Can we eliminate predation?

[AmateurScientist]

It's a problem for the only coherent moral theory I know of, utilitarianism. If you want to be a moral being, want to have a coherent basis for moral judgement, and want to be consistent, I know of no way of getting around the fact that the suffering of entities capable of suffering should be minimised.

Thoughtful and informed ecologists and naturalists disagree. Their approach is not to interfere with the balance of nature as much as possible, which includes predation within one's own ecosystem. The continued well-being of prey species depends upon it, as their numbers rise and fall in a symbiotic relationship with the amount of predation. Your goal is inconsistent with itself.

Of course, there are problems with predation sometimes. A species of starfish is wreaking havoc with natural coral reefs on a massive scale and is a runaway problem for that ecosystem. No one is sure why this is occuring, but such things happen in nature, with or without human intervention.

That's the way nature is.

Because we can't stop it, even if we wanted to. Personally, I'd like to be able to stop it. I won't force such technology on you if you think we would be better off without you though.

It's a problem only to each individual. It's not a problem to our species. Without aging and death, we would have much greater problems than we do now. Suffering would be tremendously increased.

At specific predictions, sure. Overall, the rate of increase of the rate of increase of our powers as a species is accelerating. It's a matter of centuries at most before the rate of increase tends towards infinity and we hit the limits of what is possible in the universe.

At that point eliminating predation as a source of suffering will almost certainly be trivial.

Sounds like hubris to me. The more we learn about the universe, the more we discover that there is much more to learn than we thought previously. It's a never-ending task.

Furthermore, it is a mistake to believe that human actions or human technology are capable of solving all "problems" that we might identify as such. Many of those problems aren't problems at all at the global level. Locally, to us, they may be, but that's only because of our own self-interests.

Here's an example. We might want to attempt to prevent volcanic eruptions at a given location in order to prevent the immediate and medium term deaths or humans and animals and plants nearby. That's a local solution. On a global scale, we've learned that volcanic activity is a vital part of terraforming and that eventually it supports life. Plants eventually grow on volcanic rock, and soon animals appear too. Whole ecosystems develop around what was formerly volcanic destruction.

Furthermore, volcanic activity is likely what got us out of the otherwise intractable problem of being encased in a Snowball Earth, probably about six times that we know of in the earth's history. Are volcanoes a "problem" or not?

AS

 

[AmateurScientist]

Only if we kept reproducing faster than stuff other than aging killed us off. I see absolutely no reason why that has to be the case.

Well, I suspect that most people who have children reproduced due more to some rather innate primal urge--like they wanted kids of their own--rather than as a result of some cold, calculated attempt to replace someone else who recently died.

I would learn how to deal with it. Failing that I'd kill myself. In either case, I don't see any appeal in getting physiologically older than I am now (early thirties).

Hmm....OK, you get to be 32 forever. Everyone you know or will ever know dies just as people die now. After experiencing such personal loss like that for a few centuries, do you really think you'd be happy? Who would you share it with? How would new people relate to you, a person from generations past?

If everyone in the aggregate lives forever, than no one can have children. Furthermore, I suspect that eventually the "novelty" of life itself and what humans can experience from it would wear off and an ennui of tremendous proportions would take over. Again, is that a happy scenario?

AS

 

[luchog]

Furthermore, I suspect that eventually the "novelty" of life itself and what humans can experience from it would wear off and an ennui of tremendous proportions would take over. Again, is that a happy scenario?

I've always felt that people who thought this way simply lacked imagination.

 

[El_Spectre]

It's a problem for the only coherent moral theory I know of, utilitarianism. If you want to be a moral being, want to have a coherent basis for moral judgement, and want to be consistent, I know of no way of getting around the fact that the suffering of entities capable of suffering should be minimised.

I love how we skeptics laugh at people who believe in One True Religion, yet then immediately start believing One True Philosophy.

There is no objective morality.

We are smart apes compelled to look out for our own self interest.

This is a good thing.

 

[jimlintott]

Consider the cow.

If humans stopped eating beef, stopped using dairy products, stopped using leather and stopped using any products that our bovine friends provide. What would we do with all the cows? Set them free?

The guilt that stops someone from eating a cow may save an individual animal but it threatens an entire species.

So I ask those who find animal products immoral; what do you have against cows anyway?

Domesticated animals only live to serve our purpose. Eliminate that purpose and you extinct them.

Eliminate predation in the animal world? Might as well suggest that you can eliminate war in the human world.

 

[El_Spectre]

Consider the cow.

If humans stopped eating beef, stopped using dairy products, stopped using leather and stopped using any products that our bovine friends provide. What would we do with all the cows? Set them free?

Rodeo animals for wimpy cowboys... isn't it obvious?

 

[Batman Jr.]

