Jon Letendre

“I need a drink.” Don’t you know that fifty potatoes have to die to produce one ounce of vodka—two hundred barley plants to make a beer! Make sure that drink is water. Then go outside and pee on the weeds.

Phil Coates wrote, “DMBH is a particularly "slippery" writer, whom you have to watch like a hawk. She often is caught slipping in a qualification or caveat like this which might slip by the attention of many people” Later, MSK quotes her: “Also, I should mention that I've spoken repeatedly with two lawyers about this matters over the past few days. Both of them used to speak at TOC, and so they are familiar with TOC's "Speaker's Agreements." On both legal and moral grounds, they wholly support my right to refuse permission to play these lectures.” MSK comments, “if she reported her legal advice correctly, she has been advised wrongly (and apparently "repeatedly") by her two anonymous laywers.” I’ll bet she reported it correctly, and that she has been advised correctly. Phil sure was right! Notice that she didn’t claim that the lawyers told her that the club NEEDS her permission; rather she claims only that they “support my right to REFUSE permission.” I hereby refuse permission to use my name in vain! I just spoke with my Mom, and she supports me. She specifically said, “You have the right to refuse that permission.”

The question is whether or not babies have a basic, negative right to life. (Questions of positive obligations that we can attach to the parents or the state should be left for later.) The existence of an abundance of people able and willing to adopt unwanted babies, treating them as though they do have a right to life and even showering them with positive obligations, does not resolve the question. Bidinotto wrote, and Michael and I agree with him: “But when we talk of "babies," "children," and "adults," we are talking about US -- at various ages. That's all. And rights are moral principles that pertain to humans as a species -- not merely to time periods in the lives of humans.” In this view, babies have at a minimum the negative right to life as established in the standard Objectivist derivation of rights. (So you cannot put one in a dumpster when people who will care for it are a 911 phone call away.) This view says that babies are covered by the Objectivist derivation. Rowlands view is that babies are NOT covered by the Objectivist derivation: “I just don't think being a part of the species is relevant to the concept of rights. If the principle is formulated in the context of adults, establishing a harmony of interests between them, then the principle is applicable to adults. Spreading it out to all humans, including babies, is an example of using one criteria to formulate the concept (rational men living harmonious), and another criteria to expand it (part of the human species). I don't think it applies.” Now, if babies are not covered by the standard Objectivist derivation of rights, then it becomes an open question as to whether or not they have any rights, even the minimum negative right to life. Imagine a researcher who acquires unwanted babies from their unwanting biological mothers for $1,000 and conducts pharmaceutical research on them. You can see that an abundance of people ready and willing to adopt those babies are irrelevant, because these acquired babies are not available for adoption—they belong to the researcher and he ain’t sellin’. Rowland’s contention is that any attempt to establish rights for and a reason to respect the rights of babies must appeal to the self-interest of he who considers the issue, just as, according to him, is the case with rights vis-à-vis adults. He explains the reason one should respect the rights of other adults is that it is the best way to ensure that one’s own rights are respected, it is the way to establish a harmony of interests. He writes: “We respect the freedom of others because their freedom benefits us. It does so first because it makes it more likely that our own freedom will be secure. And also, because there is a harmony of interests between rational men, and we benefit from others living their lives effectively, through trade, education, etc.” He holds that ultimately the appeal must be to the self-interest of the individual considering whether or not to respect another’s rights.: “The value in respecting the rights of a human shield that protects a psychopath about to kill all your loved ones and yourself still exists. There is value there. But the costs completely outweigh it.” Well, what if I need an organ transplant and the researcher mentioned above can sell me an organ? What if I am considering taking an anti-tumor drug and the researcher can establish that it is or is not effective and safe? My self-interest, and his, will lie in the acquired-for-research-babies not having rights, and therefore they do not have rights, according to Rowland’s chain of reasoning. My contention is simply that if the Objectivist derivation of rights does not include babies, and that if a separate case for rights of babies must appeal to the self-interest of those considering the question (we adults,) then the case will fail. We adults would benefit much more from pharmaceutical research, efficacy and safety testing on babies, than we would otherwise. There will always be plenty of wanted babies, the species will go on. And the research-babies could hardly retaliate for what we do to them, so harmony is preserved. Rowlands likes to say that I am an emotionalist. He means that I have an emotionally-motivated desire to conclude that babies have rights, are included in the Objectivist derivation of rights. (Fascinating that Bidinotto has not yet been labeled an emotionalist.) I shouldn’t complain, he said much worse of MSK for essentially the same ‘babies are covered’ arguments.

