[pf] ethics or ecology. Killing animals?

· I sent a slightly smaller version of this to GreenViews-NZ just now; I'm
_more_ sure there will be people on the Positive Futures list who will be
interested.  D.

At 12:10 17/7/2001 +1200, ES wrote to GV-NZ:
>Once again the human species decides to dominate and destroy the other
living creatures which have the same right to life it claims for itself,
thru very inhuman means and for commerce and money.  The poor possum did
not ask to come here [from Australia - brought in by people to create a fur
industry], and is only trying to survive as any creature would.  We also
have an obligation to live in harmony and treat all the other creatures of
the planet with respect, and kindness.
>If we have to protect our forests, then we should try all available means
to remove unwanted 'pests' with dignity, and humane methods, and not make a
business out of killing them. There are means such as the infertilization
process, so that the numbers can be reduced.  Another "holocaust" is
unwanted and unneeded.
>  From an animal rights activist, Peace to all the creatures of the Earth.
>  Most sincerely, E.
>

[David Mac: ]
· I don't actually agree. Specifically what I don't agree with is what I
see as the concern mainly for big-eyed small furry mammals (and marsupials)
like seal pups on Canadian ice, fawns, and possums.

· If you want non-human living things treated with "dignity", and I'm not
against that, then you must not discriminate against birds, frogs, wetas,
snakes, and worms.

· Beyond that are ants, flies, wasps and spiders. 

· And further: soil bacteria and fungi - I have great respect for their
symbiosis and actions. And all other bacteria including human pathogens.

· What about all the plants?

 The towering, impressive grandfathers of the forests, Tane Mahuta [one of
scores of named huge Kauri trees] and the like? We have an introduced
silver-dollar [one species of Australian "gum tree"] that is (IMO) suitable
for special-tree listing,  and at the bottom of our tiny garden, left over
from before the housing subdivision was put in next door, is a now-healthy
kahikatea. I was sad for months when the earthworks tipped it to lean on a
middle-aged macrocarpa of our hedge - it didn't recover for years.

· Why stop with big and impressive?
 Shouldn't we revere all indigenous trees? Leaving exotics to be cut into
lumber and pulp. That's OK is it?
 Hedges and other bushes. Grass and other perennial "weeds"? Annuals,
flowering types or not?
 Algae - slime in streams and on damp concrete? 
 And shouldn't we be taking thought for the welfare of the bacteria in our
gut? In spite of excreting it/them on a regular basis.

· This is line-drawing territory - where do you draw the line?
  For me, it's between living and non-living.


· I see the answer not in ethics but in ecology. And the "rules" should
apply to us humans just as they do to other living things.


· The rest of this is an edited version of a related discussion between me
and a friend, TF. The key bit is: "I was saying that the numbers of any
species, including humans, should be set by looking for a mature, steady
ecology." That's my answer for possums, humans, and all living things.


On 27/6/2001, TF wrote:
>.. I believe it is wrong to kill or exploit another living being,
therefore I do not support the industries that produce these products. 
>
[David Mac: ]
· I consider right and wrong to be personal decisions, in some cases
determining what one does for the rest of one's life. So it's not for me or
anyone to challenge these choices; the most one should do is to ask whether
any discussion is possible, about them.
  There _are_ some commonly-held views, though even they aren't universal,
like "it's wrong to kill another human being" (you've extended this to
animals, though not plants). I was surprised and pleased to hear, a few
decades ago, that a small tribe was discovered in the New Guinea highlands
who were still using stone tools and who had never seen other humans.
Either that tribe, or others in living memory, killed and ate humans, i.e.
were cannibals. The Maori of New Zealand, who I consider an admirable race,
fully the equal of anyone else in the world, had ancestors who killed and
ate worthy opponents that they had beaten in battle.