Perhaps because empathy is an emotional response and not a rational one? I think we should differentiate here between the emotional response of empathy and the rational recognition of animals as feeling creatures in some ways like ourselves. On the basis of that rational recognition we may or may not then experience some degree of empathy.
I certainly empathise with my dog who is a lovely gentle creature yet I would never treat her as I do a human. For one thing it would only confuse her - I am her pack leader and she understands her position in the pack, which emotionally very important to a dog.
We can even empathise with humans in complex ways. I empathise with a colleague as a human being. I fail to empathise with him as a professional as he's a total waste of space who should be marched out the building.

As I explained before, treating your dog like a human is not required in recognizing some of her rights. The dog would fall into the same moral category as a human baby as I had outlined in one of my above posts.

Actually, I don't. Man is no more important in the cosmic scheme of things than any other creature who exists, has ever existed, or ever will exist. How's that?

What I don't get is if man is no more important (your word) than any other animals, then why do you assert that he has a greater obligation towards them? Before you answer, please understand I get the moral agent business, but that premise itself is anthropocentric. By definition, it assumes that man is indeed more "important" in that humans have greater responsibilities vis-a-vis other animals. How is your position consistent with itself?

My argument is not anthropocentric. My point of view's logical progression goes from the premise that when a being attempts to demonstrate an experience which by natural course has been largely categorized as self-evidently negative and that being cannot escape from that negative experience without assistance, it is negligence not to try at the least to help that being extricate itself from whatever environment is causing that self-evidently negative feeling and it is certainly even worse when you are making that environment. You seem to have no problem with this rule in a decidedly human setting in that I'm pretty sure you wouldn't entitle a murderer to the right to kill another man because of a belief in the nonexistence of any form of moral absolutism. Why does an animal which only deviates in its understood ontology from a human in its ability to do math problems all of a sudden cross the boundary where the imposition of some kind of commonly agreed upon morality on how we treat the animal becomes excessive or "anthropocentric"? The truth is that it couldn't be anthropocentric when many of the morals we seek to uphold—the curbing of suffering and the preservation of life—are not limited to humans.

It is also not a matter of greater obligation or importance. It is a matter of being able to carry our commonly understood moral rules to their most reasonable ends regardless of the errors other animals may make in carrying out those same basic ideas. To go back to the baby analogy, just because that baby doesn't necessarily have a proper conception of how another person feels when they throw something at them in a fit doesn't mean that it is right to decide to make that same mistake and throw things at your baby when you get mad at them. Your actions in refraining from throwing things at your baby do not portray a greater sense of self-importance as compared to your ideas about the importance of the baby. Rather, they just show that you're not willing to repeat the errors in moral judgment made by the baby.

 

[AmateurScientist]

I've always felt that people who thought this way simply lacked imagination.

Forever is a long time.

AS

 

[Johnny Pneumatic]

Good quote indeed. Cows are not human, thats right, but there are reasons to believe that they feel pain and they suffer emotionaly. I dont believe that, just because they are different, we can abuse them. Call this whatever you like, maybe it is not a rational argument, but and emotional one. Im fine with that definition.

I dont like animals to suffer. Thats it.

Sure, I know. I'm not talking about killing or harming them just for kicks, although I wonder if there is a rational reason not to if one feels like it. I don't cause animals pain just to do it. But I enjoy eating meat very, very much.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I love how we skeptics laugh at people who believe in One True Religion, yet then immediately start believing One True Philosophy.

Could I get you to reread what I wrote?

There is no objective morality.

You will notice that I did not say there was.

We are smart apes compelled to look out for our own self interest.

True but incomplete.

This is a good thing.

Whoops, you made a seemingly objective value judgement.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Thoughtful and informed ecologists and naturalists disagree. Their approach is not to interfere with the balance of nature as much as possible, which includes predation within one's own ecosystem. The continued well-being of prey species depends upon it, as their numbers rise and fall in a symbiotic relationship with the amount of predation. Your goal is inconsistent with itself.

To begin with, if these "informed" ecologists and naturalists claim that not interfering with nature is a moral rule, rather than good practise given that we do not really know what we are doing, then they are engaging in the naturalistic fallacy.

Perhaps more importantly, to claim that the goal of eliminating predation is inconsistent with itself is to assume that we will never have the knowledge or the technology to regulate the rise and fall of animal populations. Since you have yourself articulated the position that we cannot know what future people will be capable of, that's a strange assumption.

Of course, there are problems with predation sometimes. A species of starfish is wreaking havoc with natural coral reefs on a massive scale and is a runaway problem for that ecosystem. No one is sure why this is occuring, but such things happen in nature, with or without human intervention.

That's the way nature is.

I am not sure if this is the naturalistic fallacy again or a non sequitur.

It's a problem only to each individual. It's not a problem to our species. Without aging and death, we would have much greater problems than we do now. Suffering would be tremendously increased.

