Intermediate level

Against the Epicurean view that death is not a harm, the chapter argues that it harms by preventing the good things the individual would have lived; and even if Epicurus were right, this would apply equally to humans and animals.

Animals are harmed by death even without understanding what it is and without desires about the future: every sentient being with the prospect of a minimally meaningful life ahead loses something by dying.

The chapter examines three objections to the idea that death is a deprivation harm (the epistemological problem, the temporal asymmetry, and the problem of potential beings) and shows that they don't overturn the account.

Saying that those without intellectual pleasures are only slightly harmed by death doesn't hold up: intellectual pleasures aren't necessarily more valuable, and even if they were, that wouldn't make other pleasures of little value.

The size of the harm of death depends on how much lifetime the individual loses and on the quality of that time, which can be expressed in QALYs; there are also reasons to take into account what they have already lived.

The objection that measuring the harm of death by QALYs has absurd implications appeals to intuitions that may be biased; until another criterion is grounded independently, we have reasons to use QALYs.

Even if psychological connectedness to the future mattered for the harm of death, simpler minds may have proportionally greater connectedness, since their contents vary less; and strong connectedness doesn't even seem necessary for being greatly harmed.

The idea that animals are replaceable, that is, that killing one isn't wrong if another with an equally good life is born in its place, fails: it would permit parents to replace their children, and it confuses being qualitatively “the same” with being the same individual.

With examples like Bia's trip to the pyramids, the chapter shows that the strength of our reasons to pursue what's good and avoid what's bad doesn't depend on psychological connectedness; so connectedness doesn't show that animals are only slightly harmed by death.

Having little lifetime left, whether from old age or from belonging to a short-lived species, doesn't make death a small harm; and animals with smaller brains may even perceive time more slowly.

Even supposing humans were more harmed by death, that wouldn't justify killing animals for lesser benefits, or killing some to save others, or ignoring the number of victims.

The wrongness of killing and the reason to save lives should depend on the magnitude of the harm of death; the “two-tier” approach, which gives a privileged status to certain individuals, fails the impartiality test.

Considering the possibility of life after death doesn't radically change the assessment: there's uncertainty about it and about what it would be like, while we know how the current life would probably go on; so it doesn't justify killing those who have a good life.

A criterion is justified only if it's based on a distinction relevant to the question at hand; to decide whom to give consideration, what's relevant is being able to be harmed or benefited, which leads to the criterion of sentience.

The sentience criterion isn't anthropocentric: it doesn't consider animals because they resemble humans, but because they can be harmed and benefited, which reason or language doesn't determine.

The sentience criterion isn't “kingdomism”: it doesn't include all animals (sponges probably don't feel) or exclude other kingdoms on principle; it includes any sentient being, even a non-organic one, should one come to exist.

The sentience criterion doesn't recognize only suffering as harm: a sentient being is also harmed by the absence of what would be positive for them, as in death.

Harms that don't alter one's experiences, such as violating someone who is unconscious, may be an objection to hedonism, but not to the sentience criterion, which is also compatible with harms to actual or informed preferences.

The sentience criterion doesn't exclude insects: there's evidence of sentience in several species, and the rest have barely been studied; if there's someone in those bodies, they deserve the same consideration as any sentient being.

Accepting the sentience criterion doesn't imply that values are subjective: there's a confusion between “subjective” in the sense of referring to consciousness and in the sense of there being no objective truth.

There are no good reasons to say that animals with simpler brains are less sentient or deserve less: they're as much a “someone” as any sentient being, their experiences may even be more intense at certain stages, and giving less weight because of cognition is intelligence-based discrimination.

The existence of an environmental ethics doesn't show that non-sentient entities have intrinsic value: we also need an ethics of income distribution, and income has no intrinsic value. An “ethics of environmental management” may be enough.

The idea that a world with less suffering but managed by humans would be worse reveals a prejudice: an ecosystem indistinguishable from a natural one and better for sentient beings wouldn't be worse just because of human influence.

Respecting sentient beings doesn't imply that nature has intrinsic value: what makes sentient beings considerable (being able to be affected) isn't present in nature as a whole; confusing “nature” with “animals” produces this mistake.

The fact that some sentient beings have an interest in nature taking its course doesn't imply accepting environmentalist goals: considering an interest isn't the same as having to fulfill it, and fulfilling it here would cause suffering and death to an enormous number of others.

Species don't have interests: they're abstract entities, categories created to group similar living beings; those who can be benefited or harmed are the sentient individuals who make them up.

Even if non-sentient entities had intrinsic value, there would be strong reasons to prioritize sentient beings in conflicts: only they can suffer, and only for them does death prevent positive experiences.

A broader criterion isn't necessarily better: it would have to be shown that the beings included can actually be harmed; and biocentrism excludes possible non-living sentient beings, discriminating against them.

That being alive is necessary for being sentient doesn't give life intrinsic value; it's the other way around: biological life has value as a means to meaningful experiences, not sentience as a means to life.

Non-sentient living beings don't seem capable of being harmed: everyday expressions like “the plant is happy” don't show that there's someone there for whom things go well or badly.

Behaviors of plants and fungi (growing toward light, closing leaves when touched) can be explained as physicochemical reactions; without a structure that gives rise to experiences, behavior alone doesn't indicate sentience.

Life without sentience doesn't seem to have value: examples like total irreversible coma, the fraudulent insurer, and sentience without life show that what we value is experiences, not biological life.

Non-sentient living beings don't have “biological interests” in the moral sense: in sentient beings, satisfying biological needs is only a means to well-being; having needs isn't enough to have interests.

