Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Pigs? In there?

Russell B. Goodman writes, in his paper "Thinking about Animals: James, Wittgenstein, Hearne," that:
Three  years  after  he  published  the Principles  of  Psychology,  James published an anonymous letter in a French newspaper that shows a different  attitude  towards  animals  than  that  of  the  thirty-one-year old medical doctor who defended vivisection. He writes (in French, my  translations  here)  of  walking  daily  past  a  large  masonry  box  in which  a  local  farmer  keeps  his  pigs. It  is  a  sight,  he  writes,  the memory  of  which obsesses  him,  “as  the  poor  animals  are buried alive in a kind of tomb”. The box has one opening at the top to let in air;  another  with  a  lid  that  is  opened  to  throw  in  food.   “When one  imagines  what  the  air  and  darkness  in  this  tomb  must  be”, James  writes,  “and  when  one  thinks  that  its  inhabitants  are  buried all  their  lives,  except  for  the  moment  when  they  are  taken  out  to have  their  throats  cut,  one  must  avow  that  there  is  cruelty  here,  if  not  active,  at  least  passive  and  unreflective  by  men  governed  by ignorance,  routine,   the  refusal  to  think”.  “What  a  destiny”,  he continues, “for a living being for whom the air and the light are the source  of  well  being  as  much  as  they  are  for  us!   Each  time  that  I take a walk again in the magnificent weather we have been having, I see this species of grave where the poor beasts are entombed, and it darkens all my pleasure” (James 1987a: 141). James sees the pigs as fellow creatures who deserve their time on earth, in the light and air. 

9 comments:

  1. Very thoughtful and troubling piece. This past summer I took one of my grandsons to a local colonial American village on which they had a model farm with live farm animals. In the extreme heat of the day, the farm's pig lay in its own muck with open sores on its flesh, flies gathering and attacking the wounds. No one on the farm seemed fazed though I heard one of the staff acting as a guide to a nearby group mention that the pig was ill. They just left the animal there to suffer from whatever disease had it in its clutches, it's eyes half closed, staring at the muck around it, grunting and groaning periodically, as we humans moved about it, stopped to stare and then moved on. I didn't want to ruin my grandson's experience so I hurried him away from the sight but could not banish the picture from before my eyes, at least for a time, until other issues intruded. I didn't say anything to anyone in charge and only now recall that incident and think maybe I could have. Certainly I should have. And yet there is so much suffering in the world, can we banish it all? Must we try?

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    1. I doubt we can, and I wouldn't even say we ought to try (given that we can't hope to succeed). But we should surely do what we can. Which might be much more than we realize.

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    2. We are obliged to alleviate suffering if we are in a position to do so; if many people are in a position to do so, the principle still applies.

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    3. What obliges us? What or who will make us do so? Or if it is only our own sentiment what if we lack it?

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  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i0wGIN5yUc

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  3. Stuart Mirsky @ 9:17, 10.27.17

    No deontic source, in the sense of a divine agent issuing proclamations, etc., obliges us, but rather the system of ideal ethical principles (e.g., of the form, "if c, then nec a") that became possible with the appearance of purposeful adaptive action in the universe, and the perhaps conscious choice of mutual survival over asymmetric eating in the interaction of responsible and interested agents. Understanding will "make us do so", lack of understanding will prevent us. Having said that, we seem to not yet fully understand the ideal ethical principles, and not yet to have solved the problem of "knowing the better and doing the worse". It's in the nature of norms that agents are free to violate them.

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    1. nature of norms? norms don't exist apart from human-doings like talking/typing about them.

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    2. If we don't yet understand "the ideal ethical principles" do we at least know what they are? Can we list them and then proceed to demonstrate their soundness in some fashion that doesn't simply depend on some subjectively generated affinities?

      I take it your saying that such principles are based on rationally choosing "mutual survival" "as responsible interested agents." But what if an agent should determine that his, her or its best chance at survival is not dependent on mutuality? What if the best chance at survival is to give up one's companions to misfortune, pain or worse?

      Confronted with a drowning child, is it my feeling for the child that makes me want to swim out to it (if I can swim, of course) or find some other way to rescue it? Or something else, something independent of my particular sentiment?

      It is the nature of norms that we follow them by our own choice (although choices can be made at many levels including subconscious or less than fully conscious ones) but how are we to determine when a norm is the sort we should follow in any given case? What obliges me to follow a norm to save drowning infants (or drowning people of any age)? Or to refrain from inflicting harm on someone else if it seems to be to my advantage to do so?

      I certainly may feel kindly toward another and so wish to spare them from harm, but what if I don't? Am I then free of moral obligation in the absence of feeling of obligated? Or am I obligated in some second order fashion to have an obligation to refrain from harming others?

      If I am, what is the source of that obligation? But if not, how can there be any obligation upon us at all outside what we happen to want to do in the given situation?

      How could there be norms apart from human beings, as Anonymous says above, if there is no one imposing them on us but ourselves?

      Do norms determine our valuations or do our values impose on us obligations?

      But then how do values differ from wants, needs and preferences?

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  4. https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/observations/2017/11/why-i-became-vegan-and-why-you-should-too

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