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08-14-2004, 07:33 PM | #77 |
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Just as a general rule of thumb, predators will normally leave other predators alone. Its just not energetically a good equation to have to fight to the death for a few lousey pounds of meat when a nice tasty non-violent herbivore is sitting around anywhere NEAR in the neighborhood. Which would you rather do for dinner? Order out for pizza or go mano a mano with a cougar? Animals aren't stupid. Neither do they share our highly developed sense of morality and ethics (at least in theory highly developed - one wonders sometimes). There is a difference between killing and murder. I submit that animals are incapable of murder. That trick Man alone knows how to play. As for the fabled lions - I suspect that was a fable and nothing more.
Last edited by marichiko; 08-14-2004 at 07:37 PM. |
08-14-2004, 07:36 PM | #78 | |
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08-14-2004, 09:38 PM | #79 | |
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Even human law divides murder into many catagories depending on the circumstances, so where do you draw the line? I disagree on the Tsavo lions in that I think it's documented well enough that although it could well be exaggerated, I doubt if it's fabricated. Animals, like humans, occasionally produce odd looking and/or behaving individuals. That's what keeps Wolf and my friend Sharon, the Animal Control Officer, guessing.
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08-15-2004, 01:22 AM | #80 | |
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http://www.fieldmuseum.org/exhibits/...maneaters.html Here is the link to a bunch of the photos Patterson took. http://www.fieldmuseum.org/exhibits/...o/gallery.html
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08-15-2004, 04:37 AM | #81 |
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I think for it to be murder there has to be sentience
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08-15-2004, 08:42 AM | #82 |
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Sentience, n.
The quality or state of being sentient; consciousness. Feeling as distinguished from perception or thought. Sentient, adj. Having sense perception; conscious: "The living knew themselves just sentient puppets on God's stage" (T.E. Lawrence). Experiencing sensation or feeling. Uh,...Do you mean a critter would have to know they were killing another critter, Dana? As opposed to kicking it's ass until it happened to die? I'm confused. I think animals understand when another animal is dead vs alive, but they'll never attach all the ramifications people do, to death. I'm convinced that when a lion grabs a victims throat, they're aware the victim is going to end up in a state of what the lion understands to be dead. It's intentional and premeditated, which only leaves "justified" as the determining factor between killing and murder. Maybe.
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08-15-2004, 05:34 PM | #83 |
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I think it's exactly that ability to understand the ramifications of the act which causes us to classify killing as murder. Animals have no such sensibilities, they have no moral or ethical understanding of the world.
There was a time when animals were considered capable of murder. During the middle ages there were several well documented cases of animals being tried for murder and in some cases executed. That was because murder was seen as an act of evil and animals were seen as capable of being evil |
08-15-2004, 06:10 PM | #84 |
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There is no court in the land that would try an animal for murder. Animals that kill human beings are simply dispatched themselves or in rare cases, relocated to territories far enough away from humans. Look at all the outcry there was on that thread sometime back about sharks in Austrailia being killed for having killed humans. No one accused the sharks of murder. No one came forth to plea extenuating circumstances for the sharks other than that they were merely animals. Males of various species of felines will kill kittens that they have not sired - this is called the reproduction instinct. Every organism is equipped with an instinct to perpetuate its own genetic code. By killing kittens, it did not father, a male feline is merely following this instinct and could hardly be considered a "murderer". Animals may be sentient beings, but they do not have the intelligence from which to create a strict rule of morality and ethics. The ethic of the animal world is Nature's - nothing more. The cases where we see the animal "ethic" go awry are generally ones where either man has interfered and upset the balance in some way or where we do not know the full story of what is going on. I find the killer lion story highly suspect because no zoologist or ethnologist was on the scene to obseve the facts in a scientific manner. Felids are known to prey on men almost always because the cat is injured or sick. The large size of the lions killed make me think that the "great white hunter" of the time found a couple of convenient scapecoats to placate the natives and tell a good story back home while the real killer lions probably had died of some illness or injury already sustained.
Oh and Bruce, I just found your quote in the hamster thread, "She would have to have comprehension and I doubt she's pondering the meaning of life. I fully understand your not wanting her to suffer pain, but how do you know she's feeling anything other than unusual?" Well which is it? Either an animal is capable of advanced philosophical thought or it's not. Make up your mind. Last edited by marichiko; 08-15-2004 at 06:26 PM. |
08-15-2004, 07:03 PM | #85 | |
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08-15-2004, 07:15 PM | #86 | |
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08-15-2004, 07:33 PM | #87 | ||
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I see, then murder is a violation of your rules and not a crime against nature. That being true, then I'll have to agree critters can't commit murder. Quote:
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08-16-2004, 09:42 AM | #88 |
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I'm not sure which rules I'm supposed to be making up. My comments on feline behavior come from what I learned in an animal ecology class at University of Colorado. Take it up with them if you feel they are teaching feline behavior incorrectly. I don't understand your last sentence. Maybe its because I'm a girl.
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08-16-2004, 10:55 AM | #89 | |
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08-16-2004, 09:24 PM | #90 | |
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What I questioned was your statement, “I submit that animals are incapable of murder. That trick Man alone knows how to play.” I responded with examples of animals killing for neither food nor defense, one of which you explained. Now, when you smugly state animals can’t murder, then define murder as killing while cognizant of a strict rule of morality and ethics, that’s a straw man. I’ve shown examples that premeditated killings occur and I won’t argue whether it should be called murder for humans and nature for animals. It’s still the same thing. I’m not surprised you didn’t understand the last sentence in that post, it was a joke.
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