The Essentials of Animal Ethics

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.