OK, Barbara, you asked for it… I hunt birds with pointing dogs. There’s a common misconception that pointers literally point to the prey, but that’s not what they do. Going “on point” is just an extension of stalking behavior, they’re freezing, just like a cheetah freezes, moves closer, and freezes again—she doesn’t want to be noticed until she’s close enough and the time is right to burst. This is a natural behavior in dogs inherited from their wolf/coyote ancestors. Those canids will slowly “creep” upon a bird on the ground and if all goes well the bird will hold tight and not take to wing until it realizes the coyote is there, only a few feet away. Then the coyote can jump up and forward, swat the bird down, and eat it. Pointing dogs were bred by selecting for strong “pointing” behavior, that is, the tendency to freeze, like a cheetah does, instead of creeping. They were selectively bred for this tendency as well as for acute scenting ability, intelligence, and pack cooperation. We train pointers starting as puppies. The simplest early routine is to tie a bird wing to the end of a fishing pole and go into the back yard. When the dog is not looking you cast the wing behind some object and wait. Dufus wanders around until she smells the bird wing. That moment of discovery is dramatic. Her head will snap to the direction of the wind that brought the scent and the way she carries herself changes—no more dopey puppy, now she has her nose down and looks like a blood-hound in hot pursuit. Generally, she will quickly find the wing, but before she can bite it you whip the pole up and behind you allowing the wing to settle down elsewhere. The dog’s experience is: smelling a bird, approaching it, going in for it, and being disappointed it has disappeared. She will now wander around again until her head snaps again in the direction of the wing. This time, she will take a few steps and freeze. When she moves, breaks the freeze, you whip the pole again and place the wing somewhere else. Now she can’t smell it, it’s gone. Her experience is: smelling a bird, approaching it, freezing, breaking the freeze, and being disappointed it has disappeared. Soon, the dog learns that breaking her point means the end of the marvelous experience of taking in that bird scent. When she holds a long point, you tell her what a great dog she is and end the lesson. I explain this because for the hunting I do, this is part of it. It starts years ahead of the hunt. You can hunt birds alone, but hunting with pointing dogs is a completely different experience and you have to train them and get the protocol down first. You probably have no idea how hunting birds with pointing dogs works, so I will explain this too. The birds habituate on the ground. If you hunt without dogs, it’s your foot traffic noise that gets the bird up and flying. It’s always a surprise, you never know when one will pop up and fly away. And, if you hunt without dogs, it doesn’t matter if you go into the wind, downwind or whatever. But when you hunt with dogs there are fewer surprises. The birds are located, by scent, by the dogs. The guns don’t look for birds, they watch the dogs. They watch for the change in body disposition, and the snapping of the head that indicates the dog has picked up bird scent. You walk into the wind, dogs in front, and guns behind. You have to walk into the wind so that scent may be picked up. (If you walked down wind, the dogs wouldn’t smell a bird until they had passed it.) The dogs work back and forth and forward into the wind until they pick up bird scent. For all of this to make sense I have to explain the bird’s behavior as well. Their behavior is the result of eons of evolutionary pressure being predated by canids on the ground and birds of prey from the air. As a result, they do not mull about on open ground, but prefer always to be hunkered into cover, in brush, in thick grasses, etc. If their genetic behavioral repertoire could speak it would say: “I hear some foot traffic coming. A coyote. It could find me, and I am ready to go to the pond for water anyway, so I’m going to fly away right now while that coyote is still far enough away for my safe exit from here.” On the other hand, if the bird has only just settled down in that spot, has nice cover with seeds all around it and wants to feed for the next hour, it says: “I hear some foot traffic coming. A coyote. A steady prance. It’ll probably just pass by. I will keep my head down, remain in this ideal cover and hope it passes by without noticing me. If that steady prance breaks up and it gets to sounding louder and closer, I’ll reassess.” There are times when they hunker down and don’t switch to flight mode until the last minute. Most bird hunters have experienced literally stepping on top of birds (ruffed grouse and pheasant, especially) before they take to flight. So there’s that whole spectrum of sometimes taking to flight a hundred yards ahead of the guns (three times the kill range, so way out of range,) all the way down to not taking to flight until someone literally kicks them. Most common is right in the middle, that is, the bird will take to flight when the feet are about fifty yards away (out of range.) So the point here is that hunting without dogs means that most birds will take to flight and go away safely, well out or just out of range. There’s nothing you can do about that, except keep going and hope for the one who favors hunkering and doesn’t take to flight until only ten or twenty