[lit-ideas] Amago's "Bessie the Cow" -- and Extrinsic Valuing

 
In a message dated 8/30/2004 12:06:37 AM Eastern Standard Time,  
aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
The  short answer is that most people cannot stand to eat anything that had 
a  purpose that was different from "food". I can't eat my cat because he's a  
cool dude. I don' t want to eat my dog because he's fun. I don't have a  
relationship with Bessie the cow. She's for eatin'.
 
----
 
This is what Heidegger called a fallacious functional explanation of the  cow 
(his example was the chair -- "it's for seatin'").
 
In "The Conception of Value", Oxford philosopher H. P. Grice considers the  
issue at some length. He concludes that there is an essence that _things_ have  
(his example is the "tiger"). A tiger, Grice says, essentially _tigers_. A 
cow,  mutatis mutandi, _cows_. 
 
To conclude "A cow is for the eatin'" involves what Grice calls "extrinsic  
valuing". The agent (Amago) is projecting on the thing-to-be-valued a value  
which is _not_ intrinsic to the thing (if a thing it is). This type of 
extrinsic 
 valuing is usually fallacious.
 
Note that there is the implicit epithet that Bessie is _not_ a milk cow,  
since milk cows are _not_ for eatin', and essentially every cow has a right to  
be a milk cow (unlike bulls).
 
In sum, it is not easy to demonstrate that for any x, the purpose of x is  
"food", as Amago writes. "Food" is in the feeding, and it's the Feeder  
(self-feeder) who or what decides what's food or not. Extrinsic value _par  
excellence_.
 
Cheers,
 
JL

 


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