Forwarded with permission. Jim T.
>Status: U
>From: "hcahen" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: "Jim Tantillo" <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: More Dennett Thoughts
>Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 07:54:46 -0400
>X-Priority: 3
>
>Jim:
>
>Your replies to Ray's questions about Dennett seem mostly right on. Some
>thoughts:
>
>1. Why do (did) Bekoff & Allen consider Dennett a Proponent? Is it
>because he treats consciousness as an emergent, fundamentally mechanistic
>phenomenon which (therefore?) might (at least possibly) be present in less
>evolved beings than ourselves? I guess that would be right.
>
>2. I think you are right to say that D. knows the science as well as
>anybody. He is pretty amazing.
>
>3. You say "unless we can justify doing things to animals that we don't do
>to humans, we're all in trouble." Surely right. Equal standing is
>nonsense if it means equal treatment. But no one (?) believes in that.
>Equal standing in more like equal CONSIDERATION (Singer) which is more
>plausible. Anyway you should give credit to those such as committed
>vegetarians who manage to live rich lives while refraining from doing many
>of the things to animals that most of us do to them.
>
>Where (if anywhere) does the idea of The Simple Life come in to play?
>Ethical impetus for the simple life is to some extent the desire to live a
>life that has a small "footprint" on the world. Vegetarians are aiming for
>this, aren't they? What have Simple Life thinkers said about hunting?
>
>4. Not sure you should lump Bentham and Mill. Pretty sure you shouldn't,
>in fact. Mill an infinitely more subtle thinker than Bentham. Certainly
>not a believer in summing pleasures and pains. The chapter on Utiliarianism
>in John Skorupski's book on Mill (title: John Stuart Mill) is outstanding.
>Mill's conception of happiness is complex, encompasses a wide variety of
>ends that we desire (in a sense) for their own sakes. Mill would surely
>wish to distinguish pain from suffering in much the way you do.
>
>5. One of Dennett's great contributions has been to draw a detailed picture
>of consciousness/sentience that makes the issue into shades of gray (a
>"ramp") instead of black-and-white (a "threshold") as you say. Yet even
>with his help it remains really hard, doesn't it, to surrender the image of
>the mind as a tiny "witness" sitting in the "control center" located
>somewhere in the brain. That image misleads us into thinking that
>consciousness must be all-or-nothing.
>
>Harley
>
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