Well, he must have threatened Merengue; I can’t imagine Big M beating the woodpecker on his home turf. 
DrDeth: You say my cat will live twice as long if he’s indoors. Cite?
Ace,
I think what Scylla is saying is that you are at fault because you let an animal loose that by design hunts and kills. You know it kills, and know it would kill, yet you let it outside. YOU are to blame.
Sure, to some extent, the cat is at fault. But only along the same lines that anything that does what it is designed to do, does what it does.
Would you admit fault if you had a virus, that was designed to make people sick, you then loosed it on a city and people got sick? Is it the virus’s fault (just doing it’s job), or your’s for letting it loose?
And, yes, I am aware that cats are a bit more intellegent than a virus, but both have certain qualities about them we can be sure of. And cats killing things is pretty certain.
No, both of them experience a surge in their adrenaline systems. Both of them have their “flight or fight” programming kick in. One of them may have “emotions” attached to these biological responses, and it ain’t the cat.
Another false conclusion on your own part. The child may be able to communicate verbally to you what he or she is “feeling”, but how do you know what’s going on inside the cat–except through anthropomorphic projection?
Not necessarily, but even so–what of it?
I didn’t read this particular treatise, but as far as I remember Descartes mainly wanted to prove that God didn’t exist and was willing to lie through his teeth in order to set up logical traps to that purpose.
No, both of them experience a surge in their adrenaline systems. Both of them have their “flight or fight” programming kick in. One of them may have “emotions” attached to these biological responses, and it ain’t the cat.
Another false conclusion on your own part. The child may be able to communicate verbally to you what he or she is “feeling”, but how do you know what’s going on inside the cat–except through anthropomorphic projection?
Not necessarily, but even so–what of it?
I didn’t read this particular treatise, but as far as I remember Descartes mainly wanted to prove that God didn’t exist and was willing to lie through his teeth in order to set up logical traps to that purpose.
Ace Ace Ace:
This is an interesting ethical question, but the answer is simple.
You have the habit of thinking things are bizarre or unusual or are flat out wrong because you don’t understand them.
You are morally and ethically responsible for your cats well being and actions simply because you took on the responsibility of ownership.
Ethically or morally, your cat is not a person. Though it is a living creature with needs and emotions and feelings and all that, it is still not a person.
The primary relationship between you and your cat is that of ownership. You own your cat, just like you own anything else that is yours.
By this ownership you have taken on the moral imperative or making that ownership responsible. This responsibility has three components:
- The responsibility to yourself
- The responsibility to the cat
- The responsibility to the rest of the world
Assuming for the moment that the relationship between you and your cat is satisfactory, we’ll focus on #3.
As the owner of the cat you are responsible you are responsible for your cats actions, and are expected to control it. Whether or not the cat can be trained is besides the point, because it can be controlled, and you are responsible for controlling it.
If you own a large dog, and you fail to control it and it injures a neighbor, you are legally responsible for its actions. More importantly you have failed your ethical responsibility of good ownership as relates to the rest of the community.
Similarly if you leave a loaded gun on your front lawn and a kid trespasses and picks up the gun and shoots himself with it, you are responsible. In spite of the fact that the kid was trespassing and you have no control over the kid you failed to practice responsible gun ownership.
By accepting ownership of this cat, you have both the ethical and legal responsibility to control it, and you can and should be held accountable if you fail in that responsibility.
This is pretty basic stuff.
That’s not true. A prison warden is not a good analogy for pet ownership. However, a warden is legally and ethically responsibility if he does not exercise his job with due diligence and take all reasonable precautions to prevent escapes.
Finally, you are flat out trying to inflict your own personal values onto the cat.
The cat has a need to hunt, exercise, and challenge itself. Killing things is incidental to this.
Unless you are in a very secluded rural area, allowing your cat to roam free outside represents irresponsible pet ownership. It is irresponsible to your neighbors who may be nuisanced and inconvenienced by your cat. It is irresponsible in terms of the effect that it may have on the local wildlife. It is irresponsible in that it is not fair to the cat to put it into a dangerous situation outside of the scale of its ability to cope. It could get hit by a car, or any neighbor may kill it if it wanders onto their property.
Their is an epidemic of feline influenza, and Leukemia, as well as an aids like disease among wild cats as well as the strong likelihood that an agressive Tom, even neutered as yours is will fight and injure or get injured with other cats.
There is an excellent chance that it may harass or kill neighbors’ cats, hand out at neighbors’ birdfeeders and such.
Clearly you already recognize the ethic of responsible ownership because you have made the choice to neuter your cat.
As far as the hunting goes, if you feed your cat it has no need to kill. It does need to exercise it’s hunting instinct though in order to be happy, and there are several ways that you can help it do so without endangering the local wildlife, your cat, or inconveniencing your neighbors.
How you decide to handle the situation is your responsibility, and your ethical choice, but make no mistake, the incidence of ownership makes you responsible for your cat’s well-being, and its actions.