[David, in an earlier letter: ]
>>· I don't have an answer for the question: "Isn't it better for the
animal to have lived (as a farmed animal), than not to have lived at all?"
I'm doubtful, because the reason applies to all living things, trees and
people as well; to me the number "needed" is set by a dynamic, cyclical
process, ecology, and not on the basis: more (life) is better.
>[TF: ]
>Though I am loathe to admit it, I do not understand. It sounds interesting
though!

· Which of the two things I said? The "life is better than not-life" bit
(and how it applies to all living things), or the ecology bit? If it's the
latter:

· I assume that you agree that there's nothing right or wrong with the
natural processes that occurred before humans existed, or that might exist
now if no humans had ever arrived on the scene.
· If watched, over ten to a few hundred years, you can see that the number
of plants, herbivores and carnivores varies over a small range of numbers,
so you could call the whole system stable. (That's why it looks similar, a
hundred years later when only the oldest trees are the same individuals,
everything else at the earlier time has died and been replaced.) That's a
mature ecology.

· Each of the three main groups (named above) vary over adjacent years,
with explosions of numbers followed by die-backs, as the predators,
including disease and famine, cut down the excess.

· This dynamic balance, in a mature ecology, is what humans in the last one
to two hundred years have upset, and are likely to wipe out almost
completely. I was saying that the numbers of any species, including humans,
should be set by looking for a mature, steady ecology. I call the way
people would have to live in such, sustainable living.

· The contrast I'm pointing out, is between an ethical statement (like
"human life is sacrosanct") and an operational result, where _no_humans_
decide what's right and wrong. A frequent consequence of the former is that
one group often tries to impose-on/persuade others, to make them do the same.


[David, earlier: ]
>>· In general, my view is that whatever was normal for humans for most of
the last 50,000 to 100,000 years (eating mostly vegetables incl. peas &
beans, drinking plain water, walking, etc.) is what our bodies are used to,
and is therefore "good". 
>[TF: ]
>As you have put good in speech marks, I assume that you too are
questioning what "good" is exactly. Good in what way? Spiritually?
Physically? Emotionally? Socially? Logically?
>
· All your dimensions (or criteria) are human (with possibly argument about
the last); I agree that good is a word used in those types of discussions,
but I called it "good" to indicate that I was using a human-judgement word
outside of its legitimate sphere. I was using it where most people would
instead use: natural. Implying normal, correct, what would happen if humans
hadn't gained the overweening power they have now. (Actually, we've had too
much power only since the time my father's grandfather was born. Roughly
the period where petroleum has been dominant.)


[TF: ]
>And although this probably applies in a more social context, just because
something has always happened that way before, must it be continued?
>
· You're confusing the time scales. That criticism is valid for small
multiples of a human lifetime, and usually for arguing about whether there
should be change, and if so what, and how much. I was comparing the
situation 75,000 years ago with now (when it's possible to describe humans
as a skin-cancer on the surface of the earth).

· There are transitions between one ecological stability and the next; the
main one was between the earth's reducing atmosphere (mainly carbon dioxide
and methane) and the current oxidising atmosphere. A less drastic one was
when the first large numbers of humans spread into North America; see:
http://davd.tripod.com/APRR-010615.html#06-11-09 . Huge forests were
replaced by grassland and over a dozen species of animals were made
extinct, in not many hundred years.

· So your "must it be continued?", while applying to human choices (where
it's a very suitable question), is too simple for the ecological transition
that's been going for a couple of hundred years. We _are_ here, in the
present circumstance; we (with well over 6 billion people) _cannot_ return
to some pastoral idyll. What we can do is try to foresee ways of guiding
the current transition to a "soft-landing", a new ecological balance in
which not too much has been lost of what exists now, but where the world
has had to adjust to the human plague.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
sent to Positive Futures list by David.
David MacClement [davd @ ihug.co.nz] (remove spaces)
http://davd.tripod.com/GrRR-010706_titles.html#top
http://www.geocities.com/davd.geo/index.html#top
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