Basic level

Volume XII is a schematic guide to the other 11 volumes: each debate appears in tables of attempted justifications and criticisms, with an indication of where it is explored in depth.

The attempts to justify disregarding animals (species, soul, capacities, potential, group, biology, nature, tradition, ethics as a human invention or activity, self-protection, authority, degree of suffering, ecosystems) fail to explain why these criteria would be relevant.

The main arguments for considering all sentient beings are the argument from species overlap, the argument from relevance, the principle of equal consideration, and the impartiality argument; the table also covers testing for speciesism, the benefit of the doubt, priorities, and desert.

The sentience criterion faces many criticisms (utilitarianism, anthropocentrism, animal-kingdomism, harms without suffering, invertebrates, biocentrism, the value of life, subjectivity, plants), and each one has been answered.

The attempts to justify killing animals painlessly (they do not understand death, have no desires about the future, have no intellectual pleasures, are replaceable, have weak psychological connectedness, would suffer anyway, have little time left, there is life after death) do not hold up.

Environmentalism and consideration for animals have different ultimate goals: one values certain configurations of ecosystems and species in themselves; the other, the well-being of sentient beings. Balance, biodiversity, and "looking at the whole" are not the same as caring for animals.

The proposal to help wild animals rests on the idea that the strength of our reasons depends on the magnitude of the harm, not its origin; and it answers the objections that wild animals live well, that destroyed eggs reduce the number of victims, and that newborns barely suffer.

The table answers the most common objections to helping wild animals: outside the scope of ethics, arrogance, anthropocentrism, less human influence, freedom, dependence, paternalism, the value of suffering, indifferent nature, ecology, and environmentalist goals.

The second set of objections to helping wild animals denies our responsibility or questions practicality; the table answers each one and includes a simulated debate on altruistic killing and the debate on expanding nature.

To help effectively, we use criteria: seriousness (the number of victims and how bad it is for each one), tractability, neglect, size of the benefit, long-term effects, and tackling causes, not just symptoms.

The 80 billion animals killed per year that activists cite are only mammals and birds, between 0.1% and 0.2% of the 34 to 54 trillion killed in exploitation; and animals in the wild, numbering 1 to 10 quintillion, make even these figures look small.

Key concepts about the future: s-risks (astronomical suffering), how they differ from x-risks, seriousness as severity times probability, speciesism and substratism, and the classification of s-risks as incidental, agential, or natural, known or unknown.

As in medicine, we can identify risk factors for s-risks without predicting the future in detail: disregard for nonhuman and nonbiological sentient beings, advanced technology, aversion to technology, lacking or ineffective efforts, polarization, and malevolent agents.

Longtermist strategies can be broad (a good impact in almost every scenario, such as increasing consideration for sentient beings) or targeted (a large impact in specific scenarios, such as regulating space exploration or aligning AI); in choosing them, we need humility and widely acceptable goals.

Improving public debate and institutions is crucial for avoiding s-risks: thinking in nuances, discussing arguments rather than people, intellectual honesty, a broad-range approach, protecting democracy, representing all sentient beings; even small improvements would make a big difference.

The table summarizes strategic debates in activism: veganism or reduction, reform or abolition, indirect or direct arguments, a broad focus or a focus on animals, technology or social change, the general population or influential people, behavior or attitude, controversial actions, social or institutional change.

To evaluate strategies, we can use metacriteria: tackling causes, preventing backsliding, how much it has already been tried, track record, how many animals it benefits, how much it benefits each one, potential to make other changes easier, risks, cost-effectiveness, acceptance, alignment with other goals, ease, and expected success.

The volume closes the collection with an overview of the main questions in animal ethics, offering an introductory foundation for anyone who wants to go deeper into the other volumes.

There are three main positions on animals: they don't matter in themselves, they matter less than humans, or they matter equally when they suffer harms of the same size. Speciesism is giving someone less weight just because of their species.

