--- On Mon, 11/17/08, Trent Waddington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 7:44 AM, Matt Mahoney > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I mean that people are free to decide if others feel > pain. For example, a scientist may decide that a mouse does > not feel pain when it is stuck in the eye with a needle (the > standard way to draw blood) even though it squirms just like > a human would. It is surprisingly easy to modify one's > ethics to feel this way, as proven by the Milgram > experiments and Nazi war crime trials. > > I'm sure you're not meaning to suggest that scientists commonly > rationalize in this way, nor that they are all Nazi war > criminals for experimenting on animals. > > I feel the need to remind people that "animal rights" is a fringe > movement that does not represent the views of the majority. We > experiment on animals because the benefits, to humans, are > considered worthwhile.
I am not taking a position on whether inflicting pain on animals (or people or machines) is right or wrong. That is an ethical question. Ethics is a system of beliefs that varies from one person to another. There is no such thing as a "correct" model, although everyone believe so. All we can say is that some models work better than others as measured by individual or group survival. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
