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Topic: Tiger Rescue Points to Urgent Need for More Patrols: Please Comment

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1

What do you think about this article?  Is it an issue?

2

That's really a tough one.

Of course, most people here in the United States look at something like that and we don't like it.  Tigers are really cool-looking animals and there aren't very many of them left so it seems wrong for people to be killing them.

But on the other hand, it's sort of hard to justify us telling the people in Malaysia what to do like that.  After all, we're relatively rich and so we don't feel the pressure to do something like that.  And even if we did, most Americans don't live very near to anything that they can poach (other than an egg, perhaps -- that's a joke).  We've already eradicated most of our big animals...

So it seems really nasty, but do we really have the right to tell them not to do that?

3

I think that the issues raised in the article are interesting in terms of morality and how societies and nations use their notions of morality as they interact with one another.  While one social order might suggest that animals and poaching is morally reprehensible, another might not see it that way.  In this instance, both social orders sort of come to a consensus to "agree to disagree."  The challenge in such a predicament is that there can be little in way of judgments offered because everything ends up being relative.  Either set of societal values are equally valid as the other set.  I think that the questions raised by the article are powerful in that they might be able to start that dialogue between individuals and social orders where some level of understanding and appreciation of values can be evident as judgments made are understood.  Animal treatment might be one such area where differences can be understood in a more meaningful manner so that suggestions can be made so as to alleviate cruelty and suffering of all beings.

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