The Predation Defense

Lately I've been torturing my family with the question: what would the world be like if all animals were herbivores?  I'm pretty sure the answer is: not as good.  Evolving to hunt makes a species develop all sorts of perceptual and cognitive strengths, and likewise, evolving as another species' prey.  I can't see how a world filled with herbivores, and only herbivores, could have minds as sophisticated and varied.  Predatory mammals would be missing, but also carnivorous birds and fish.  You could wish the world had an intelligent and benevolent creator that would just make clever, diverse, bounteous animals, so the misery of prey being eaten could be avoided, but that's not what our world is like.  In our world as it is, predation is a necessary phenomenon that's shaped species for the better.  There aren't just vastly more species, because of predation, and more "filled" ecological niches, but the species that exist have more and better skills.  Or so it seems--I'd love to have an opinion from an evolutionary biologist given to speculation! 

If predation is a force for good, one thing that follows is that when we think of lions eating zebras, or raptors eating mice, or sharks eating baby whales, we should not disapprove. Few will outright morally condemn a lion but sometimes the reason for avoiding condemnation is not the right one. It's not just that the lion isn't a moral agent, so can't be condemned. A lion is not like a toddler drowning his baby brother--doing wrong, but not blameworthy. It's also not just that the lion, as an individual, needs meat to survive.  The imperative to hunt wouldn't go away, if the lion had a nutritious vegan alternative (faux zebra?). Because (to repeat) predation is a force for good -- without it, there wouldn't be some of the traits, abilities, and species that seem most valuable.   Yes, of course, predation does cause harm to the individual animal eaten, but it's still overall a force for good (in a world like ours, not run by a perfect being).

Now, what does this paean to predation mean for us? We are predators too, of course--since we are omnivores.  If predation is on the whole a force for good, we should at least not be disturbed by the impulse to eat meat or drink milk. These are not the least bit like impulses to torture animals for fun, or molest children, or rape women.  Your inner lion is okay, not criminal or pathological or malevolent.  So much for self-esteem!  We should have it, even as we feel attracted to the smell of barbecuing meat, on a hot summer night.  But should we go further--should we consume meat and other animal products?

I don't think I'd be in worse moral fettle than a lion, if I were running around in the wilderness killing rabbits for my dinner.  As a moral agent, though, I'd have to think through why I was doing this as well as how.   I'd have a duty to kill the rabbits as kindly as possible, and to kill no more than I needed.  Moral agency does, then, make a difference, but not the difference sometimes claimed: I don't have to refrain from killing rabbits, because I'm a moral agent. 

But what about meat consumption in a more typical case? Predation is a force for good in nature, to the extent that it makes nature more varied, bounteous, and mentally sophisticated.  It works wonders in an ecosystem.  But are we humans really still part of an ecosystem? We seem more like destructive aliens, relative to every ecosystem.  Predation is generally a force for good, but predation via domestication, as practiced today by our extremely populous species, is a special case.  Its impact is just the opposite of classic predation--we plus five or six domesticated species now dominate the biosphere, and these species have been bred so that they've lost mental acuity. They're so numerous and dominate so much land that they're a tremendous threat to biodiversity.

When all is said and done, the predation defense for meat-eating seems to exonerate the impulse to eat meat, and even acquit actual meat-eating in some conceivable cases.  But domestication throws a wrench into the works.  Human, predation-via-domestication is a very different thing from predation as it functions in a healthy ecosystem.

Why aren't you a vegan? (results)

HERE are the results of my survey.  88 people took the survey.  I asked--

This survey is aimed at people who are not vegans. You qualify as "not a vegan" if you deliberately consume some or all animal products (meat, eggs, milk, cheese, fish, oysters, clams, etc.) Which of the following statements capture your reason(s) for not being a vegan? Select ALL of the answers that express your viewpoint to any degree at all.

Note, responders could give multiple answers, so the percents don't add up to 100.

The most popular answer (43.2% gave it) was

I believe I am obligated to treat animals humanely but also think some animals raised for food are treated well enough

Next most popular (40.9%) --

I believe I should be a vegan, but I find it too difficult and so I am just a part-time vegan or vegetarian or part-time vegetarian.

Another 25% cited difficulty as their reasons for being omnivores.

I believe I should be a vegan, but I find it too difficult to limit what I eat, so I am an omnivore.

Those two answers are mutually exclusive, so I can (probably!) add the numbers together:  65.9% of those surveyed believe they should be vegans.

Responders rejected an obligation to abstain from animal products for a variety of reasons.  The most popular reasons (26.1%) was that "consuming animals is natural."  Another 25% gave a Kantian reasons for not being obligated to abstain--

I don't believe I am obligated to abstain from animal products because animals are not persons, so I can use them as a means, as long as I am not gratuitously cruel to them.

20.5% think animal products are nutritionally necessary, and therefore ethically acceptable--

I don't believe I am obligated to abstain from animal products, because they are nutritionally necessary, and we can't be obligated to abstain from something we need for our survival.

19.3% have their energies focused on problems they consider more important.

I don't believe I am obligated to abstain from animal products because there are many other problems in the world and my energies are currently directed at problems I consider more important.

