[Avodah] animals and bechira??

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 11:52:01AM -0500, David Riceman wrote:
> Is there any evidence for this? I would have thought that it's a  
> machlokes Tannaim (BK 1:4) and Amoraim (Sanhedrin 15b).


The concept of shor hamu'ad (BQ) is whether this animal poses a perpetual
danger, or was dangerous once. This doesn't imply anything about free
will either way. I could even ask whether a computer program is likely
to often do something, or was handling what was coded as a special
(or rare) situation.

Why are you assuming that a machloqes about how beis din should decide
to kill an animal implies that the animal has free will? Respect for
life would require us to be careful about when to kill higher animals;
it needn't be about whether the animal is an agent that could be blamed.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

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