Saying humans matter more “because they're human,” or “because they're our species,” justifies nothing: it just repeats the conclusion as if it were the reason.

An immortal soul, being made in the image of a deity, or other metaphysical traits don't justify speciesism: they can't be proven, they wouldn't apply only to humans, and above all they have nothing to do with being able to suffer.

Reason, language, a sense of justice, or political relationships don't justify disregarding animals: many humans lack them, some animals have some of them, and they're irrelevant to who can be harmed.

The appeal to potential fails because some humans have no potential to develop certain abilities, because potential isn't the same as having, and because a child's suffering matters now, not because of what she might become.

Saying what matters is belonging to the same species as those who have certain abilities is biased: it demands the abilities from animals but accepts humans without them just because of their group.

Even if species is a biological category and not a social construction, that doesn't make it fair to discriminate by species: enslaving people by height or skin color would also be based on biological traits, and it would be unfair.

From the fact that something is natural, common among animals, or instinctive, it doesn't follow that it's good or fair; there is no correlation between what is natural and what is justifiable.

A practice being traditional doesn't show that it's fair: many traditions have been unjust, and defending traditions because they benefit people or because they supposedly have intrinsic value doesn't justify harming the victims.

That only humans act morally doesn't show that only humans should be considered: confusing who can be held responsible with who needs consideration is like requiring a patient to be a doctor in order to be treated.

Even if ethics is a human invention, that doesn't make all positions equally arbitrary: math and science are also created activities, and in them some positions are better and some worse.

Even if ethics arose as self-protection, describing how an activity arose doesn't justify a view within it; and the idea that ethics is just self-interest doesn't even describe well how people act.

Appeals to authority, religious or otherwise, don't justify speciesism: by the Euthyphro dilemma, either the authority approves of something for good reasons, and then what matters is the reasons, or the approval is arbitrary.

The special status thesis, according to which some have a “trump card” that gives them priority even when they suffer less, fails the impartiality test: only those in the privileged group defend it.

Saying “there's no right or wrong in ethics” doesn't justify speciesism: this metaethical claim usually shows up only when the justifications run out, it's applied with a double standard, and whether true or false, it favors neither side.

What matters in deciding whom we owe consideration is who can be harmed or benefited by our decisions; the capacity to act morally matters for holding someone responsible, not for considering them.

If the lack of certain abilities and relationships in some humans doesn't justify treating them worse, the same lack in animals doesn't either; and it's usually a reason to care more, since it increases vulnerability.

Sentience is the capacity to have positive and negative experiences; it's what makes someone a “someone” rather than a “something,” and so able to be harmed by the presence of what's bad or the absence of what's good.

To find out which beings are sentient, we look at evidence: a centralized nervous system, other physiological indicators, overall behavior, and evolutionary advantage. Many invertebrates meet these criteria, and non-organic sentience is a future possibility.

The principle of equal consideration says that harms and benefits of similar magnitude should have the same weight, whoever they belong to; violating it is speciesism, which isn't limited to exploitation, to total disregard, or to anthropocentrism.

Desert can sometimes change priorities, but only for accountable agents who have broken some rule; since animals aren't accountable, desert doesn't justify giving them less weight.

Rejecting speciesism doesn't require signing on to a specific ethical theory, like utilitarianism: a wide range of theories that disagree about a great deal can agree in condemning the exploitation of animals.

Giving equal consideration to all sentient beings doesn't leave us without guidance for setting priorities: there are several criteria compatible with it, such as prioritizing those who are worse off, the greater number, the greater benefit, or the greater future impact.

More complex cognition doesn't always mean suffering more: sometimes it increases suffering (anticipation), sometimes it reduces it (understanding that a treatment is for your own good); and lesser cognition usually comes with greater vulnerability.

A decision is fair if it's the one we would choose without knowing which position we'd occupy among those affected; not knowing whether we'd be human or animal, we wouldn't accept exploitation or speciesism.

