

>>...our historically recent concern for horses, dogs, and cats has
>>not arisen from any benefits that we get by cooperating with them.
>
>Yet you mention the animals with which we cooperate the most. Pigs
>are about as smart, but because of our interest in eating them, we
>have much less concern for their interests.

The fact that we have SOME concern for the interests (e.g. feelings)
of some animals is what is significant.  It is unpersuasive to claim
that our efforts to treat these animals humanely arises entirely from
our self interest, unless one starts down the idiotic slope of claiming
that everything that anyone does is for a selfish reason.

>>Instead, it's been in line with the sudden concern the West got
>>for slaves about two hundred years ago.
>
>A concern which appears to correlate somewhat with the automation of
>manual labor, which presumably caused an increase in the complexity of

>the optimal level of cooperation between slaves and the rest of society.

That's part of the explanation.  But part of the explanation lies
in a general sensitivity to the pains and sorrows of others.  This
latter sentiment, by the way, is of course a luxury.  People in 
primitive economies are much less prone to it.   People simply
have some built-in sympathy for other creatures who feel pain
and experience suffering, and that's all there is to it.

>>Well, I would say that a fetus a quarter of an inch long *per se* has
>>no interests, intelligence, or sentience.  Such a creature, in and of
>
> Surely you will admit that genes have interests, and a fetus has genes?

>When deciding whether to respect the interests of beings not closely
>related to oneself, the difference between a gene's interests and a
>person's interests seems unimportant.  I'm still unclear about whether
>you are advocating ethical systems which require genes to behave
>altruistically.

It's unbelievable to hear you say this.  My God.  "The difference
between a gene's interests and a person's interest seems unimportant"?????

Frankly, I don't and shouldn't (and everyone I know doesn't and shouldn't)
care very much at all about someone's genes, whereas I (and most people)
care a lot about many people.  I think that you misspoke.

Lee

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