yards separate you from him, and only then will you get an executable outcome. (Remember, his behavioral repertoire is tuned to your being a coyote, not a gun-toting human, so even an exit with only three yards separation is taken to be sufficient for a safe exit.) Some people take their untrained Fido bird hunting, because the extra foot traffic helps in putting up the hunkerers, but the calculus remains mostly the same—most birds will go up well beyond shooting range. Also, without good dogs, many hunkerers succeed in their hunkering—you walk right past them. This is known because occasionally a dog will run behind the guns on his way back out front only to locate a bird on the ground you just now walked past. Now, the part you are still reading for…here’s how the classic bird hunt goes with well trained pointing dogs: You walk into the wind, dogs in front. The dogs run zero to one hundred yards ahead of the guns, left to the last gun on the left and right to the last gun at right and back and forth. They cover vast amounts of ground sniffing for bird scent, they run like demons. The guns scan the sky ahead because it worth knowing that birds are going up ahead, but mostly they watch the dogs’ body posture for signs of bird scent suspicion. When such is detected, we call it being “birdy.” This is an art, actually, and every dog is different. Everyone can read their own dog’s birdieness, it’s in the way they carry their tail or arch their back or furl the skin on top of their head. After a day or two with a new hunting partner’s dog, you start to see it, too. The chatter sounds like this: “Birdy dog over here. Very birdy dog. Never mind, he’s mousing. Hey! Never mind the mice, find a bird!” The point of announcing birdiness is to alert the other guns that a dog is looking like he suspects he might smell a bird so that they will make their gun hold more ready, since a bird could imminently burst to flight. This goes on and off, birdiness announced and retracted, over and over again, until suddenly one of the dogs locks up frozen on point like a statue. The other dogs notice him on point and they lock up as well. All the dogs, moments ago running around like madmen, are still as stone now. All the guns are at ready, but no one moves or talks. The dog that is on point exercises his professional discretion and slowly and deliberately steps forward two more yards. He was mistaken initially in believing the strength of the scent indicated the bird was right in font of him, so he closes in on it a bit more and then locks up again, and starts shivering. Now comes the critical interplay of bird instincts and dog instincts. The dog’s natural instinct would be to now creep quietly to the bird until the bird switches to “time to fly out of here” mode and the dog would have a good chance at swatting it down and killing it. Problem with that is, we don’t want the dog to kill the bird. Instead, we want to shoot it from the sky ourselves, but we are still DOZENS of yards behind the dog (we are out of range.) If the dog were to creep up on the bird, he would cause it to take flight before we get within range. So you can see why holding the point is critical. The dog must stay tight. Reading the posture of his point, especially the adrenaline-loaded shivering, we know the bird is within ten yards in front of him (a more “tentative” point would indicate the bird is farther, sometimes twenty or even forty yards ahead, in which case the guns would need to proceed well ahead of the pointing dog.) Once the guns are within ten yards behind the dog everyone is positioned perfectly. The die is cast; all except the pointer relax now. The chatter picks up again. “Look at him shiver, it’s a wonder he doesn’t lose his balance and fall down.” “This is Vince’s dog, he should be the one…where’s Vince? Oh, there you are, Vince. You’ll do this, yes?” “Sure, but feel free everyone, after I miss.” “I’ll step back a bit here so you have a fully open sky.” We’ve been walking on dry leaves and sticks all morning so the silence now is disorienting. Everyone is still and quiet for a long moment. For the first time we can hear the cows in a nearby field, and the wind. “You gonna do this, Vince?” “Yes! I’m gon…” “Well, your dog is shaking like a leaf, it can’t be good for him.” The click of his safety coming off is heard. Vince looks down at some sticks, raises his boot and stomps on them. At once everyone startles, even the dogs. The bird bursts loudly into the air from a spot on the ground no one of us had particularly expected. Its plumage appears neon in the low morning sun. What seems an eternity passes…Vince could be shooting, but he hasn’t. More safety clicks are heard. You raise your gun and track it to the bird’s path. You’ll shoot before it gets out of range. Just before you shoot, Vince’s gun is heard and the bird drops, lifeless, instantly dead. The dog runs to the spot, picks up the prey in its mouth and retrieves it to Vince’s hand. Now, is this just a game? Of course it is. But it’s a sophisticated one that requires its participants connect on multiple levels. We humans are top-notch predators; yet this form of predation is one we could not engage in without the cooperation of another fine predator, the dog companion. This is predation with the use of predators who answer to you—something no other creature can engineer. You, the hunter, beginning years ago in your back yard with a wing and a fishing pole and a puppy, create that scale of cooperation.

