[Avodah] anti-meat rhetoric "according to Judaism"

[T613K at aol.com]

From: Micha Berger _micha at aishdas.org_ (mailto:micha at aishdas.org) 

On Thu, Jul 15,  2010, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
: Whether they are or are not "aware of  their own mental state" seems
: irrelevant to me. They can and do feel pain,  don't they?

RMB responded:
 
>>But they don't feel themselves feeling pain. There is no "I"  as in
"I am in pain". There are chemical and neurological events, yes,  but
not suffering as we think of the concept.

:> You are setting a  threshold based on the notion that there is real
:> suffering going on  that carries a moral burden to avoid. Who said?

: Are you saying that  there's no real suffering going on?

Exactly, because an animal doesn't  have a ruach, and therefore there is
no one to suffer. There is stimulus and  response, with no awareness or
bechirah in between. IOW, I am saying that  Skinner and all the other
Radical Behaviorists were totally off in explaining  the human metzi'us,
but their kind of analysis does yield a complete  description of animals. <<






>>>>
 
I don't believe that's true and I don't believe that Skinner's  
"explanations" actually explain any vertebrate behavior, certainly not  mammals'.
 
I enter into evidence the following two exhibits:
 
a.  Bilaam's donkey
 
b. The calf who ran away because it didn't want to be shechted and the  
tanna said, "You have to go and be shechted because lekach notzarta."  (and  
then -- if I am not confusing two different stories -- he suffered terribly  
himself because of his lack of compassion for his animal, until he told the 
maid  to be nice and not sweep away his chipmunks or squirrels or kittens or  
something)
 
 
Now the mitzva of shiluach hakan (and also of not shechting an animal and  
its child on the same day) may be there in order to train humans not to have 
the  midah of achzarius.   It is questionable whether birds and animals  
suffer emotional distress at seeing their children captured or killed -- 
beyond  instinct.  Once their children are grown -- often in a matter of weeks -- 
 they no longer even recognize their own children.  But it is  indisputable 
that they suffer physical pain, and the notion that they don't  suffer 
because there is no "I" there is just wrong.  
 
 

--Toby  Katz
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