To Whom Do We Owe Moral Consideration?

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.