altruism, the individual/ society? and animal rights

["Alice Evans" <apyyae@nottingham.ac.uk>]

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** For Your Eyes Only **

1. the gene that enables one to "put other people's safety before one's own" does not survive. you say "this works because it doesn't matter whether the gene survives in my body or in someone else's, so long as it (i.e. the particular pattern of self-replicating DNA) survives over the long term" but surely it does matter. for they need not necessarily have the altruistic gene that enabled u to put their safety first. the altruistic gene, by its very nature, surely does not survive?

2.  just because it is in the society's interest that individuals should be altruist does not entail that such organisms will survive (this i think, is an important distinction). those who 'cheat' and take parasitic advantage of the social contract come off the best, these arseholes will thus survive.. surely?

3.  i think our instinct for altruism arises from empathy. we care for those we empathise with. the longer the link, the lesser the immediacy, the more effort required to act altruistically. This explains why we allow attrocities and human rights violations in africa, for example, and daily slaughter and maltreatment of non-human animals. This is why meat in supermarkets is presented without bits which show the genetic similarity, between humans and non-humans, such as eyes etc. Perhaps, genetic similarity is a 'sufficient' but not 'necessary' condition for entrance to the moral domain?

4.  why get a cat? is this not the same as mousetraps? same way of restoring balance? isnt this just ur way of manoevering round the idea of killing something. it's like saying i wont hit the child with my bare hand (i wont set traps) i'll set a ball rolling down the drive when it passes (i'll get a cat) which (in both cases) i know will kill it? and suppose you lived in a flat, would u adopt a cat for this purpose? i guess you could borrow one...

5. how would u argue non-human animals have a right to life, if treated humanely? responding to those who assert that animals have no interest in continued survival.

6. how do u stand on animal testing?

alice

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