You know I have a problem keeping to the straight and narrow.
I don't mean being illegal and immoral... or rather, staying legal and moral... I mean thinking along one specific track.
That makes philosophy challenging.
Actually, it also makes life challenging. If I am to do something, I have to hold onto it firmly. This takes some considerable effort. If someone calls or talks to me (when I am at work) it's really annoying as I can feel my energy waning and my ability to go back to the thing I need to do shrinking. There is an actual effort and energy required to switch between things. And because concentrating takes so much energy, I don't have spare energy to switch away and switch back. I have to hold on to what I am doing while dealing with the interruption. That makes me unpleasant and abrupt with the person who thinks they are being nice by calling me or talking to me.
I was like this today.
Anyway, the crows no longer think I am stoning the crows. Which is good. PLUS I had two juvenile jays in the garden eating my carefully positioned bird food. It's in a hanging thing which large birds can reach when they sit on a convenient branch.
Now I need to put my brain back into Christine Korsgaard. She has flummoxed me because she is writing rather a good story about why animals matter morally but she seems to have performed a sleight of hand. She was saying that what counts is responding to stimuli that are good and bad for you. Which bacteria and plants do. But all of a sudden she says it's SENTIENCE that matters. She is not a utilitarian so it's not the felt sense of pleasure and pain that counts for her. Her argument is about pursuing what is good for you - not about whether it makes you feel good. So when she throws in sentience, I'm like, where did that come from?
She did not follow the yellow stalk road.
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