peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley) (04/01/84)
When one is presented with a proof using a given set of axioms and inference rules, it's a good idea to see if that logical system is consistent. It is well known that one can prove anything in an inconsistent system (e.g. from the axiom 0=1 added to ordinary arithmetic, one can prove anything about arithmetic). Thus it is proper to ask if Laura's system is consistent. First, what is Laura's system? The 3 axioms she presented translate into a large number of statements. The important axioms are 1 and 3: Life is Good and There is an Objective Reality. The latter admits all the facts of the world that people agree on (water is necessary for life, the earth is about 75% water, a rock released in mid-air will fall, ...). Axiom 2, Human Life Is Good, follows from axiom 1 and the generally agreed fact that humans are living, using an inference rule from ordinary logic. Laura hasn't explicitly given her inference rules, which are an important part of any logical system, but I'll assume they are those of ordinary first-order predicate logic, augmented by "common-sense" rules admitted by axiom 3 (e.g. An agent for good is good, an agent for evil is evil). I hope to show that Laura's system is inconsistent by showing that there exists something that is both good and not good-- a contradiction. That thing is a male hunter of a primitive society, called "Fred". Now, Fred hunts to feed his family. The food that he provides allows them to continue living. Since life is good, Fred is clearly an agent for good. Thus, Fred is good. But, Fred *hunts* to feed his family. This means that he kills deer, rabbits, whatever comes along that will sustain his family. He causes the cessation of life. Since the cessation of life is not good, Fred is clearly an agent for "not-good" (read "evil"). Thus Fred is not good. So Fred is both good and not good and we have a contradiction, leading me to believe that Laura's system is inconsistent and not a sound basis for argument. Some of the details of this argument are worth mentioning... the facts about Fred are *givens*. Saying "he could farm" is not a valid objection. The facts are as they are and the logical system is applied to those facts, coming up with a contradiction. The point is not to take a pot-shot a Laura's argument. It is to show the absurdity of arguing questions of the ethics of life with monotonic logic, which doesn't allow the weighing of factors. p. rowley, U. Toronto
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (04/01/84)
Peter, you forgot axiom 2 : human life is good. I didn't give you how i derrived it, so this makes sense. ``Human life is good'' does not only just follow through from axiom 1, but also manifests a hierarchy of values. The bottom line is that human life is more important than animal life, and animal life is more important than plant life, and within categories there are (in theory at any rate) other divisions. The whole structure is pretty much the same as the one derrived by Aristotle. If you want to read about it it is better to read Thomas Aquinas on this because he is a lot clearer about a good many things, but take into account hat he is also interested in demonstrating the Truth of Christianity, which is something that neither Aristotle nor I were/are interested in. I structure my hierarchy on the ability & potential to be rational. (So deos Aristotle). Plants have a very poor ability to be rational. [Aristotle is generally translated as calling this a Vegetative Soul, but againyou have to drop the Christian connotations of soul. Aquinas puts them back in, so watch it...] Animals are better at it and have a soul which encompasses in ability that of the plants [Aminal Soul] and humans have the full ability to be rational [Intellectual Soul]. All of this Aristotle worked out through observation (ie paying attention to the objective reality). The other thing that he noticed was that it was characteristic of living things to consume and expropriate othere things in order to survive. Plants take in minerals and water. Herbivores eat plants. Carnivores eat herbivores. Omnivores eat plants and herbivores. This is part of objective reality as well. So -- in some sense it is good to kill things, becase it is necessary for survival. If I did not kill plants or animals then I would die and that would bring about the loss of my valuable life which is in no way to be considered less valauable than a plants on an objective level. There one has a (and in my view the only) justification for killing. If not killing will bring about your own death then killing is necessary. More generally, if killing a lesser ensures te survival of a greater on the hierarchy then this is indeed good. Wanton and unecesary killing is not good. So -- if Fred needs to kill animals to support his family then that is good. If Fred decided to kill all the animals in the areas for the sheer love of killing then this is not good. If Fred decides to kill his mother-in-law then this is not good. If Fred is being attacked by his mother-in-law and has to kill her to defend his life then this is good. There is a difficulty if, for instance, Fred and his mother-in-law were both starving and each other were the only things to eat, but such situations rarely happen in nature. there are also other difficulties to resolve. Wanton killing of animals for fun is not good, yet I do not feel that weeding my garden is morally evil. This is because I extend the right to not be killed for fun to animals and not plants. Likewise I extend the right to not be killed for any purpose except the preservation of my life to humans and not animals. (I don't know where to put dolphins and higher apes. So to be safe I would not kill them for any purpose except the preservation of my own life.) Experimentation on animals for the persuit of knowledge is thus justifiable under this scheme and experimentation on unwilling human subjects is not. You may find the distinctions fairly arbitrary, though there are real objective ways in which almost all plants can be told from almost all animals. It may be that dolphins belong in the human category as well (as being that posess a rational soul) but nobody has any real difficulty in telling a carrot from a squirrel from a human. It may also be that in assigning the rights to plants and animals I am making a mistake in not advocating vegetarianism. I don't eat a lot of meat but I don't find the eating of meat morally objectionable. And I believe that it is necessary for certain animals (such as my father's cat) to eat meat. It may be that this is a mistake. The theory thus needs some work. If we understood what `conscious rational life' really *was* (a opposed to merely being able to observe it) then the question of ``whether a fetus is an example of conscious rational life'' would be a lot closer towards being decidable. However, the theory is extremely workable right now, and is not inconsistent. * * * * 2 notes: for people who want to read Aristotle -- If you translate `soul' as `will' you may get a better grasp of what he is talking about. Nietzche on `the Will to Power' <his most basic theme> is good for this as well. When I say that I extend the rights to animals I do not mean that I create the rights out of my own desires and foist them on the animals. Rather I mean that these rights seem to reflect the natural order of things and therefore are already implicit -- I just choose to make them explicit as I recognise them. This is why this theory of ethics is called ``Natural Law'' -- because the various rights (laws) seem to be part of the objective and natural reality. -- Laura Creighton utzoo!laura "Capitalism is a lot of fun. If you aren't having fun, then you're not doing it right." -- toad terrific