I am sympathetic to, but unconvinced of the importance of animal suffering in general. However for those that are sympathetic to animal suffering, I could never understand their resistance to caring about wild animal suffering, a resistance which seems relatively common. So this post seems good for them.
This post does seem more of an EA forum sorta post though.
I could never understand their resistance to caring about wild animal suffering, a resistance which seems relatively common.
At a guess, many people have the intuition that we have greater moral responsibility for lives that we brought into being (ie farmed animals)? To me this seems partly reasonable and partly like the Copenhagen interpretation of ethics (which I disagree with).
I happen to care about animal suffering, and I am as baffled as you about the move of caring about animal suffering for explicitly anti-speciecist reasons yet dismissing wild animal suffering. Seems pretty inconsistent.
Maybe it originates from a sort of wishful thinking? As in “looks intractable, therefore I wish it were unimportant, therefore it is”.
It’s that most people who care about animal suffering don’t care about animal suffering from first principles. It’s belief as attire. Actually caring about animal suffering in a principled manner leads to bizarre conclusions.
I am sympathetic to, but unconvinced of the importance of animal suffering in general. However for those that are sympathetic to animal suffering, I could never understand their resistance to caring about wild animal suffering, a resistance which seems relatively common. So this post seems good for them.
This post does seem more of an EA forum sorta post though.
At a guess, many people have the intuition that we have greater moral responsibility for lives that we brought into being (ie farmed animals)? To me this seems partly reasonable and partly like the Copenhagen interpretation of ethics (which I disagree with).
I happen to care about animal suffering, and I am as baffled as you about the move of caring about animal suffering for explicitly anti-speciecist reasons yet dismissing wild animal suffering. Seems pretty inconsistent.
Maybe it originates from a sort of wishful thinking? As in “looks intractable, therefore I wish it were unimportant, therefore it is”.
It’s that most people who care about animal suffering don’t care about animal suffering from first principles. It’s belief as attire. Actually caring about animal suffering in a principled manner leads to bizarre conclusions.