As for helping birds, it depends on the type of injury. If it's been mauled by a cat, you're probably right. But if it's concussed after flying into a wall or window---a very common bird injury---and isn't dead yet, apparently it has decent odds of full recovery if you discourage it from moving and keep predators away for an hour or few. (The way to discourage a bird from moving and possibly hurting itself is to keep it in a dark confined space such as a shoebox. My roommate used to transport pigeons this way and they really didn't seem to mind it.)
Regarding the rest of the post, I'll have to think about it before coming up with a reply.
But if it's concussed after flying into a wall or window---a very common bird injury---and isn't dead yet, apparently it has decent odds of full recovery if you discourage it from moving and keep predators away for an hour or few.
Thankyou, I wasn't sure about that. My sisters and I used to nurse birds like that back to health where possible but I had no idea what the prognosis was. I know that if we found any chicks that were alive but displaced from the nest they were pretty much screwed once we touched them due to contamination with human-smell causin...
My apologies if this doesn't deserve a Discussion post, but if this hasn't been addresed anywhere than it's clearly an important issue.
There have been many defences of consequentialism against deontology, including quite a few on this site. What I haven't seen, however, is any demonstration of how deontology is incompatible with the ideas in Elizier's Metaethics sequence- as far as I can tell, a deontologist could agree with just about everything in the Sequences.
Said deontologist would argue that, to the extent a human universial morality can exist through generalised moral instincts, said instincts tend to be deontological (as supported through scientific studies- a study of the trolley dilemna v.s the 'fat man' variant showed that people would divert the trolley but not push the fat man). This would be their argument against the consequentialist, who they could accuse of wanting a consequentialist system and ignoring the moral instincts at the basis of their own speculations.
I'm not completely sure about this, but figure it an important enough misunderstanding if I indeed misunderstood to deserve clearing up.