The move from 'is' to 'good'

Ok, so I'm afraid that I was quite lost in this article. Maybe it's the terminology, maybe it's the content, but I could not follow his argument.
However, I think some of these arguments could be said in much simpler ways. For example, the way we write some of them on the board. Short, concise, informative...this is how philosophers need to write from now on. We should send out a worldwide memo.

I want to understand these people, I really do. I think what they are arguing for an against is a really interesting thing (ecosystem rights etc.) and I want to be able to take a side. However, I seem stuck on the fence in this circumstance. Similar to the animal rights issues, I cane easily see both sides and I think both sides make so much sense so I just can't choose. No I am faced with my own moral dilemma, I don't know what I believe. Do I believe that we have direct duties to animals and therefore-rights? Or do I believe that we can't grant animals rights? I don't really know.

Also, what about ecosystems? This is where things truly get complicated because plants don't have nervous systems so what reason have we to not treat them like a commodity to us? Why shouldn't we treat them like a pen or a sidewalk? They are PLANTS, they must have more than just instrumental value, they are living! It's when the philosophers jump in with all their jargon and way of phrasing things that I get lost. So, dear philosophers all over the nation, please heed my plea and make your arguments less philosophical and more human. Thanks.

A Land Ethic

Ecologically
a limitation on freedom of an action
in the struggle for existence,
a land ethic is physically
existing and something we
struggle with mentally.
Aldo Leopold thought
that a land ethic enlarged
the boundaries of community
to include things like:
soil, water, plants
animals, trees and land.
Community is a word that we
think about in a human way,
with anthropocentric tunnel vision.
Leo says this word applies
to biotic communities as well
and to include them in our
exclusive, structured society
would be to confirm their right to
existence.
The real land ethics of today
are still governed by economic
self interest.
We need to break free of
the social norm of self interest.
We need to do things for others
and consider an ecosystem's interests
when we decide to develop
or clear cut or harvest.
Why is it so easy to think only of ourselves?
Because that is the norm.
How do we change the norm?
Action.

                                                                  Mine? No ....sharing

Ecologism, Neo-Darwiniansim...what?

So I realize we are talking about whether or not ecosystems and inanimate things in nature can have rights...This is the Rights of Animals and Ecosystems class. However, I feel confused by the first article that we have to read on this subject (Midgley) that tells us that no, ecosystems or things such as islands can't have rights, but they can have duties.

Maybe this will make more sense to me tomorrow in class, but I thought her whole presentation of the topic was a little strange. She reminded me a little bit of Tom Regan in his style of 'talk alot about interesting things, then get to the point for about a page' style. I did like the Robinson Cruso reference and I thought that was a good way to bring home her point. Even though I got a little mixed up in the middle, the two Cruso references at the beginning and end helped me understand the concept fuller.

The Ecologism piece may have escaped me because of the late hour at which I read it, but I felt like I was waiting and waiting for his central focus and then suddenly, the chapter was over. Now, I've never been much of a philosophy person, but I didn't think I was this bad. From what I got of it, the author was explaining how the interconnectedness of humans to the natural environment necessitated that we give ecosystems some sort of consideration beyond using them as a means to an end. The author tries to prove that our very genes demand of nature a higher respect than what we currently give it.

This is what I have taken away, hopefully tomorrow will bring more understanding.

Yay, now there's an actual flying squirrel on my blog entitled "El Flying Squirrel"

Our Obligation

Our obligation to ourselves
is to eat healthily and maintain
nutrient levels
so as to ensure optimum energy
levels and function.
But as far as our obligations
to animals seem to stretch
we are only have a debt to them
so far as we have a meaningful
relationship with them,
according to Cohen.
What obligation do we have
to not harm the red macaw
in the Amazon rainforest?
There is no commitment that we
have made to the macaw, there is
no possession of authority over him.
Likewise we have no special relationship
with him nor do we feel we
should act in faithful service to him.
We are not part of his family
and therefore have no family connections 
with a macaw just as we have no
duty of care towards him, he is a wild creature.
And lastly, a macaw has done us
no spontaneous act of kindness and
therefore leaves us with no obligation
to balance such goodwill.
A macaw is none of these things to us,
yet we still have an obligation to
treat him well, says Cohen.
Why should we treat him well then?
We were presented with no overarching reason
as to why we have an obligation to all animals
to make sure they are comfortable, happy,
well taken care of and that they do not suffer.
I think to recognize our obligation to all animals
is to accept at least a piece of Cora Diamond's argument.
In so far as we are all living beings,
it is wrong to deny comforts to animals
to further human comfort.
What is this but an obligation
to protect animals interests?
Cohen says we have an obligation
to animals, but they do not have rights.
Whereas I can understand his argument
for why animals don't have rights,
he seems to leave out a piece of
why we have an obligation to
all animals...