30 people selected "other".  Some of the explanations:

1) I don't believe I am obligated to abstain from animal products because not every ethical issue is a matter of obligation: still, it might be good to abstain from animal products, or it would be morally better to do so.

2) There are upland areas of Britain (where I live) which are only suitable for grazing by animals. If there was no market for these animals, not only would the animals not exist, also the economy and environment of these areas would be detrimentally affected, along with the lives of people living there.

3) For reasons incomprehensible to me I cannot care about the rights of animals. I know that I should but I do not.

4) Very roughly: if for example I accept some animals have a right to not be killed or only to be killed humanely, then this should extend to wild animals too. If one takes a consequentialist type view that omissions are not that different from comissions, then we should maximize the welfare of animals in the wild, if it not too onerous. Since in fact, I think of the lifestyle of animals in the wild as the "baseline" good life, then a domesticated life at around that level is acceptable to me.

5) I believe that vegans make a category error by privileging the actions of humans over the actions of other animals. To elaborate: 1) If eating other animals is wrong, and 2) Humans are animals Then either all animals eating other animals is wrong (which seems absurd) or humans are in some way a special kind of animal (which seems contrary to the notion that animals should be treated with the same respect as humans).

6) For ethical reasons I don't eat sentient creatures. I doubt oysters feel pain, but still don't consume them because of yuck factor of eating any animals. Most people would describe me as vegan, but I can't see a serious ethical objection to silk or honey, so I guess I don't qualify as a real vegan. Boo hoo.

7) I am slowly transitioning into being vegan

8) I am not vegan because the ethical satisfaction I would derive by going vegan again would be minor to nonexistent, and so provides little to no motivation for me now that I enjoy eating animal products. If I got nothing out of eating animal products, and could achieve even slight ethical satisfaction from being vegan, I would be vegan -- but that's not the case at the moment. Also possibly relevant is that I don't believe in moral obligations (although it is of course possible to want to be vegan for ethical reasons without believing in moral obligations).

9) It's too exhausting to try to eat completely the "right" way. The rising demand for quinoa is apparently detrimental to the farmers who grow it (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/quinoa-boom-bolivian_n_2724251.html). Brown rice has arsenic. Unless you grow your own food, which I have neither the knowledge, skills or desire to do, you're hurting someone, somewhere. So I try to buy local, consume animal products in moderation (and pay extra for humanely raised, cage-free, etc. etc., to show that there is a market for these products instead of abstaining entirely), and live my life without constant anxiety and second-guessing at every meal. It's the best I can do right now. I also believe that everyone eating half as much meat would be the same as half the people abstaining entirely, which seems more realistic.

10) Admittedly, I don't try very hard. And clearly I don't feel that omnivorism is very wrong, as wrong as other things I refrain from doing, like murder or theft, or I would be more motivated to comply with my moral reasons. Rationally I believe veganism is the only morally defensible position - however I don't feel strongly enough motivated to comply with that, especially as I'm a lazy and unimaginative cook, and really love dairy.

11) BECAUSE OF CHEESE

You can find out who these responders were (philosophers? with background in ethics? knowledgeable about the treatment of animals?) by looking at the survey results.

Why did I create this survey?  I am a vegetarian (20 years now!), but not a vegan, and have a longstanding puzzlement about why I cannot make myself go further.  I like the milk in my cappuccino too much--I am a sinner!  But is that all there is to it? Periodically I ponder the possibility that I am not actually a sinner.  We all have a right to food that's "nutritious and delicious"--and our obligation is only to exercise that right in the most humane way possible. For me, given my taste preferences, that means being a vegetarian, not a vegan. That sounds a bit lame and "spin"-ish, so I wondered what other non-vegans have to say in their self-defense.   Several of the "other" answers strike me as food for thought--especially 4) and 5).

Why aren't you a vegan?

Perhaps you are! But if not, please take this survey and disseminate.  I will share the results here in a week.  SURVEY

The Missing Posts

I've made six trips since February to visit my father in Pennsylvania. This means my thoughts have been interrupted a lot.  I get on the plane, read a book about something I'm working on, keep the topic on my mind for several days, and by the time I'm on the return flight, I've lost the thread.  Blogging is further down the list of my priorities, so it's even more difficult to hang on to potential topics.

So here we go--a bunch of topics I started to think about in the last few months, but didn't get to pursue.  I'm giving myself just a few sentences for each topic!

Caregiving drones
Drones are useful for hunting and killing enemies, but why not use them peacefully?  When my father can't find his hearing aids, I'd love to be able to send in a little hornet-sized drone to have a look.

Must we be vegans?
I'm not sure about the idea that we must always justify harm by citing a more serious benefit.  In sports and business, competition doesn't work that way--you can cause a competitor harm without being able to cite a compensatory benefit.   Does this tell us anything about using animals for food? Is Finding Food competitive, like engaging in sports and business competition?

Must we be vegans?
In the debate about food ethics, people seem too puritanical about food enjoyment, making it seem trivial. For most people, oddly enough, food pleasure is one of the greatest pleasures. Does it make any sense to assert a right to nutritious and delicious food?

