Is it fair to continue to grant Ness's wish?

Discussion could focus on several issues:

whether it is less wrong to kill a spider than a bear;
who are we to decide on the fate of animals;
whether we can legitimately kill creatures lower in the food chain
and since it is a chain, whether every member is equally important;
whether the Book of Genesis granted mankind the right to kill the animals;
how knowing a killer's motivation can lessen or increase the culpability of a kill (killing out of real or perceived fear is less serious than killing for sheer pleasure);
how much we can "blame" the Make-a-Wish Foundation;
how they would lose credibility if they forbade even one wish;
the apparent social progress we now enjoy since animal rights campaigns began;
our own assumed attitudes about animals when we eat a steak regularly.

Text: Press cutting about The Make a Wish Foundation allowing a boy named Ness to shoot a kodiak bear.

Discussion

1. Initial reactions to the story; disgust, questions raised.

Should there be limits to the wishes it grants?
Would the civil law offer sufficient limits?
How effective are grey areas, moral revulsion, "politically correct" limits, socially incorrect wishes, unwritten laws as sanctions over them?

2. Which is more serious: shooting common or rare animals?

Is shooting a few out of a population of say antelopes more serious than shooting the same number of big animals out of smaller populations? e.g., kodiak bears? pregnant bears? becoming-extinct creatures?

3. Is animal behaviour a guide to human behaviour?

For animals, killing is simple survival, for us it becomes a sport.
Humans know what they do so awareness and hopefully responsibility too is implied.
What are the criteria for suitable human behaviour?
"Civilised" behaviour norms change. Different cultures, different criteria.

4. Costs of social rejection resulting from say cannibalism.

Adolescent social pressures/ adolescent male fashion dictates behaviour.
Costs of doing differently. Costs in rejecting these social norms.
Certain school cultures that enforce conformity e.g., rugby culture
Must Survival come only in conforming within them?
What is the place of personal growth and individual choice?
Anecdotes of freedoms in overseas societies & other Australian States.
Local experiences of categorisations and blind thinking.
5. Why should a dying boy have greater priviledges than the rest of us? What are our/ society's priorities? Do fewer chances grant priviledges?
6. Is granting this wish a species superiority?Animals hurt too! They have equal rights to live.
7. What is sport after all?

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