Animal tested, doctor approved

One thing that really bothered me about Cohen's piece was that (so far) he has mentioned nothing about being against useless experiments, only focusing on countering the arguments of liberationists and animal rightists. He says that their arguments that the tests are useless is completely false, however, I think they may be referring to different experiments.

Maybe what we read about in Animal Liberation by Peter Singer was not the same as what Carl Cohen was talking about, however, I think he still needs to clarify what he means by 'not useless' because clearly SOME of the experiments were extremely useless and unnecessary. When Cohen says we have obligations to animals, but no need to consider their rights, he is getting at my point. In this sense, our obligations towards animals would be to use as few as possible in experimentation, make completely certain that the experiments were necessary, and make sure the animals suffered as little as possible from such experiments. He does not go into so much detail as to our obligations to animals as much as he continues refuting the arguments of others.

By the end, it is clear that he believes that animals most certainly do NOT have rights and cannot possibly exists in the same moral situations as humans, therefore, human interest should trump animal interest he says. I don't deny that animal experimentation has been useful in developing medications necessary for human survival, but I wish Cohen would discuss in more depth what, exactly, our obligations to animals are? 

philosophical squirrel

The Wonder of Science

Laboratory mice suffice,
hairless rabbits are also nice.
Who gets to be science's new soldier?
Just pick the poison and roll the dice.

I have, like most Americans probably, never known the extent of scientific animal testing. Of course I've seen lab rats and I've even dissected my fair share of fetal cats, pigs and even a small shark once (my aunt is a biology teacher). But never have I imagined these animals being tortured, mistreated or killed in the name of science.
We had to read an article for another class entitled The Silence of Science, which talked about how scientists, though they know exactly what certain harmful business plans are doing to an ecosystem, will not speak up and deliver their useful knowledge to the public. This silence usually comes from a fear of losing their jobs should they speak out against a large corporation or government agency. This is terribly handled in my opinion. When people are more concerned about their job security then the life of a tortured animal or a mangled ecosystem, we have our priorities messed up. I think every scientist in the world realizes that they are not going to have a job if we don't have a world and the surest way to ensure that lack-there-of is to destroy, one at a time, the animal life and ecosystems that occupy it.
While reading chapter 2 of Animal Liberation, my mind harked back to all that I had learned during my semester in Chile about the dictatorship of Pinochet. His government was expert at dragging innocent people from their homes, interrogating them with unthinkable means of torture for information and upon discovering (usually nothing) of value, would dispose of a human life as easily as one would a bothersome fly. This seems to be the exact pattern of the scientific experiments throughout this chapter. Each one more horrible than the last and each one yielding little to no actual findings, only haunting conclusions such as 'further research needed.' If animals could speak English and read that last line of the report, perhaps they would have revolted right now like the so many citizens of Chile that rose up and demanded human rights and government transparency among many other things.
Since the animals are not able to do this, it is up to us.

On hunting

My father's hunting practices
have never been more academically scrutinized
in my eyes until now.
His red and black checkered coat
and bright orange hat
were never questioned or criticized
in my family.
He left early in the morning and
would only return, usually empty handed
when the sun was below the rolling
mountains.
"Nothing," he would say
"the deer know I'm coming now."
I have never hunted myself, knowing
full well that I could no sooner
successfully sneak up on a deer than
kill it. I prefer to enjoy the animals
that my father brings to the table.
Berstein writes for sixteen pages
about the cruelty of hunting and
the uselessness of hunting in our world today.
I had never really had a strong opinion about
hunting until I read his article and realized that
perhaps because of my family,
perhaps because of my values,
the opinion has been there all along.
How can he say that killing a cow
is any more responsible than killing a deer?
Indeed, to give more right to life to one animal
over another leaves your argument null, nothing.
Yes there are hunters that hunt all wrong,
for the wrong purposes,
for sport.
But there are also those who need to hunt.
Food on the table that was once free
is infinitely better than
beef infused with antibiotics,
unclear whether it ever was a cow
and shipped from thousands of miles away.
Deer meat, while perhaps not the best option
is a better option.
And while this earth turns,
there will always be someone who eats meat.
So I say,
let them eat meat that has run through the woods,
drank from mountain streams
and eaten fat acorns.
We are part of nature if we let ourselves be
and hunting in the right way
is really just living.