The idea being debated
Some people say: "Killing an animal that only has a little time left barely harms it." For example, an old animal, or one from a species that doesn't live long.
The text shows this idea is more complicated than it looks.
Several ways to measure the harm of death
The author shows there are different ways to measure how bad it is to die at a certain moment:
- Future only: the more time someone would still have, the worse it is to die.
- Past only: the less someone has already lived, the worse it is to die.
- Percentage: the smaller the share of their possible life someone has already lived, the worse it is to die.
- Priority: each extra moment of life is worth more to someone who has lived little.
Only the first way clearly says that having little time ahead makes death a small harm. The others give different answers.
An example
Think of an animal from a short-lived species, like a rat, which lives about two years. If it dies at one year old, it has lost half of its possible life. That's a lot, proportionally. By the percentage measure, its death is as serious as that of a human who dies at 40 out of an 80-year life.
Quality counts too
Besides time, as we've seen, it matters whether the remaining life would be good. A few happy months are still something valuable to lose.
In short
- There are several reasonable ways to measure the harm of death.
- In many of them, the death of a short-lived animal is very serious.
- The quality of the remaining time matters too.