Hi

Since I am new to the list, first a bit of an introduction.  I have a
background in science, not philosophy, but since I took up my current job
teaching global environment to budding enginers and architects I have had
to quickly come to terms with field outside my area of expertise such as
economics, sociology and environmental ethics.

It has been an interesting experience eavedropping on the philosophers
common room as it were, and I am amazed at how much detail philosophers can
sqeeze out of fairly basic arguments.  I am afraid I am one of the
unenlightened masses who would think Bertrand Russell's question as to how
I know he has two eyes to be rather a silly one :)

One thing that has impressed me however is the way you people can disagree
with each other, often quite strongly, yet without resorting to casting
personal slurs on each others' intelligence, morals, ancestry, sexual
preference etc.  That is something we scientists could certainly learn from
you.

Now on to the topic:  The analogy of the dog and the humans on the life
boat is a useful one, but I think we could use it to show not that animals
have less intrinsic rights to live than we do, but rather that we have more
responsiblity to our own kind.  And within our own kind we have more
responsibility to those close to us.  Thus if I had time only to save one
person from a burning building, and the choice was a close family member or
a stranger, then I would feel justified in choosing the close family
member.  

Similarly, if the choice was a human life or the dogs life I  would choose
the human (unless the dog was a pet, in which case he or she would be an
honorary "close family member").  If the choice is the dog's life or a
human's wealth however, the right to life should take priority.

In theory then I could condone animal testing if the human suffering
prevented through the tests were greater than the suffering caused by them,
and if there was no other alternative.  I am against vivisection however
because as a biological scientist I know that these two criteria do not
apply. 

Michael Morris
Dept. of Environmental Systems
Faculty of Systems Engineering
Shibaura Institute of Technology
Japan.



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