“Is it quite fair to conclude that I value none of the values hunters pursue, when I keep telling you I have no idea what those values are? Do you really know me well enough to come to that conclusion?” It’s fair because earlier you wrote “I don't want to be unfair, bit I don't understand it, despite the attempts of hunters to explain it.” From this and other of your previous comments I took it that the non-bloodthirsty hunters you have conversed with have tried to share their perspective with you to no avail. “Perhaps I deserve just a bit more trust in my ability to understand, and even to rspect values that may not be mine but that I can grasp the rationale for.” I intend no insult; it’s just that it sounds to me that you’ve heard much of what I can say about it and it just doesn’t work for you, which is OK.

Barbara, “I have not been questioning the validity of destroying an animal in order to provide man with a real benefit, but only the validity of enjoying the process of killing that animal.” Here, again, you seem to say to that no real benefits can accrue from hunting for sport and that such hunters are motivated by sheer enjoyment of the killing process. It’s fine that none of the values sport hunters pursue are of any value to you. Part of the reason I am shy to elaborate on what those values are for me is that I am certain they will hold no allure for you, so it really wouldn’t help. Nevertheless, I can assure you I extract values from hunting and killing things is incidental to them. For me, those values certainly rate alongside the tastiness of a prime rib or the beauty of a pair of designer shoes. Someone who thought leather looks and smells disgusting, who thought meat is counter to good health, etc., would be in your situation—they would be incapable of seeing the values, the “real benefits” of destroying any animals. There would be no way to bring them to an appreciation of those values which are real benefits to other people, but we could at least ask that they appreciate that those really are real values to other people, and it simply isn’t so that none exist and so, oh well, they must just prefer dead things to living things.

Barbara, It still seems to me that that is what you are saying. Your latest question seems to confirm this: “Of everything one might do with one's time, why would killing animals be a choice? Why would this be entertaining?” If we were talking about fishing, the question would be: “Of everything a grandfather might do with his grandson, why would torturing fish be a choice? Why would this be entertaining?” The question itself presupposes that the grandfather takes the boy fishing because it is entertaining, and the specific form of entertainment is the joy of torturing fish.

I think you are right, Jonathan. There seems to be something operating here, that people feel more OK with a mess the further they are personally removed from it. I heard an interview on NPR with a researcher who studied this phenomenon. He said that in studies, the vast majority of people are fine with an impersonal action, and they become less and less fine with it the “closer” and more “personal” it becomes, despite that consequences of the action remain the same. This isn’t the best example, but it’s the one I remember from the interview: Suppose you are on a bridge overlooking a rail line. Six men are working on the rails below and an unexpected train is coming that will kill them. There is a lever conveniently placed next to you and if you pull it, you can redirect the fast approaching train to a different set of tracks, where only two men are working and would be killed. Do you pull the lever? Apparently, the vast, vast majority of respondents would pull the lever. Then those same respondents are asked to modify the scenario. This time there is no lever, but a very fat man is standing next to you who you could push off the bridge and his hefty body would redirect the train to yet another set of tracks where only one man (instead of six) is working and would be killed. Respondents are asked to assume the fat guy will die, and that pushing him would work, as sure as pulling the lever in the first scenario would work. Positive response dropped to a small minority of respondents.

Barbara, “Let me ask you a question. If, in the precise moment before you fired at an animal, you were to make it fully real to yourself that you were about to kill a beautiful living being, a being who might well suffer agonies because of you, and that its potential for joy would be gone forever and by your hand -- could you then fire?” It is every time fully real to me that they are beautiful living beings that might well suffer agonies, and yes, I still fire. I can think of one time that I did not. Unlike Pheasants, which typically take to wing straight up like a helicopter then go away in a straight line, ruffed grouse will dart behind cover to keep trees between you and them. This one time, a grouse took off right from my buddy’s feet (they hunker, sometimes you don’t see them) and burst away, darting into and behind trees. My friend fired when it was in the open, again when it reemerged, and a third time upon its final reemergence. But this thing was incredible. It displayed the maneuverability of a dolphin. It turned again and passed over my head and I watched it fly away into open sky away from me. My friend asked, “Why didn’t you shoot?” “Holy shit.” “Why didn’t you…” “Did you see that?” Why didn’t you shoot it?” “Oh, um, I don’t know. I guess after seeing how beautifully it fucked you, I just couldn’t.” Now I remember one more time. A friend and I were in Northern New Hampshire, maybe a mile from the Quebec border. We were walking a gravel timber company road. The grouse do the same because they swallow the gravel to turn in their craw and break up the shells of the seeds they eat, so it’s an easy method—you walk in the brush beside the road and put them up hoping they’ll fly into the open over the road instead of into the woods. (It’s a private road, not a public thoroughfare, so this is allowed (Live Free or Die).) So my friend puts one up right in front of him and it flies, like a dumb bird, straight away from us, in the open, straight down the road. Now I have to explain an aspect of shot gunning. In order to absorb the recoil of the gun you lean forward upon firing. You don’t even realize you do it, but if you don’t, your barrel will rise too much for a good follow-up shot and you might even have to take a step back upon recoil. My friend raises his gun for this easy shot, tracks for a moment, then lunges, stumbling and taking a step forward. My friend has learned the truth of what I wrote above. Having forgotten to take off his safety, no shot occurred when he expected it to. He looks disoriented and I’m laughing. “Well, you could have shot it, too!” He yells. “At the moment I can’t do anything but marvel at the safest gun in the world, you dip-shit.” I did see The Deer Hunter. I am guessing I was twelve when I saw it. I recall that scene and have never forgotten it. I don’t recall any other scene, unless it was the same movie where the enemy forces some GIs to play Russian roulette in an elevated hut. If that’s the same movie, then that’s the only other scene I recall. I have all the respect in the world for anyone who’s “had enough” and doesn’t want to kill anything anymore. But I still object to describing hunters as motivated simply to reduce the count of we the living.

