Discussing the Claim That Animals Are Replaceable

Original text Luciano Carlos Cunha · Volume III, p. 30 of the PDF edition · English translation

It is sometimes argued that there is nothing wrong with killing nonhuman animals, as long as they have led a meaningful life up to that point, are killed painlessly, and are replaced by others who would be born to take their place and lead equally positive lives (and so the cycle would continue). This argument is sometimes used to defend the use of animals for consumption. It is commonly said that consuming animals benefits them, since "otherwise they would not be born". Let us call this position the replaceability defense.

One way of responding to this position is to point out that animals raised for consumption live lives full of extreme suffering and are killed in brutal ways, and other animals replace them by being born to live in that same hell. It would therefore be ridiculous to say that they were benefited by being born in such a context. However, the proponent of replaceability could say that their proposal is precisely to reform the system of animal exploitation so that those ideal conditions occur in practice and the animals live good lives. Of course, it is doubtful that this would be possible in practice. Regardless of that, however, it is also possible to challenge the idea that animals are replaceable even under the ideal conditions the argument assumes. That is what we will see in this chapter.

Let us begin by asking why anyone would think that animals are replaceable. One of the reasons is the belief that animals are not harmed by death. But, again, we can ask: why would anyone think that? In this chapter we will examine one of the explanations most often given by proponents of replaceability: the identity-based explanation (in chapter 9 we will discuss another explanation that is sometimes given: the explanation based on prudential reasons).

The identity-based explanation claims that what makes someone the same individual over time is their psychological connectedness⁴⁰. On this basis it is argued that beings who lack a temporal sense of self (that is, who have no memories and cannot imagine themselves in the future) are replaceable⁴¹. The reason for this would be that, if a being lacking a temporal sense of self is not the same individual over time, then it makes no difference whether we

keep that body alive or kill it and bring another into being: either way, the individual who exists now is annihilated (the only difference will be whether the new individual is born in this same body or in another).

A first possible criticism of this argument is to point out that, even if it made sense, it could only justify replacing beings who have no psychological connectedness at all, and this is not the case for the vast majority of animals (if it is the case for any).

A second criticism is directed at the very idea that an individual's identity is determined by their psychological connectedness. The criticism suggests that this idea confuses two senses of the term "the same"⁴². It makes sense to claim that someone who has lost their memories "is no longer the same" qualitatively, that is, in the sense of being psychologically very different from what they were before. However, this does not mean that it is a numerically different individual who occupies that body and that the previous individual was annihilated. It is not another consciousness experiencing the world: it is the same individual, who simply does not remember. If so, then psychological connectedness does not determine an individual's numerical identity.

Let us look at an example to illustrate this point⁴³. Imagine that Ana has all of her psychological connectedness copied into a new body. When the new body starts functioning, a new individual comes into being: AnaB. This new individual, because she has Ana's psychological connectedness, believes she is Ana, and remembers everything Ana has experienced up to that moment as if she herself had experienced it.

Imagine also that AnaB is physically identical to Ana and has all of her mannerisms. When AnaB walks down the street, people think she is Ana. Remember, however, that the original Ana did not die. Both Ana and AnaB are alive. If psychological connectedness determined individual identity, Ana and AnaB would be the same individual. But it seems clear that they are two distinct individuals, even though they have the same psychological connectedness, because they are two distinct consciousnesses: what one experiences, the other does not; the decisions of one affect only the movement of her own body and not the body of the other, etc. This suggests that it is not psychological connectedness that determines an individual's identity.

Let us look at a second example. Imagine that, as in Ana's case above, you will have all of your psychological connectedness copied into a new body, which has not yet started functioning. As in the previous example, the person who will be in the new body will remember all of your experiences and will think they are you. However, something unexpected happened. When copying your psychological connectedness into the new body, they accidentally erased your psychological connectedness from your brain. Now the new individual is alive, in the other body, remembering that they are you and thinking that they are you. You are also alive, not remembering who you are. The question is: where are you, in the new body or in the old one?

It seems clear that you are in the body you were already in, which no longer has the psychological connectedness it had, because it is you, your consciousness, who will be there experiencing everything that body experiences from then on, even if you remember nothing of your past. The other person in the new body remembers being you and thinks they are you, but they are mistaken, because they are a different consciousness, despite having the same psychological connectedness. Thus, this example also suggests that an individual's identity is not determined by their psychological connectedness.

If what these examples suggest is correct, then one of the main defenses of the idea that certain animals are replaceable (the identity-based explanation) has serious problems.