Paragallo And Moral Philosophy

There are six survivors to the ship wreck but only room for five in the life boat. Who goes and who stays poses a classic question in moral philosophy. And, you know where this is going. Mother Theresa volunteers..."I'll jump in". Ernie Paragallo, on the other hand, is seen throwing someone overboard.

Is the correct solution to the problem of the life boat to be found in our "experience" in terms of seeking pleasure/avoiding pain--Parragalo, or are our decisions, as with Mother Theresa, to be guided by an intuitive conceptualization of right and wrong?

The same dilemma we see expressed in Goethe's Faust:

"Chorus: That ancient truth we will recite it. Give way to force, for might is right. For who would boldly offer strife than risk your house, estate and life?"

We might reword the inherent hypocrisy illustrated by Goethe's line for Paragallo and our equine moral philosphers, who are in plentiful supply these days: For who would boldly spend their fortune (on horses) than risk their own poverty and irrelevance?

And so, we ponder what is it in people that causes them to neglect animals? What sort of scum bag would fail to feed and water a horse? Or, is this really a question at all about a person's character?

I've confronted the question in my own family. A few years back I was visiting a cousin. This cousin is hardly the fool. She has a brother who is a medical doctor, she is married herself to a medical doctor, is a college graduate, and had two high achieving young boys ages 11 and 12. I noticed a rabbit cage in the back yard far away from the house. As I'm prone to do, I quickly size up neglect situations, in this case spurred by the distance of the cage from the house. I was trying to envision those boys at this age making that long trip from the house to the rabbit cage all that often or being possessed conceptually re appropriate care, given the distance. So, I walked out to the cage to check it. Sure enough, there was no water at all in the cage. Food but no water--the classic sign of something amiss, and a rabbit looking to my eye a little distressed. The rabbit is by itself in a cage, which in itself qualifies as abuse.

Here is what happened next. I mentioned to the oldest boy that the rabbit was without water. "I'll water it later." Me: "I think you should water it now." Does not water rabbit. I then mention the situation to the mother: "do you know that rabbit back there is without any water?" Surprised expression: "Oh, I'll talk to the boys about that" sort of brushing the subject off. Me: "I think we need to make them go out now and water the rabbit". "Oh, I'll talk to them later." When I left that night the rabbit was still without water, and I put some in the cage. To this day I hope they saw me.

Given mixture of education, brains, and integrity involved with my beautiful cousin's family, how is it that the rabbit fails to get water? Is there some moral failing or something else?

After much thought and observation over the years watching people at the track take care of their horses or failing to do so, etc. etc, I have come to think of animal abuse as a sort of madness that ought to be looked at more as a psychological problem than a moral failing. We deal with such as Paragello no doubt as in case of my cousin, at one time a boy who failed to feed and water his hamsters while still the apple of his parent's eye, but now the adult who let his horse situation get away from him as mentioned in Left At The Gate with far less money coming in from Unbridled's Song than most people think, and, in final analysis with a mental defect permitting him to overlook what others of us think crucial to our own sanity--that our helpless animals receive care.

We see this in all walks of animal care, from Paragallo to those that think it is somehow ok to perpetually keep their horses in a stall, to those mindless if well intentioned anti-slaughter folks now trying to ring their websites over Paragallo, who are unable to compute the abuse/neglect involved with most OTBs.

The only solution I've come up with is vigilance by the rest of us. You fight it. You take care of the animals, and you spur the authorities, wherever and however you can. (Credit to Professor Daniel Robinson, Oxford, for the life boat example taken from his lecture on Immanuel Kant and the Critique of Practical Reason.)

Training:
Wed. 4/8 Both horses did a slow riderless mile in the paddock. Both horses did 6f trot-gallop.
Thurs. 4/9 Both horses did 2 x 3f riderless at 90% speed in the paddock. Art tacked 6f trot gallop before his second heat was rained out. Rod's tack work was rained out.