 |
| Click image for more vignettes |
And then came the epiphany (it felt epiphanal) that the conception of the human soul – its whole shebang of incorporality and indestructibility – could have been motivated by its first conceivers’ ethical qualms at eating the flesh of other sentient creatures. The conceivers imagined that humans have souls, and other creatures in our terrain do not: they are “merely” flesh, they feel little or no pain ... therefore, we need have no shame in eating them or confining them for their eggs.
A similar rationalization may have been employed to absolve slave-owners, on the presumption that the slaves were of lesser intelligence and so had no souls….
Or to absolve the Donald Trumps of the world, who considered their dupes too stupid to be concerned about. (Or did the Donald Trumps of the world just not have any ethical qualms?)
And then Goines shuddered as he asked himself: how did he justify or rationalize eating curried chicken despite his professed ethical qualms?
| Copyright © 2021 by Moristotle |
This very morning, Goines was saddened at discovering a deceased Goldfinch on the front porch, a few feet from the windows. Mrs. Goines told him later that the bird must have flown into those windows and produced the “thud” she had heard earlier.
ReplyDeleteHere was another – fairly innocent-seeming – instance of man’s inventions putting wildlife at risk. Still, Goines sighed at the incident.
Mrs. Goines’ senses were particularly keen this morning: A little while later, she asked Goines, “Where did you find the thistle feeder?”
Misunderstanding her (he hadn’t put in his hearing aids yet), he said, “I’ve given up trying to find it, I’ll buy a new one.”
“No,” she said, “I thought you’d found it. I see it hanging beside the persimmon tree.”
“Ha,” he said cheerily, “you have found it! The purloined thing has been hanging there in plain sight all the time! I remember now leaving it out when we left for France because there was still some thistle in it!”
Goines had possibly even touched the thistle feeder – maybe more than once – during the several times since they got back from France that he had checked the dozens of big, beautiful persimmons and clipped a few to ripen further for eating and sharing with neighbors.
Goldfinches were the most frequent partakers of the thistle Goines put out. He wondered whether the victim of the morning’s collision had been one of their many visitors….