This claim must be based on some kind of assumption that even given the technology to control aging, we will not have the technology to control population growth. I find that idea bizarre.

Sounds like hubris to me. The more we learn about the universe, the more we discover that there is much more to learn than we thought previously. It's a never-ending task.

It is simple mathematics, extrapolating from the trend that has existed throughout recorded history. Our capabilities have been increasing exponentially since our first civilisations. It's just that to people on the bottom end of an exponential curve, it's easy to mistake it for a straight line. We are rapidly approaching the point at which the rate of increase in our capabilities will tend towards infinity, until we reach the limits of what is doable in the universe.

Furthermore, it is a mistake to believe that human actions or human technology are capable of solving all "problems" that we might identify as such. Many of those problems aren't problems at all at the global level. Locally, to us, they may be, but that's only because of our own self-interests.

"Problems", like "morals", are in this sense things that only exist between the ears of human beings.

Here's an example. We might want to attempt to prevent volcanic eruptions at a given location in order to prevent the immediate and medium term deaths or humans and animals and plants nearby. That's a local solution. On a global scale, we've learned that volcanic activity is a vital part of terraforming and that eventually it supports life. Plants eventually grow on volcanic rock, and soon animals appear too. Whole ecosystems develop around what was formerly volcanic destruction.

Sure, but how does this relate?

Furthermore, volcanic activity is likely what got us out of the otherwise intractable problem of being encased in a Snowball Earth, probably about six times that we know of in the earth's history. Are volcanoes a "problem" or not?

This isn't exactly startling philosophical ground here. "X has bad effects and good effects. Is X good or bad? How do we decide? Oh no!".

Hopefully we become informed about the relevant facts and form a sensible value judgement that we can generally agee about.

 

[El_Spectre]

Could I get you to reread what I wrote?
You will notice that I did not say there was.

I'm not gonna respond to this... I wasn't accusing you specifically, just observing (not am I saying I am immune)

True but incomplete.

How so?

Whoops, you made a seemingly objective value judgement.

Nah, selfishness is a good survival strategy.

 

[mumblethrax]

It does not explain anything and instead throws the towel in the ring of scientific explanation.

This aspect of behaviorism has always seemed like an absurd reduction to me. It's like a chemist arguing that a naive biologist has thrown in the towel with regard to describing the world in terms of chemistry.

How do you respond to the lexical explosion problem?

 

[RandFan]

My well-fed cats repeatedly chased, caught, and released an unfortunate mouse until 3AM last night. After hours of the cats' growling, the mouse's pathetic squeeks, and endless tromping and crashing through the house, I'd have happily paid any price to have my little predators "retrained."

I really should qualify that statement: last night, they were my wife's cats.

I read an argument that most if not all well fed cats hunt and kill. It is thier nature whether they are fed or not.

 

[AmateurScientist]

To begin with, if these "informed" ecologists and naturalists claim that not interfering with nature is a moral rule, rather than good practise given that we do not really know what we are doing, then they are engaging in the naturalistic fallacy.

I think you mean "alleged" naturalistic fallacy. If not, then again, you are essentially elevating humans to the status of gods and imposing upon us a duty to be the stewards of our planet. Most sensible naturalists, biologists, and cosmologists have figured out that we cannot play that role. I'll go further and make a normative judgment that we shouldn't. Why? We'll f it up worse than our inadvertent actions have adversely affected it already. It's far too complex a system for us to begin to tackle and appreciate all the consequences of doing so.

Perhaps more importantly, to claim that the goal of eliminating predation is inconsistent with itself is to assume that we will never have the knowledge or the technology to regulate the rise and fall of animal populations. Since you have yourself articulated the position that we cannot know what future people will be capable of, that's a strange assumption.

I'm not claiming eliminating predation is inconsistent with itself. I'm claiming it's inconsistent with your goal of minimizing animal suffering. You're just trading one group of animals' suffering for that of another. It doesn't serve its own purpose.

I am not sure if this is the naturalistic fallacy again or a non sequitur.

Neither. It's an aside. Are you just trying to find some way of critizing everything thing I'm saying in this discussion for its own sake? If not, then you don't have to make a snide remark about everything, you know.

This claim must be based on some kind of assumption that even given the technology to control aging, we will not have the technology to control population growth. I find that idea bizarre.

No, it's recognizing that technological concerns are not the only factors, or even the primary factors, that go into actual humans', not theoretical ones, decisions to have children. By and large, except in draconian regimes like China, we do not "control" population growth. Individual actors acting out of their own self interests tend to be the most relevant determining factor. (Of course, disease, famine, and war and disasters affect population growth, too, but you seem to be positing some utopian ideal.)

You're not suggesting that in some Barbarella-like fashion that we're going to eliminate sex in the future, are you?

