{"id":835,"date":"2019-01-01T13:39:47","date_gmt":"2019-01-01T13:39:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/?p=835"},"modified":"2019-01-01T13:39:47","modified_gmt":"2019-01-01T13:39:47","slug":"moral-priorities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/2019\/01\/01\/moral-priorities\/","title":{"rendered":"Moral Priorities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Long-time vegan advocate James McWilliams<\/a> has lately proposed consuming insects instead of plants<\/a>. <\/p>\n

1. Yes, the moral imperative is (i) to cause no suffering at all to sentient beings if it is not essential for human survival, (ii) to minimize any suffering that is essential for human survival, and (iii) to reduce the rate of human population growth.<\/p>\n

2. Yes, animals suffer and die in the plant agriculture that feeds the vast and growing human population, and all means should be developed to minimize that suffering \u2014 eliminating it altogether if it ever becomes possible.<\/p>\n

3. But the unspeakable scale of agony that is being inflicted on countless sentient animals every moment, hour, day, worldwide today<\/a> by humans’ utterly unnecessary demand for meat, fish, dairy, eggs and fur is so monstrously huge and horrible that it is idle to speculate about one day switching to insect consumption rather than focussing today on re-directing existing plant agriculture to feeding humans instead of to feeding sentient victims purpose-bred, needlessly, to be brutalized and slaughtered to feed those same humans.<\/p>\n

4. Speculations about a hypothetical future insectivore alternative, just like speculations about hypothetical future cloned or synthesized meat<\/a> just give us another excuse to wait, and meanwhile continue to sustain the unpardonable agony caused by our needless consumption of meat, fish, dairy, eggs and fur, instead of taking the small and obvious first step of switching to a plant-based diet and to cruelty-free apparel.<\/p>\n

5. If we wish to speculate, let’s speculate rather (a) about inventing ways to minimize or eliminate animal suffering in agriculture and (b) about reducing the growth of the human population.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the very first priority is not to persuade people to eat insects instead of plants, but to eat plants instead of animals.<\/i><\/p>\n

And for every layman or entomologist who insists that “there\u2019s no hard evidence to support the prospect of insect suffering,” there are countless laymen and zoologists (among them Descartes<\/a>) who insist that there\u2019s no hard evidence to support the prospect of animal suffering. <\/p>\n

What is really behind all this is the “other minds problem<\/a>“: The only suffering you can be absolutely sure about is your own. If we give our kin and kind the benefit of the doubt, let’s give invertebrates the benefit of the doubt too, even if they are small. The nociceptive systems of insects and snails are much like those of lobsters or octopuses, which in turn are not very different from those of vertebrates and mammals, including us.<\/p>\n

The “quick and massive and singular and decisive whack” for “minimal suffering” that James McWilliams seems to be imagining for insects is as self-deceptive as it is in the minds of the countless meat-eaters who imagine that something like that is how cows’, calves’, pigs’, chickens’, turkeys’, fish’ or lobsters’ lives are ended for their plates — or the way foxes’, coyotes’, seals” dogs’ or cats’ lives are ended for their fur trim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long-time vegan advocate James McWilliams has lately proposed consuming insects instead of plants. 1. Yes, the moral imperative is (i) to cause no suffering at all to sentient beings if it is not essential for human survival, (ii) to minimize any suffering that is essential for human survival, and (iii) to reduce the rate of … <\/p>\n

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