Sghoul: Actually, your virus analogy is quite appropriate. As I cannot teach it anything, I am only it’s warden. Nonetheless:
[ol]
[li]If, unbeknownst to me, I am a carrier of said virus, and it gets loose and kills millions, I am neither responsible nor immoral.[/li]
[li]If I am a researcher and have taken precautions but err, and the virus gets loose I am resonsible but not immoral.[/li]
If I could give a fig for precautions because people are sheep, and the virus gets loose, I am both responsible and immoral.[/ol]Immoral implies wrongness of intent plus causal action; responsibilty is only causal action.
Silliness. You decided to have a cat; you’re the cat’s caretaker. You’re responsible for the cat’s actions, because the cat is not a moral agent. If you don’t want this responsibility, don’t have a cat. It’s simple.
Of course cats have emotions and feelings. You’re confusing me with others. It’s a terrible procedure because it amputates the first joint on each claw – like having one knuckle amputated from each finger on your hands. It often has a painful recovery. Most cats rely on their claws for climbing, for sensing the ground they walk on, and for defense. Amputating their claws makes many cats extremely skittish and bity – if something scares them, instead of batting at it, they’ll bite it. Cat bites are much, much worse than cat scratches.
Do you hold your cat? Does your cat jump into your lap? Does your cat knead your leg, purring? These are occasions on which my cats scratch me; these are why I clip my cat’s claws.
I, as you may have noticed, am not a cat. I have different psychological needs than a cat has. As part of my job, I’ve attended lectures from some of the nation’s premier cat behaviorists, who assure me that cats are highly territorial beasts with psychological profiles that would look like autism in a human being. They adjust perfectly well to being indoor animals. You’re anthropomorphizing.
With all respect, you don’t know what you’re talking about. HSUS works extensively with wild animal issues, but focuses on animal welfare in general; shelter issues and overpopulation issues are just one of their focus areas. AHA has an even broader focus: in addition to animal welfare issues, they work with child welfare issues. HSUS and AHA promote indoor-only cats for a variety of animal-welfare reasons. Check out this introduction to the HSUS Safe Cats Campaign, this HSUS position-paper, this advice from HSUS on bringing an outdoor cat indoors, the AHA Position Statement on outdoor cats, and the American Bird Conservancy’s www.abcbirds.org/cats/hazard.pdf+Cats+wildlife&hl=en&ie=UTF-8]Position on Outdoor Cats and Wildlife
Read these, and then you’ll have a better idea of what you’re talking about.
Daniel
D’oh! That last link should read like this
Daniel
I’m surprised people still believe the “Cats have to go outside” story.
Cats are not better off going outside. A cat can be perfectly content inside an apartment. There is no reason to have to let your cat go out. It might piss them off at first if they aren’t used to it; eventually they become accustomed to staying in.
Forget what’s “moral.” It’s better for the cat to stay in, and it’s better for everyone else. Keep cats inside.
I’m afraid it’s much more than that, Scylla. It cuts to the heart of what you suggest, namely, can morality be imposed by removing the option to be moral or immoral? Obviously, I think it’s ridiculous; To judge by your ducking and weaving, you must agree.
No kidding. That’s why I said I’m responsible – not immoral. See my above on viruses for further analysis.
Again, one is responsible, but not immoral, if one has made a reasonable effort in one’s duties. This is also basic stuff.
I see. I have a need to hunt? Your arguments are objectively bizarre; I assure you, I have no need to invent irrationality in your arguments when you do so well on your own.
The rest of your argument can be boiled down to what we’ve already agreed: I am responsible. You argue that were I to enclose the cat in an apartment I would lessen the possible pain inflicted by the cat on the world and vice versa. But wait! he might still fall off a bookcase! Better, in your world, that I entrap him under glass with a feeding tube and a stripe so that I may pet him and he may never be injured – and he’ll live an extra 10 years, disease free!; per your original argument this is “moral” cat ownership.
Per your second, conflicting, argument, a cat has certain needs, “hunting, exercise, and challenging itself.” A quite arbitrary and arguable list – do all cats hunt? – to which I might well add “curiosity, danger, socializing and killing things,” from valid observation of cat-behavior. Since you’ve yet to argue why your arbitrary list is better than my arbitrary list, we’re left with an equally applicable cat-morality, and no clear reason to prefer one over the other.
Note that this is cat-morality except for the things that are on the universal list for all lifeforms: Freedom; growth; utility; happiness. If there’s a human-only one in there, I don’t see it.
I note with some dismay that this argument is perfectly applicable in anoter, more important situation. You are the “owner” of your children until they turn 18; you are responsible. Would you never let your teenagers experience any risk or possible harm so that they may live longer? This is terrible parenting; children need to learn how to handle risk and disease; how to be responsible for themselves. Not learning these lessons results in shortened lifespan, and is IMHO, terribly irresponsible parenting – not immoral, just cripplingly short-sighted.