An attitude is speciesist if it's unfair to sentient beings because of their species; we can test it by asking whether we'd keep the decision without knowing the species of those affected, without knowing our own, if the victims were human, or if we switched places.

Faced with “why worry about animals when so many humans need help?”, the chapter shows that, by severity, number of victims, and neglect, the animal cause would deserve very high priority under conditions of impartiality.

When we're uncertain whether a being is sentient, we should give it the benefit of the doubt: err on the side of caution, because treating it as an object, if it does feel, is a more serious mistake than the reverse.

Exploited animals, especially those used for food, live in confinement, suffer disease, mutilation, and transport, and are killed in slaughterhouses or by fishing in ways we would never accept for humans; there is no justification for this double standard.

Animal exploitation is unjust because it violates the principle of equal consideration and fails the impartiality test; that's why it stays unjust even if it's sustainable, small-scale, painless at slaughter, or outside capitalism.

Veganism is the position of avoiding harm to animals out of respect for them, refusing the products and services of exploitation; besides reducing demand, it exposes the injustice animals suffer.

The plant objection fails: plants are alive, but without a centralized nervous system there's no evidence that they're sentient; and if they were, eating animals would kill even more plants, and what would follow is fruitarianism, not eating everything.

In none of the senses of “natural” (possibility, instinct, what animals do, the food chain) does eating meat being natural show that it's justifiable; and the reply “it isn't natural” makes the same mistake.

Saying that consuming animals frees them from lives of suffering is an excuse: in exploitation, consumption is what causes animals to be born to suffer; and those who use it don't apply it to humans or try to reduce births.

The “replaceability defense” says consuming animals benefits them by bringing them into existence; it doesn't apply to most cases, it gives no right to cause harm, and even by the overall balance it tends to produce a very negative result.

What we would do on a desert island or in a burning house doesn't justify everyday consumption of animals: what we would do isn't necessarily right, and actions in extreme situations don't extend to ordinary ones.

Consuming animal products isn't necessary for good health: nutrition bodies in several countries recognize that a well-planned vegan diet is adequate at every stage of life.

Veganism isn't just for the rich: the staple foods of a vegan diet (rice, beans, vegetables, fruit) are among the cheapest; expensive processed vegan products aren't necessary, and more demand would bring prices down.

If the world went vegan, there wouldn't be a surplus of domesticated animals: they're born through forced breeding to meet demand, and less demand would gradually mean fewer births.

Saying veganism would ruin the economy and jobs fails ethically (profit doesn't justify harming victims) and factually (demand for vegan products also creates jobs, and the transition is gradual).

Veganism has a practical impact: even without eliminating every contribution to exploitation, each person reduces demand, and the growth of exploitation doesn't show a lack of impact, only that it must be compared with what would happen without vegans.

The claim that veganism kills more animals through agriculture has no evidence behind it and ignores that farmed animals eat far more crops; besides, only in a world that considers animals will anyone make the effort to reduce indirect deaths.

The idea that eating animals preserves domesticated species assumes that species matter in themselves, that they matter more than sentient beings, and that they would disappear without consumption; the first is controversial, the second can be rejected, and the third is false.

“Humans first, animals later” fails: each person makes a difference to the animals affected, there's no proof that most people would reject the arguments, and it may be disguised speciesism.

Animal exploitation isn't the result of laws being broken: it's legal. Animals have the legal status of property, which prevents meaningful protection; changing it requires changing the way people see them.

Saying that animal protection laws would be “imposing a lifestyle” is self-refuting: it defends a right against impositions and, at the same time, the right to impose suffering and death on animals.

There's growing evidence of sentience in insects, and their exploitation (for feed, food, silk, dye) already kills trillions a year in very bad conditions; given the number of victims, it's one of the most important problems.

The arguments from necessity and effectiveness don't justify animal experimentation; giving more weight to humans doesn't hold up, nor does the position “Kantianism for humans, utilitarianism for animals”; we can keep doing research without using animals.