Latest atheist battle
I see nothing very wrong with Ron Lindsay's speech at the recent Women in Secularism conference.  It seems like a very, very bad sign that such an innocuous speech could generate so much controversy.

Priming
There's some fascinating research that seems to show we are affected unconsciously by tiny cues--if you see words like "old" and "geriatric" on a screen, you'll walk away more slowly than if you see words like "young" and "teenager".  This makes me wonder about the impact of spending many days in a row at a senior home  Is there a "dose-response" effect, so I should worry about being seriously infected with elderly attitudes and behaviors? (If not, why not?)

Where's the hot sauce?
It wouldn't be so bad to live in a senior home, if you could just hang onto your own lifestyle.  Why must the food be so bland?  How will I survive without hot-hot-hot Mexican and Indian food, if I ever wind up in such a place?

Stoicism can be useful
When dealing with stressful situations, do I get any use out of the Stoic philosophy I cover in my classes?  Well yes, a little. I like Epictetus's advice that you should remind yourself that you do possess the character traits that will be needed, come what may.

Stoicism isn't all that useful
Stoicism is all about mind-control--handling a situation by thinking about it the right way. Unfortunately, when you have dementia, you can wind up with lots of problems that you can't think your way out of.  Stoicism is for the intellectually advantaged.

When life begins
I almost have it figured out:-)  I am making progress on a book chapter (hurray!).

The Grim Reader
Everything I'm reading these days seems to be grotesquely depressing.  That's the topic of my next TPM column.

The Badness of Death

What makes death bad for someone who dies?  This is on my mind for lots of different reasons--so here goes, some thinking aloud.

The question is puzzling if you even just think about the death of one individual, of one age and species, but let's be masochists and thinking about lots of deaths.

Death of a zygote after 2 days development
Death of a newborn baby
Death of a healthy young adult
Death of a very, very old unhealthy adult
Death of a healthy young cat


My gut feeling is that there's a certain Basic Badness to death (caps do so much to dignify ideas!). The Basic Badness consists of the fact that a certain conscious vantage point on the world existed for some time and then came to an end.  It seems to me this is a yes/no matter. Either the basic badness is present or it's absent.  And it's present whenever there exists a conscious vantage point. It's present in four of the cases, but not the first. A zygote has no conscious vantage point, so the Basic Badness of death is not present.  It might be sad and bad or even tragic in some way for a zygote to die--think about the miscarriage of a much wanted pregnancy.  But there is not the awfulness of termination of consciousness.

It would be foolish to say that all deaths are equally bad, just because they involve termination of consciousness. They have a certain type of badness to an equal degree, but there are other types of badness besides Basic Badness. There are two further types of badness (at least!) that make different deaths bad to different degrees.  Death doesn't just bring an end to consciousness; it also takes away future life, and that future life can vary in quantity and quality.  So in addition to the Basic Badness of death, there is also some degree of Deprivation.  A very old unhealthy adult is deprived of less, by death, than a healthy young adult.

More "compare and contrast": I would say the deprivation involved when a cat dies is less than when a newborn baby or health human adult dies--both in light of quantity and quality.  There are different "goods" possible in different lives, and not as much good in the average hour of a cat's life.  (NB: no less an animal advocate than Peter Singer says exactly the same thing.)

Next:  the Basic Badness of death is compounded also by the degree to which death Interrupts.  It's one thing to take away future years that would have been good. It's another to interrupt a project that's already under way.  Both are bad, but they're bad in different ways.  In one case, precious days are lost, in the other, someone dies with "unfinished business."

Death interrupts very little for a baby, a great deal for a healthy adult, and once again, quite a bit less for a very old unhealthy adult.  Does death interrupt for a cat, or is a cat's life lived day after day after day, with no possibility of "unfinished business"?  There isn't much chance of "unfinished business" for most house cats, but many animals can die with unfinished business. Think of a salmon killed in the middle of its journey upstream, or a beaver killed while building a dam.  But yes, on average, there's bound to be less interruption than when a healthy human adult dies.

Now let's do the math ... but how should we do it?  A zygote's death is not bad as far as Basic Badness goes, but it's maximally depriving.  Should we (1) simply add the numbers together? Is death, for a zygote, pretty damned bad, because of the deprivation?  Or should we say (2) that only deaths that are Basically Bad can be even more bad, because of additional bad-making factors?

I say (2).  I cannot make myself think the death of a zygote is bad in anything at all like the death of the other four individuals is bad.   The badness of deprivation doesn't "kick in" because there's no basic badness to the death of a zygote.

The Basic Badness of death can be worsened by deprivation and interruption, but where there is no Basic Badness, there's nothing to worsen.  The way that death brings consciousness to an end is a privileged part of the picture, with everything else playing a secondary, "compounding" role.  Why is termination of consciousness the primary thing? Perhaps--bottom line--death is not really death, unless it terminates a consciousness.  So deprivation doesn't make a zygote's death extra bad, because it's not really a death, in the funeral sense, to begin with, however much (nevertheless) it can be a grievous thing to lose a pregnancy.

At least--that's how things appear at the moment! Back to reading the death literature (I'm currently reading Death, by Shelly Kagan).