Mindy

Intelligence as in IQ is a given, but its employment is a virtue. Integrity and independence are great virtures. Note that evil cannot show integrity, nor be independent. = Mindy

It might help to note that infants and children are not given full legal rights until they are considered to have reached adulthood. Children cannot enter into contracts, for instance. Also, what would be considered assault if performed with an adult is merely child-care, for much of a child's life. One is allowed to physically restrain toddlers--and you'd better do it, too--because telling them to stay out of the street isn't good enough. Talk yourself blue-in-the-face to a lion, telling him you'll feed him twice a day if he'll stay out of the village, you'd still better not leave your doors or windows open at night. Also, we do have rules against cruelty to animals, recognizing that their unnecessary pain and suffering is a moral wrong. The essence of rights is the alternative reason gives us in dealing with one another. We don't have to live by brute strength if we can agree on terms of interacting with one another. The lower animals are damned to a life of physical dominance and predation. Man is not. = Mindy

"...any dead animal that's reasonably clean" I'm still laughing, thank you, Jake! = Mindy

I might be misunderstanding what you mean by, "...why do you think that this person embraces reason as his proper means of existence, when he allows emotion to override his mind?" But if I do understand you, I would largely disagree with your recommended course of action. If you question their position logically, beginning at a sensible point and proceeding in logical steps, you treat them as equals intellectually, and all the relevant facts and arguments will come to light in an appropriate sequence. If you set about to untangle their "furball" of errors, your attitude will be patronizing. Let them discover their (false)assumptions as they respond step-wise to a contrary point of view. Telling other people what their assumptions are, what their motives are, that they are allowing emotion to override their mind, and how bad their thinking is is sure to create animosity, and nothing but animosity. = Mindy

Abstraction starts at the perceptual level, and abstraction confers generality, so any sensory organisim can be expected to behave categorically to objects, without that implying that they possess concepts. My dogs know the word, "kennel" means to get into their bed. But when we're outside, "kennel" gets them to enter the car, or, if I show them a cage and tell them to "kennel," they will enter it. If we are in a new place, and I put down a rug, show it to them, and announce, "kennel," they will treat it as their bed. You could clump together some words to express the implicit meaning they have for that command. Though I use it as a concept, they use it more concretely. The communication between us works because we are both using abstractions. That doesn't mean we are both using concepts. The point is that "abstract generalizations" are possible without "symbolic" abstraction. (No implication for the free will issue.) = Mindy