If plants were morally considerable, it wouldn't follow that it makes no difference whether we eat animals or plants: animals suffer and consume many plants; the implication would be fruitarianism, and even Paul Taylor recognizes the importance of suffering.

Animal advocacy and environmentalism start from opposite foundations: one values the individuals who feel; the other, non-sentient entities like species and ecosystems. That's why there are environmentalist practices that exterminate animals.

The difference between environmentalism and animal advocacy lies in the ends, not just the means: considering individuals isn't always preferring one over many, and considering “the whole” isn't considering the majority, but abstract entities.

Animal advocacy and environmentalism sometimes converge, but not always: the environment can be preserved in many configurations, and the ones environmentalism prefers often aren't the best for animals.

The difference between the two positions isn't that one thinks short-term and the other long-term: concern for animals' future suffering is already a concern centered on them, not an environmentalist one.

Ecological balance (the stability of populations) and biodiversity (the variety of species) don't measure animals' well-being; only by coincidence do they result in something better for them, and they often result in very bad situations.

The disagreement between animal advocacy and environmentalism is ethical, not scientific: ecology describes and doesn't prescribe goals, and a position centered on animals' good can be as scientifically informed as any other, for example through welfare biology.

Several factors explain the confusion between animal advocacy and environmentalism, such as the belief that both want what's good for animals and the confusion between environmentalism and ecology; it leads animal advocates to support practices that seriously harm animals.

Environmentalist programs to exterminate “invasive” species don't aim to reduce animals' suffering and deaths (sometimes they greatly increase them): they aim to maintain valued configurations. They fail the impartiality test.

Most environmentalists are anthropocentric, since they don't apply to humans what they apply to animals; a rare few, like Linkola, would apply it to humans too. There are reasons to reject both positions.

It hasn't been shown that non-sentient entities (species, ecosystems) have intrinsic value, let alone that they're worth more than sentient beings; even if they did, that wouldn't justify violating basic interests such as not suffering and not dying.

Animal advocates are reluctant to acknowledge their disagreement with environmentalism for fear of opposing it and because it's hard to revise long-held beliefs and practices; these are the same biases they ask others to overcome.

To choose causes, problems, and strategies, we can use criteria: how serious the situation is (the number of victims and how bad it is for each one), tractability, the size of the possible benefit, long-term effects, tackling causes and not just symptoms, and the degree of neglect.

By the criteria for prioritizing (seriousness, number of victims, neglect, and tractability), the animal cause does very well; the number of victims is so large that even people who give less weight to animals would have to prioritize it.

Within the animal cause, the most neglected and serious problems are animals raised for food (especially aquatic animals and invertebrates), animals in the wild who are victims of natural processes, and the future; that is why this is where we can make the most difference.

Using only anthropocentric or environmentalist arguments (health, the environment) to defend animals carries risks: different motivations have different consequences, they may reinforce the idea that harm to animals is not enough on its own, and they may get in the way of concern for bigger problems, such as wild animals and the future.

The total approach defends a complete ethical view; the sufficient approach shows that certain goals (such as consideration for all sentient beings) can be accepted from very different views. It is important to combine the two.

In debates, people who defend practices that harm animals often shift the focus to health, the environment, or practical details; accepting this shift prevents any discussion of speciesism, and without that discussion the situation of animals is unlikely to change.

The case of animal ethics experts who consume animals raises the question of moral motivation: perhaps they do not think it is wrong, think it is only slightly wrong, are not sincere, have a weak will, or decide not to act; no form of persuasion escapes these limits.

Sometimes people who disagree with a goal (a normative objection) present their disagreement as a strategic doubt ("it would be great, but it will never work"); the burden of proof lies with whoever makes such claims, and there are reasons to be suspicious of them.

The debate between focusing on veganism or on reducing consumption is, in general, about strategy and not about the goal, which is shared; there are arguments on both sides, and they need to be evaluated without deciding in advance by intuition.

"Welfarism" has at least seven meanings, which concern different debates; accepting or rejecting one of the positions called by that name does not imply accepting or rejecting the others.

The debate about regulating exploitation involves two causal questions: whether reforms lead to abolition and whether they reduce suffering; there are arguments on both sides, and reforms should be compared with other strategies, such as cultivated meat and antispeciesist education.

Cultivated meat could greatly reduce exploitation; the chapter examines objections from defenders of conventional meat and from animal advocates, and concludes that it has great potential, including, in the future, for reducing natural harms.

Biases are psychological tendencies that systematically lead to faulty reasoning; several of them (the identifiable victim effect, scope neglect, the collapse of compassion) make the problems with the most victims precisely the most neglected ones.

Several biases lead us to neglect wild animals: status quo bias, a preference for certain kinds of animals, the number of victims, the belief that nature is good (as in the just-world hypothesis), attempts to justify suffering, doubts about feasibility, and underestimating the public.

Biases such as temporal bias, difficulty dealing with probabilities and expected value, and overconfidence in intuitions contribute to neglecting the long term and s-risks; the answer is to keep an open mind about counterintuitive questions.

Many biases make it hard to revise our beliefs and strategies about animals: status quo bias, system justification, moral licensing, the affect heuristic, the mere-exposure effect, the sunk cost fallacy, illusory superiority, the bias blind spot, the illusory truth effect, authority bias, and others.

Motivated reasoning means judging arguments with different levels of rigor depending on whether we like the conclusion; in addition, many people raise objections they do not believe in, as excuses; this explains why attempts to justify speciesism are rarely examined rigorously.

Activists are also affected by biases when choosing strategies (negativity, choice overload, nostalgia, order effects), and so is the public when receiving the message; presenting the arguments for considering animals first can change how the rest is received.