Hello Jim Tantillo and everyone else,

Jim, just for fun, I've rewritten your recent post, to Bryan, substituting
women (or other appropriate term(s) for your "animals", using square
brackets [..] I've done that as if it were my grandfather replying to Bryan
about women's rights around 1900. I have placed your original words in
parenthesis {..}. I have not changed the cites - too much trouble :-).
Have changed some of the words to fit this "revision". :-)

What do you think about this analogy women rights and animal rights
arguments?

I hope the ladies here will not be offended as I try to put animal rights in
prespective of the past and as speculation about future ideas people might
have about our relations with *all* non-human life.

This is intended as a spoof on some of the thinking by (mostly) male
defenders of the (mostly) status quo. perhaps suggest some of the weaknesses
of their arguments. Have fun with it, *please*! :-)

Sincerely,
Ray ([log in to unmask])
          P.O. Box 698, Micanopy, FL USA 32667

------------------ following is original message as revised by Ray
L. -----------
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Tantillo <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tuesday, March 23, 1999 12:04 AM
Subject: Re: Hunting [was Re: Utilitarianism [was: Britain
PushesthePanicButtononBiotech Foods]]


>Hi Bryan,
>
>I hope I addressed some of your questions about my use of the Williams
>quote in an earlier email, so I won't atttempt a line by line discussion of
>your deconstruction of the quoted passage.
>
>>Hi Jim... I'd like to respond to your post here...
> [deleted}
>
>Williams quote:
>>Before one gets to the question of how [women] {animals} should
>>>be treated [by men], there is the fundamental point that this is the only
question
>>>there can be: how they should be treated.
>>
>Hyden:
>>Huh? Talk about circular reasoning! wow....
>
>Not sure I understand what's circular about it--the point seems relatively
>straightforward, that [women] {animals} stand as "moral patients" in
relation to [men] {us}.
>We're the ones doing the thinking about ethics, policy, management, etc.,
>and so the only question we can ask is, "Do *our* activities benefit or
>harm [women] {animals}?" Not (theoretically inconclusive questions like),
"Do they
>have rights?" or, "Are they persons with full moral status?"
>
>Williams:
>>The choice can only be whether
>>>[women] {animals} benefit from our practices or are harmed by them.
>Hyden:
>>Fine. But why does this differ from whether other [men] {humans} benefit
from "our"
>>practices or are harmed by them. He simply does not say.
>
>Well, for one thing, as autonomous (moral) agents with free will, other
>[men] {human beings} can choose *not* to be on the receiving end of either
the
>benefits or harms we dish out to them. This, I take it, is the idea behind
>[male] {human} freedom and [male] {human} dignity. In deciding to act on
other [men's] {humans'} behalf, we need to take into account *their* views
of the matter if we are
>to act ethically toward them.
>
>[deleted]
>Williams:
>>But in the case of [male] {human}
>>>relations to [women] {animals}, the analogues to such thoughts are simply
correct."
>Hyden:
>>Huh? Was that to be read "incorrect?" If so, it makes more sense, but is
>>still baseless in his argument.
>
>Not sure here that you've read the passage correctly--the word, "correct,"
>is the correct word--"incorrect" would be incorrect. <smile>
>
>
>>Well Jim, you say here that you are [woman rightist] {speciesist} to some
degree (however small
>>of a degree). Were you not arguing that [women's rights] {speciesism}
does not exist? I'm not
>>saying that you did, but I'm wondering exactly where you stand on this.
>>
>
>
>Fair enough. A brief discussion of where I stand on this. I come from a
>background that is fairly sympathetic to the [women's rights/women's
welfare] {animal >rights/animal welfare} perspective. I had long assumed
that [women's] {animal} rights >{and rights of nature}
>was the inevitable extension of English Liberalism outward from [men]
{humans} to
>[women] {nonhumans}, and that just as [men] {people} had been mistaken
about slavery >{and women} in the past, they would someday come to realize
their views about
>[women] {animals} were similarly mistaken. I helped put together one of
the first,
>if not the first, courses on [women's rights/women's welfare] {animal
rights/animal >welfare} philosophy to be offered at Cornell, in [1891]
{1991}. The course dealt with such >thinkers as Singer and Regan, Frey,
Sapontzis, Midgley, Rollin, Clark, Jamieson, and >a number of others,
including sociological/anthropological accounts from Tester,
>Nelkin, Cartmill, etc.. To make a long story short: the longer I studied
>the formal philosophical literature on the subject, the more disenchanted I
>became with it. It became my conviction that the stuff just doesn't hold
>up, philosophically. Thinkers whom I respect a great deal have helped me
>understand some of the problems with a universalist approach to [woman]
{animal}
>ethics, as well as identifying similar problems with [animal]
{environmental} ethics.
>Or maybe I'm just getting old. :-)
>
>I was arguing that [sexism] {speciesism} is based on a false analogy to
racism
>{and sexism}. Significance? Racism {and sexism} [is a] {are} bad
thing{s}, whereas
>(here goes nothing) [sexism] {speciesism} is a good thing. (I can feel the
flames >coming on.) Or at least, [sexism] {speciesism} is an unavoidable
thing. The discussion >here takes on some of the flavor of the debate about
anthropocentrism versus
>biocentrism. Philosopher Bryan Norton distinguishes between "weak" and
>"strong" anthropocentrism. Just as we are inescapably "weakly"
>anthropocentric by virtue of being human, so too I think we cannot escape
>our ("weak") [sexism] {speciesism}, because we are [men] human. The
ethical question is,
>then, how do we exercise our power over nature and over [women] {animals}?
A
>"strong" [sexism] {speciesism} would say that we can run roughshod over
nature and
>[women] {animals} and simply do whatever we want to them. A weak [sexism]
>{speciesism} says our influence over nature and [women] {animals} is
inescapable, >but that we must justify our actions with good reasons.
>
>And to relate it back to the [domination] {hunting} theme of the thread:
whereas I used >to have a pretty conventional [anti-domination]
{anti-hunting} perspective, I have come >to think that (some) [men]
{hunters} actually have as good a claim or better to *use*
>[women] {animals} in their [dominating] {hunting} activities, even though
those activities >cause the death and occasional mutilation of [women]
{animals}, than do those >activists who romanticize [women] {animals} as
abstractions. (My view extends, by the >way, to other [male] {human}
activities with [male] {human} benefits, including medical
>experimentation that involves [female] {nonhuman animal} subjects.) One
reason is that
>I have come to see that [domination] {hunting} is a very complicated [male]
{human} >cultural activity, not easily reducible to the [domination=killing]
{hunting=killing} equation >that people make it out to be. It's a lot more
than that, and that is why I think the
>pleasures or benefits that arise from [domination] {hunting} are not
trivial. I think
>most thoughtful [men] {hunters} *could* give good reasons for their
activities,
>even though they may not do so in actuality; whereas I am not at all sure
>that most moral [women rightists] {vegetarians or vegans}, however
well-intentioned, >could give even a minimally satisfactory account of their
activities when it comes to
>{either the environmental effects or} the impacts on [women] {animals}.
>
>Jim Tantillo
>
>




%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%