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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!harry
From: harry@ucbarpa
Newsgroups: net.cooks
Subject: Re: Eating live things
Message-ID: <8929@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 10-Jul-85 01:41:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8929
Posted: Wed Jul 10 01:41:12 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jul-85 07:45:25 EDT
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Organization: University of California at Berkeley
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From: harry@ucbarpa (Harry I. Rubin)

Path: ucbvax!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!rochester!dwyer

> From: dwyer@rochester.UUCP (Matt Dwyer)
> Message-ID: <10407@rochester.UUCP>
> Keywords: Compassion
> 
> A clam cannot tell the difference between the following means of death:
> 1) Being crushed by a truck
> 2) Being chopped up in a propeller
> .
> .
> n) Being chewed up and swallowed
> Nature can be very cruel!

There are two points: not only what the clam feels, but also what WE feel
about it.
1) I don't know exactly what "suffering" means if you are a clam, but as
compassionate people, surely we ought to try to kill our food with as little
suffering as possible.
2) Then there is the question of what it does to our compassion to knowingly
eat a live beastie.  Even if the clam really doesn't feel or know anything,
there is still our gut (pardon the pun) reation to doing it.
3) That nature can be cruel is beside the point, we should try to avoid
being cruel.

If this discussion goes any further it should probably move,
perhaps to net.philosophy?

Cheers!						Harry Rubin
						harry@Berkeley
						...!ucbvax!harry