Barbara, I don’t know anyone who hunts because they “enjoy watching blood spill.” That’s not fair. You are projecting the part that bothers you the most onto them, as though that’s what they’re motivated by. A pacifist could just as easily say that all soldiers are mentally twisted because they just want to kill people. Judith, You quote Graham at length while also making clear you don’t agree with him! He says animals have the right to be left alone, yet you keep horses and dogs, you eat birds, and you agree with Michael about eating meat from slaughterhouses and exterminating undesirables with traps and poisons and with keeping beasts of burden (slave animals.) About research, which can fairly be described as torture (even if torture with a purpose) you say you are “squeamish.” “I'm not happy about people who hunt for any reason other than eating the meat. I live with the fact that people do it, but I don't like it. It shows an appalling lack of empathy.” I find this very strange. Outside of poor rural folk, no one today in the USA hunts because they will starve otherwise. They’re hunting for other reasons, like myself, even if they happen to eat the animals, like I do. If Vick had eaten the dogs, would it all be OK? I’ve heard this before and I don’t get it. “It’s terrible…but as long as you eat them, well, OK.” Hunting shows no more an appalling lack of empathy than your bird eating does. The birds I kill live a fine life in their natural habitat before my dog and I find them (and, in the case of quail, about 80% of the population will be dead before winter is out anyway, while hunting eliminates maybe 15%.) You on the other hand (even though it makes you “feel very uneasy,”) pay producers to raise birds in terrible confines where they live horrible lives and die no differently, nor any faster, than my shotgun provides. Who lacks empathy?!

I don’t want to hijack Neil’s excellent thread any further, but just to thank Ellen and Michael for the welcome.

Stephen, Harry was definitely not saying Peikoff thought merely that hunting should not be illegal, but that it is a proper, appropriate activity. Perhaps the caveat of using the fur or eating the meat was assumed. Still, whatever caveats were assumed, Harry said Peikoff thought it OK, while Harry thought it not. I’ve never understood the hunting for “sport” vs. hunting for “rational purposes” distinction. The anti-hunting response—that in the 21st century there are better ways to obtain clothing and food—is pretty much unanswerable. The anti-hunting conclusion—that modern hunters, while they may eat the animals, are really hunting because they enjoy it for itself—is also unanswerable. While I certainly agree that a hunter whose sole interest is in the ending of life must be disturbed, I also have never met such a hunter. I won’t even start about someone who would shoot a game bird on the ground! (just ribbin’ ya’.)

Ellen, I was amazed at your recounting that Harry believed cats incapable of experiencing pain. In college, in ’89 or ’90, I arranged for him and Ed Locke to debate animal-rights activists at my school. In a conversation following the debate, Harry said that while Peikoff thought hunting a legitimate activity, he (Harry) found it barbaric. I will never forget him raising his crooked finger to his distorted lips and saying, “Even fishing. The poor thing has a hook in its mouth, how can that not be traumatic and painful? And that’s just a fish! How could someone shoot a sweet, cute deer?” He said another thing that night that made me believe he was sensitive to animal welfare. Someone asked if the availability of synthetic steak would render beef production immoral. He first answered, no: because it would not taste the same and so it would be immoral to deprive people of proper steak. But when pressed to consider the question where the synthetic was indistinguishable from the real, he relented. I found that interesting because, of course, the availability of synthetic hardly eliminates the value people derive from real beef by raising and killing real cows—and yet, he answered that it would be wrong to continue using cows under that hypothetical.