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Selling Birds Short: A Heretical View Of Avian Intelligence

10,000 Birds

When people like Arthur Cleveland Bent and John James Audubon would be envious of your skills, there is reason to rejoice. This has all sorts of implications on learning and being more resistant to the mental effects of aging that mammals suffer from. A profound and deep understanding of birds is hard to complain about. But I digress.

Emotional 216
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Prima Facie vs. Ultima Facie Wrongness

Animal Ethics

He clearly thinks that it is wrong to cause animals to suffer unnecessarily, but he appears to be somewhat ambivalent about killing animals (provided the killing is carried out humanely). I suspect that underlying his thinking here is a common rationalization that many of my students initially embrace.