On Fri, 12 Aug 1994, Burton Guttman wrote:

>I think people recoil at the idea of one animal eating another
> because we anthropomorphize them too much--we imagine that all other
> animals have psychic lives like ours, with the same richness of awareness
> and experience, so death for them is as sad, painful, and horrible as the
> death of a human.

I have long thought that the most egregious form of anthropomorphizing is
to deny that animals have any psychic life. Descartes (who brought us
other wonderful dualisms) argued that animals were simply automatons
incapable of any feelings. The extreme anti-anthropomorphizing position
views humans as separated from <mere animals> by an unbridgeable chasm.
This view is part of the more general presumption that we humans are not
part of nature, etc.

I am <not> arguing for the maudlin/romantic nonsense peddled by Disney --
only that Descartes' position is more prevalent in our culture (it <is>
reinforced by christian dogma and market economics) and that his position
is one of the core ideological bases of the current environmental
crises.

It should be obvious that this rant was triggered by and is not a
response to what Burt wrote. I <do> agree completely with something else
that Burt wrote:

> You see what comes of giving college professors an
> easily accessed electronic soapbox?


Dale Goble
U of Idaho
College of Law