In a message dated 1/23/99 7:17:31 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< deny such differences >>
It makes all the difference in the world how you construe such differences,
and the weight you put upon such differences. Differences are not necessarily
distinctions are not necessarily separations are definitely not necessarily
ethical dividing points.
I might point out that certain "retarded" humans can't participate in this
debate, or certain "senile" humans .... so therefore they aren't "persons",
they aren't subject to ethical consideration?
Biology makes for no clean break between the animal known as Homo Sapiens
Sapiens and other animals ... it does allow for significant differences
between All animals, but not the creation of some new type of dichotomy in
nature ... that dichotomy is constructed in the minds of some humans in some
cultures (by no means all), but that is no reason to objectify that dichotomy
and assume it exists in nature.
I don't deny that there are subtle differences between humanimals and
nonhumanimals that have, in a historical turbulence, been iterated into a vast
complex. I think it's egotistical for humans to take all the credit for this
storm ... we are creatures of the happening, of the historical turbulence that
iterated our extremely minute initial differences ... and as to whether the
effects of this historical complex are anything to brag about or set us apart
ethically, that remains in serious doubt, especially in the century of two
world wars.
