Patrick Barkham’s article<\/a> in the Guardian.)<\/p>\n2. We know apples fall down rather than up, not because of proof, but because the preponderance of the evidence supports it.<\/p>\n
3. Ditto for the law of gravitation, which explains why<\/i> apples fall: no proof, just supporting evidence.<\/p>\n
4. Ditto for the fact that animals can feel: no proof, just evidence.<\/p>\n
5. Ditto for the fact that human animals feel: no proof, just evidence.<\/p>\n
6. The sole exception is oneself: each person knows for sure that they feel what they feel when they feel: No need for either evidence or proof for that. To feel something is enough. (We know that since at least Descartes\u2019 \u201ccogito.\u201d)<\/p>\n
7. But for anyone else, we know they feel because of evidence, not proof. Not even when they tell us.<\/p>\n
8. I think Marian Stamp Dawkins is being more scientistic than scientific in her call for a \u201ccautious\u201d approach.<\/p>\n
9. Cautious about what? About knowing whether it hurts if you kick a dog or a calf? Should we keep kicking till we have proof, or “scientific” evidence?<\/p>\n
10. I would extend Jeremy Bentham\u2019s oft-quoted words: What matters \u201cis not, \u2018Can they reason?\u2019 nor, \u2018Can they talk?\u2019 but \u2018Can they suffer?\u2019\u201d [The Principles of Morals and Legislation<\/i>]<\/p>\n
11. What matters \u201cis not, \u2018Can they feel pleasure?\u2019 but \u2018Can they suffer?\u2019\u201d [which includes depriving them of pleasure, and of life]<\/p>\n
12. That is what should be governing our treatment of all animals, human and nonhuman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1. Statements cannot be \u201cproved\u201d true unless they are just formal proofs in mathematics. (I am sure Jonathan Balcombe did not say \u201cproof\u201d as cited in Patrick Barkham’s article in the Guardian.) 2. We know apples fall down rather than up, not because of proof, but because the preponderance of the evidence supports it. 3. … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “What Really Matters”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3074,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3074"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":832,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions\/832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}