Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 SMI; site sun.uucp Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!decvax!decwrl!sun!sunny From: sunny@sun.uucp (Ms. Sunny Kirsten) Newsgroups: net.misc Subject: Re: home defense (& killing deer) Message-ID: <2410@sun.uucp> Date: Thu, 11-Jul-85 03:00:34 EDT Article-I.D.: sun.2410 Posted: Thu Jul 11 03:00:34 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 10:38:17 EDT References: <1195@utcsri.UUCP> <962@mhuxt.UUCP> <1212@utcsri.UUCP> Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Lines: 81 I see only two questions on the source of your food (plant or animal): 1) Did you harm or terminate the individual (plant or animal)? 2) Did you harm or terminate the species? the latter is obviously inexcusable under any circumstances. The former is your only practical question. Example scenarios: 1A) You milk a tame barnyard cow, eat the meat and tan the hide when the animal dies a natural death. 1V) You harvest the fruits of plants (apples, seeds, potatoes, etc) 2A) You keep the animal overly confined as in modern volume veal production, or in modern chicken/egg production. 3A) You terminate a live animal and eat it. 3V) You pull up a carrot and eat it. Scenario 1 is morally justifiable, period Scenario 2 is justifiable only on an economic scale, but is morally worse than 3, for the suffering is prolonged, rather than a one time death. Scenario 3 is justifiable only if you believe the individual unimportant... not quite what the founding fathers of our country had in mind. And, finally, the META-QUESTION: Is the life of the individual important, or is it only the life of the species which is important? If you kill a deer who would otherwise compete for food and reduce the QUALITY of life for all deer in the area, and you eat the meat and tan the hide, is the universe better or worse off than if you hadn't? p.s.: Meta-Meta-Question: Are humans the only animal (or plant) privy to reincarnation? p.p.s.: Meta-Meta-Meta-Question: Do reincarnations cross species lines? p.p.p.s.: When you eat a seed, is that equivalent to abortion? Is a sunflower seed part of the plant you left alive? or is it an autonomous life? > [Only two weeks to first line season] > > > >> There is a definite moral difference between killing > >> wildlife and supporting the butchering of domestic animals that were raised > >> for that purpose. (Not that I exclusively object to or condone either). > - me > > > So what is that difference? > > Jeff Sonntag > > ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j > > This is what I perceive as a moral difference:: the domestic animal > was brought into existance, raised, fed, and cared for by human for the > express purpose of becoming somebody's food. As such, it is conceiveable > that these humans have some sort of claim to its life. No "one" has any claim to the life of any "other", period. > None of these considerations apply to the wild animal, it came into > exisistance without direct human intervention and therefore man cannot > claim propriety over its life using the same (however valid) reasoning. > > I hope I've managed to express my feelings comprehensibly. I'm not > sure how strongly I feel about it, and I do recognize there are attitudes > out there like "It's our country, so anything out there belongs to us." > > Ed Brown > ..utcsri!brown Q: How can you sleep at night with the knowledge that you've become a murderer in order to not commit the crime of suicide? A: There is only one life force, which manifests in many forms. Sunny ... becoming more vegetarian all the time... p.s. An acre of land feeds more vegetarian mouths than carnivore mouths. -- {ucbvax,decvax,ihnp4}!sun!sunny (Ms. Sunny Kirsten)