Legislating cruelty -- the origin of the SPCA

[Joel S. Berson]

I should have added that my "legislate cruelty" was in email.  I
thought it was especially amusing since one might read the serial
commas as "I am aware of [1] early 19th C attempts to legislate
cruelty to farm animals, the foundation of the
SPCA in 1824, and [2] the Cruelty to Aniamls [sic] Act of 1876."

Joel

At 9/9/2008 11:33 AM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>On Sep 9, 2008, at 5:48 AM, Joel Berson wrote:
>
>>A reminder of earlier discussion here:
>>
>>"Thanks to the work of Anita Guerrini, I am aware of early 19th C
>>attempts to legislate cruelty to farm animals, the foundation of the
>>SPCA in 1824, and the Cruelty to Aniamls [sic] Act of 1876."
>>
>>Written -- I infer in haste -- by an Associate Professor of English
>>at Kent State.
>
>one more:
>
>Narveson: I admit to being of mixed minds about this. I do rather
>suspect that cruelty to animals tends to go with cruelty to people,
>but that's a bit of an evasion. In general, though, no: I don't think
>the state may legislate cruelty to animals. I do think such cruelty is
>rather sick, and don't quite understand why it is done when it is
>done. But I think it's up to animal lovers to talk the others out of
>such practices, and not for the law to prevent them.
>
>http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/interview-with-jan-narveson/
>
>(Jan Narveson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo
>where he has been teaching since 1963. He works mainly in moral and
>political philosophy...)
>
>also hits for "legislate hate" 'legislate against hate (in hate crimes
>legislation)' (as well as 'further hate by legislation'), "legislate
>illegal X" (for various Xs, like "immigration" and "and offensive
>content"), "legislate vice", "legislate smoking", "legislate drugs",
>and so on.
>
>there are plenty of hits for "legislate X out of existence",
>"legislate X away", and the like, which are of course just fine.  that
>opens the possibility that some of the plain "legislate X" examples
>arose not from P dropping, but from truncation of the adverbial
>complement.  not all of the examples are easily subject to this
>analysis, however; the Narveson quote, in particular, is resistant.
>
>arnold
>
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