Isn't a World with Less Suffering, but Managed by Humans, Absurd?

Original text Luciano Carlos Cunha · Volume VI, p. 32 of the PDF edition · English translation

One argument sometimes put forward in defense of the environmentalist view and against the sentience criterion is the following³⁷. If how good or bad a situation is should be assessed solely by how it benefits or harms sentient beings, then we will have to say that a world with plastic trees is better if that means sentient beings suffer less and are happier (compared with a world with natural trees in which sentient beings are worse off)³⁸. Proponents of this argument hold that it is absurd to think such a world would be better merely because it would contain less suffering and more happiness, and they conclude that we should therefore reject the sentience criterion.

Something that may make this argument seem appealing at first glance is the use of the term “plastic” rather than “human-made.” When we think of plastic trees, we tend to think of trees that fall far short of a natural tree and that do not benefit sentient beings as much as natural trees do. So when we read “plastic trees,” the last thing we are likely to think of is trees that are better for sentient beings than natural trees.

Thus, the use of the phrase “plastic trees” in the argument may suggest that a human-modified ecosystem could never be better for sentient beings than an unmodified one. The problem, however, is that the argument cannot make that suggestion, since its aim is to show that a natural ecosystem is preferable even if a human-modified ecosystem were much better for sentient beings (so it cannot use as an example a case in which the modification would be worse for sentient beings). To be honest, the argument would have to use the phrase “a human-modified ecosystem that is better for sentient beings” (and not “an ecosystem with plastic trees”).

For example, imagine that in the future we come across an ecosystem that, seen from the outside, is indistinguishable from a natural ecosystem (it contains trees, rivers, mountains, etc.), and that we can tell it was modified by intelligent agents only because it contains

certain measures that cause sentient beings to experience less suffering. If we frame the argument this way, the idea that choosing such a world would be absurd becomes very weak³⁹. Indeed, a world like this is what we seek for ourselves all the time: whenever we use housing, clothing, hospitals, medicines, recreation centers, and almost everything else we do in life. In fact, what most humans seem to find absurd is the opposite (at least when they themselves would be the victims of natural processes). But because of speciesism, the view held regarding nonhuman animals is the reverse: that it is absurd to modify the natural environment so that animals are harmed less. The explanation for this disparity, then, is just one: speciesism, pure and simple.

Another factor that contributes to the rejection of environmental improvement is the difficulty of imagining something human-made that is less bad for animals than a natural ecosystem, given the prevalence of views that equate “human action = worse outcome for nonhuman animals” and “natural = good.” However, most people do not know that in many cases human actions in natural ecosystems benefit animals, nor do they know that natural processes tend to maximize the number of animals born to lives filled with suffering and a very premature, usually violent death⁴⁰.

So if we rid ourselves of this prejudice and imagine a human-modified ecosystem that is better for sentient beings than a natural ecosystem, what seems implausible is the idea that this ecosystem is worse merely because it has been influenced by human action. It is implausible because it would reveal an unjustified aversion to everything that results from human practices (even when the outcome is beneficial to those affected); an unjustified veneration of everything that results from natural processes (even when the outcome is harmful to those affected); and, in addition, a complete disregard for how nonhuman animals are positively or negatively affected under each possibility.