I don’t think it’s at all a stretch to extend responsibility and risk-handling skills to cats. My cat has learned not to bother the neighbors, nor does he attack guests. He was not allowed outside until he understood what the boundaries were. He knows what his claws can do (now) and takes care not to hurt anyone when he jumps on their lap, or in my case, draped around my neck. I have evidence that it is entirely possible to further socialize a cat – indeed, that’s how they came to be domesticated, so this “sociopathic” argument is pure dross.
Let’s turn back to the original question, which we’ve left unaddressed:
[ul]Given that a woodpecker is a beautiful, useful, bird, and makes the neighborhood happy, should I attempt to train my cat not to attack them?[/ul]
I’m surprised that you asserted this, given that I’ve already requested a cite. Now we’ve got two. Cite? Don’t forget to define “better!”
Thank you for the extensive cites; to clarify, I have no direct knowlege or interaction with any cat advocacy groups. My interaction is strictly limited to street or mail interaction, as the advocee, and therein I do know what I’m talking about: In my experience, I have only been advoated about the need to neuter, the need to adopt, and the need to bring their cats indoors, not any other issues, so I feel qualified to state that it is their focus IMHO irregardless of their stated goals and written position papers.
WOOOOODYYY! OH GOD, NO, WOODY!
FWIW, I had 3 cats at one time, all indoor cats. They all lived to approx. 13-15 years (they were all adult when I acquired them, so the ages are guesses). Growing up in a small town we had indoor/outdoor cats for a while and they generally only lived 3-5 years. When we changed our thoughts the life expectancy increased too.
And no, cats don’t act according to morals. Just us.
Ace, check out my cites. You’ll see that Rickjay was wrong: according to HSUS studies:
There’s your cite. I think what you’re failing to see in Scylla’s argument is that he’s not suggesting there’s such a thing as cat-morality. Cats are moral agents, not moral actors: we can do good or ill by cats, but we cats themselves are no more capable of committing good or evil acts than is a stroke of lightning, or a car tire, or an infant.
IYHO? You need to brush up on the difference between fact and opinion. You’re incorrect, simple as that.
Daniel
The cites your provided, no offense, are extremely soft; the asterix points to a study that we can’t see, the numbers fail to break out spayed/not spayed vaccinated/not vaccinated, and uses words like “estimated.” I have limited confidence without the study, and more so when I find obviously illogical and biased answers among your cites such as:
:rolleyes:! The lack of internal consistency and hard data makes this border on an appeal to authority. Find me the study – any study, and we’ll have something to talk about.
Not at all. The putative reason for advocacy groups is to reach responsible cat-owners such as myself. Therefore my experience with them is quite relevant. IMHE? It’s as if you said NYPIRG’s focus was on electric cars, and I said I doubt it, since they’re at my house every week, and I’ve yet to hear about it.
Make more sense?
The cites you provided are extremely soft: the asterix points to a study that we can’t see; the numbers fail to break out spayed/not spayed, vaccinated/not vaccinated; the money para uses “estimated.” I hope I’m not alone about having limited confidence without the study, and more so when I find obviously illogical and biased answers among your cites such as:
Right. The lack of internal consistency and hard data makes these cites border on an appeal to authority. Show me the study – any study, and we’ll have something further to talk about.
Not at all. The putative reason for advocacy groups is to reach responsible cat-owners such as myself. Therefore my experience with them is quite relevant. IMHE? It’s as if you said NYPIRG’s focus was on electric cars, and I said I doubt it, since they’re at my house every week, and I’ve yet to hear about it.
I hope that makes more sense.
As for the cat, let’s skip questions of morality for the time being and say: He is well trained. What is my moral responsibilty vis-a-vis the diminishing Woodpecker populations? Are they superior to sparrows?
Ace, I’m not gonna argue with you about your perception of HSUS and AHA. You’ve correctly described your perception of them; you’ve incorrectly described them. Take a look at their Web sites. This is not an ambiguous point.
If you don’t like my links from HSUS and AHA, however, how about a link from the American Veterinary Medical Association? Read the first paragraph.
Or, if you want the perspective of a group that most emphatically does not focus on ending cat overpopulation, how about the Cat Fancier’s Association article on keeping cats indoors?
Whether cats are safer indoors or outdoors is a settled issue in the animal field. The fact that you’re not aware of this doesn’t change anything, except that you therefore expose your cat, and wildlife, to needless danger.
Daniel
I could find some cites, but Daniel has done a great job of doing so- in fact his figures show an even higher disparity in average lifespan. Thanks D.
Daniel, I’ve never said that there’s no difference between longevity of indoor and outdoor cats, just that the “twice as long,” comment is unsupported, and remains so. It’s not a matter of subjective interpretation of your cites, they are objectively lacking in scientific rigour.
You might say “authorities believe cats live twice as long indoors than outdoors,” and that would be fine, but the only hard fact I’ve seen in this thread has been photopat’s anecdotal ones.
Again: What is the tradeoff between my spayed cat with yearly shots, indoor vs. outdoor? My gut instinct is less than 5 years, and, lacking hard evidence to the contrary, I’m content with that.
“You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.” – Jonathan Swift