Does Every Living Being Have “Biological Interests”?

Original text Luciano Carlos Cunha · Volume VI, p. 57 of the PDF edition · English translation

A specific case of anthropocentric speciesism consists in not considering certain interests of nonhuman animals because they do not have all the interests that humans have. For example, not taking into account a fish's interest in not suffering because it has no interest in reading a book. Humans have certain specific interests (as a result of their rational capacity), but they share with nonhuman animals certain “interests of sentience,” that is, interests whose existence requires only that the being in question be sentient.

It is sometimes suggested that an analogous discrimination would favor sentient beings over nonsentient living beings⁷⁰. The argument holds that although sentient beings have certain specific interests (for example, not suffering and having positive experiences), there are interests of sentient beings that concern their biology: eating, sleeping, resting. That is, they concern the basic needs of the biological body.

However, the argument continues, nonsentient living beings also have basic needs. A plant needs to metabolize nutrients from the soil and be watered in order to stay alive. The argument concludes that, just as there are “interests of sentience” that are shared by human and nonhuman animals, there are “biological interests” that are shared by all living beings, sentient or not.

One problem with this argument, however, is that the interest sentient beings have in the satisfaction of their biological needs is merely instrumental to their well-being. The satisfaction of biological needs is not important in itself. It is not these biological needs that make sentient beings have a well-being and, therefore, an interest in satisfying those needs. Sentient beings have a well-being because they are capable of having positive and negative mental states. This point becomes clear when we ask why it is important for us to have our biological needs satisfied. Eating, resting, and sleeping seem to have value precisely because they prevent suffering and provide positive experiences (either directly, or indirectly by preventing death). Since nonsentient living beings are not capable of any experience at all, the

satisfaction of their biological needs would have no value whatsoever for them, given that there is no point of view of theirs: there is no someone inside those bodies.

The following objection could be raised: “the interest in eating, sleeping, and resting is also instrumental to the interest in staying alive, which is a purely biological interest.” However, one can ask “why (and when) is it good to be alive?”. There are some conditions in which being alive is a harm to the one who lives (for example, a life of nothing but extreme suffering). There are also conditions in which being alive is a matter of indifference (for example, a total irreversible vegetative coma, in which there is a living body but no longer an individual). If so, then being alive is not good in itself: it is good depending on what it would be possible to experience in life⁷¹. If so, then being alive has value merely instrumental to the fulfillment of interests that depend on sentience in order to exist.

Thus, the fact that sentient beings have certain interests whose satisfaction requires that their biological needs be met indicates neither that nonsentient living beings have the same interests nor that having biological needs is sufficient for having interests.