Politicians, ad-men,financiers, and other con-artists know that people, like rats, can be induced to act in terms of their basest instincts — avarice, lust, fear, envy, and the like — but this does not mean that human action is determined at that level when said humans employ the basic faculties that distinguish them from rats.
A bird possesses the faculty of flight, this being the essence of its bird-ness. Can a bird be induced to relinquish its faculty for flight by appealing to its basest instincts? YES! But why would anyone deprive the bird of its power of flight, its bird-ness, unless it is their intention to eat the bird?
A useful question: Are you being invited to dinner as a guest or as the main course?
Delicious.
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