I wonder if the ideal honest politician would take the pamphlets or decline them.

Taking the pamphlets and throwing them away is a reasonable and practical way to handle the situation. Katie doesn’t have to feel like she might’ve offended someone by her rejection, and the person with the fliers is also happy to pass them out.

On the other hand, I also think it is dishonest to feign interest (or at least hide disinterest), and it also may mislead the person handing out the fliers.

This is a pretty silly topic to discuss, but everyone else already said everything I wanted to say about animals :)

No one needs to defend flyers with photos of happy puppies–the community will do that. Protection needs to be extended to the unpopular ones with photos of tortured animals, espousing actions that the majority disagrees with. The right to hand them out needs to be respected. (I recognize that you’re not saying there should be rules against it, however, I also recognize a lack of acceptance in your of their right to “bother you”.)

“Collectively, humans must act to benefit humans.” This quote is so 20th-Century, it’s not funny. What the hell is going to happen to Baxter’s movement when we’ve got uplifted, intelligent chimps, genetically-modified soldiers, or electronically-enhanced businessmen who are further from an average “human” today than we are from a gorilla?

Intelligence is about to become widespread on earth. The dirt might even end up made of intelligent “computronium” if nanotech blossoms. We need to be preparing our legal and moral systems for those days rather than worrying about our superiority to a veal calf.

Tom

With regards to the actual content of your post: there is an entire field of philosophy called environmental ethics. The viewpoint that humans have no ethical obligations to animals is a particularly anachronistic and unpopular one. Baxter’s book is usually discussed as a capitalistic recapitulation of Kant’s theory of ethical obligation toward animals. Um, the point being: don’t limit to yourself to Baxter if you’re interested in this subject.

The more popular theories being discussed right now are variants on Leopoldian biocentrism. Which is something to the effect that moral consideration should be oriented to the sustainability of biotic communities. Thus, our moral obligations are to sustaining life, rather than particular living actors (including humans).

You should read The Land Ethic by Aldo Leopold, it’s on the internet I think. This would still be very far away from the radical PETA folks, and it has the benefit of not limiting ethics to humans.

If there were a way to change America’s dependence on meat and animal products in an efficient way, I’d be all for it. But arguing that people are obliged to consider the interests of animals before themselves is the wrong approach.

Anonymous- I think this type of handout is especially infuriating to me for a couple of reasons. As a vegetarian, I resent the extremism because it contributes to negative stereotypes of vegetarians. And I have a huge problem with the implied moral superiority.

Plus, though meat eating might be inefficient, satisfaction (via meat eating) is in our interest.

I do get especially irritated by radical activists, and tend to find them to be their oppositions MVPs. Tofu Panthers and militant pro lifers are among the most irritating and preachy. With the Tufo Panthers, they are at least mostly right…though easy enough to resent that we easily dismiss them.