Predators and Prey - Oscar Horta

[Tim Gier]

Oscar Horta, a Professor of Philosophy who is currently working at Rutgers University has written an interesting and thought provoking article about how speciesism impacts our thinking and actions towards free-living animals. Here is the introduction, followed by a link to the entire piece.

Disvalue in nature and intervention

The fox, the rabbit and the vegan food rations

Consider the following thought experiment. Suppose there is a rabbit and a fox that is about to capture and eat her. We are witnessing this, and we have two rations of vegan food. We consider what to do. Among the different ways in which we could act there are the following three ones:

(1) We eat one of the rations of vegan food and see how the fox catches and eats the rabbit.

(2) We give the fox one ration of our vegan food and we kill and eat the rabbit ourselves.

(3) We give the fox one ration of our vegan food, we eat the other one and the rabbit runs free to live her life.

Please read the whole thing here.

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[Nick Dalzell]

if by the intent of this post you are suggesting that we make all carnivores vegan you are placing the rights of horses onto the predators who are clearly designed otherwise. they are not herbivores. we are. and also, what would you suggest when our interference causes more damage by making herbivore populations skyrocket?

 

when will we realize we have NO right to interfere? haven't we done enough damage with our perceived omnipotence? i don't see deer trying to make bit cats give up meat or any other animal. humans seem so intent, however, to mold nature to suit one particular belief system out of many, and no matter the intent, it is wrong

[Tim Gier]

If animal rights means that other animals have the same basic rights to life and liberty as we do, then if we can protect the rights of one animal, without causing an equal or greater rights violation against another animal, then we ought to protect the rights of the former.  There will be difficult cases where we will not be able to know whether our actions actually make things better and not worse, but there are bound to be cases where we can know, and in those cases we should protect the lives of others.

[Nick Dalzell]

nature has checks and balances we must not try and tamper with. humans did that to begin with, saving our lives at the expense of the predators and now we have herbivore and even human overpopulation, which also increases this thing called hunting and even now we are trying to do more harm, to the natural order to save our ethics. no thanks we humans must leave things alone now!

[Nick Dalzell]

i'm sorry but interference in nature i do not tolerate. we may not like the bloody truth but we as humans, seem so intent what with our arrogance and perceived superiority as even vegans now seem intent on manipulating the instincts of carnivores? say it is not so

[Kate✯GO VEGAN+NOBODY GETS HURT Ⓥ]

Hello Tim. Thanks for sharing Dr Horta's great thought experiment here. I love how it challenges us to think more deeply about this subject.

Hello Michaela. I have been in touch with Dr Horta and explained your difficulty in understanding his thought experiment. In response to your comment he said this -

“Regarding the comment you mentioned, well, the point of the thought experiment is not whether it describes something that could actually occur or not. The point, rather, is what would be right to do, whether it would be better to let the rabbit be killed or not. It’s about our moral views. The thing is that there are practical cases in which we might apply it.”

[Michaela Österlund]

What if you give the fox the food and he just sniffs it and catches the rabbit anyway? But then again, since both the fox and the rabbit probably are scared of humans, just by being there you might have saved the rabbit. Or, the fox and the rabbit run by and don't take notice of you at all.

I get the point - but I'm a logic and the scenario doesn't make sence =)