It is simple mathematics, extrapolating from the trend that has existed throughout recorded history. Our capabilities have been increasing exponentially since our first civilisations. It's just that to people on the bottom end of an exponential curve, it's easy to mistake it for a straight line. We are rapidly approaching the point at which the rate of increase in our capabilities will tend towards infinity, until we reach the limits of what is doable in the universe.

I find that claim naive, especially in light of very recent and completely unexpected discoveries of such things as supermassive black holes near the center of every galaxy we've looked at closely, including our own, and back here on earth, such previously unimagined discoveries as anaerobic creatures who exist at the most extreme depths of our oceans, living off the minerals erupting from undersea volcanoes, and of other creatures who eat them.

The limits of what is doable in the universe are unknown, and in fact unknowable, given the fact that much of the universe is outside our own event horizon. That means we cannot get access to any information inside them.

Science is a process. It's not tending toward some endpoint of knowledge. I very much challenge the assertion that own capabilities are tending towards infinity, and any model which suggests they are.

"Problems", like "morals", are in this sense things that only exist between the ears of human beings.

Agreed. I don't see how predation is a problem. Alex, I'll take the alleged naturalistic fallacy once again for $500 and guess that it's not a problem for the rest of nature.

Sure, but how does this relate?

My example of volcanoes is meant to illustrate that what may be a problem to you locally is not a problem in a more global sense. Your seeing predation as a problem is selfish on your part due to your own feelings about it. In the bigger scheme of things--those outside your own head--it's not a problem at all.

Oh, excuse me, I'm committing the naturalistic fallacy again. I'm so sorry, but the universe as a whole seems to be committing it right along with me. I just can't help it.

This isn't exactly startling philosophical ground here. "X has bad effects and good effects. Is X good or bad? How do we decide? Oh no!".

Sometimes it's helpful to read things together in context in order to derive a point. My point? Volcanoes are a local "problem" to some people and animals and plants, but in a global temporal sense they're not.

Why is this relevant? Because it's a counterexample to your claim that predation is a problem. It may be to the hapless prey animal about to be caught and eaten, but it's not to the hungry predator or to the ecosystem in which they both live. It's not a problem for life on earth or the universe in general. In fact, it's not a problem to the population of animals to which the prey animal lives. It's vital to it, in fact. Without predation, that animals' population would explode and lead to mass starvation. That of course, would lead to widespread suffering for them, which I suspect you would agree is not something you want to encourage.

Your "problems" are not black and white, as you appear to wish them to be.

Hopefully we become informed about the relevant facts and form a sensible value judgement that we can generally agee about.

A worthy hope. I suspect that we would disagree about which facts are relevant, and which value judgments are relevant or applicable, and whether any particular goals are worthy of pursuing. I'm much more of a laissez-faire pragmatist than you appear to be. I'm no idealist.

AS

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I think you mean "alleged" naturalistic fallacy. If not, then again, you are essentially elevating humans to the status of gods and imposing upon us a duty to be the stewards of our planet.

To avoid creating redundant discussion, I am going to just drop some elements of this post that are echoed in your most recent post in this thread:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=1871028281#post1871028281

The text above is a good example. I've stated my view on that argument elsewhere so I won't do it again. Anyway, on with the show.

I'm not claiming eliminating predation is inconsistent with itself. I'm claiming it's inconsistent with your goal of minimizing animal suffering. You're just trading one group of animals' suffering for that of another. It doesn't serve its own purpose.

If you did it badly, perhaps. If the goal was to minimise animal suffering and we went about this intelligently, we could do a great deal to reduce it. There is no Law of Conservation of Suffering or anything like it.

Neither. It's an aside. Are you just trying to find some way of critizing everything thing I'm saying in this discussion for its own sake? If not, then you don't have to make a snide remark about everything, you know.

At this stage I admit I am having difficulty figuring out which are asides and which are anecdotes meant to advance your argument. Sorry if I got you wrong there, but I don't think you are making it easy to track exactly what you mean.

No, it's recognizing that technological concerns are not the only factors, or even the primary factors, that go into actual humans', not theoretical ones, decisions to have children. By and large, except in draconian regimes like China, we do not "control" population growth. Individual actors acting out of their own self interests tend to be the most relevant determining factor. (Of course, disease, famine, and war and disasters affect population growth, too, but you seem to be positing some utopian ideal.)

You're not suggesting that in some Barbarella-like fashion that we're going to eliminate sex in the future, are you?

Sex, no. If we do figure out how to control human aging though, we are going to have the choice of either curbing our rate of reproduction or having a vastly reduced quality of life. I suspect, humans being what they are, we'll take the first option.

I find that claim naive, especially in light of very recent and completely unexpected discoveries of such things as supermassive black holes near the center of every galaxy we've looked at closely, including our own, and back here on earth, such previously unimagined discoveries as anaerobic creatures who exist at the most extreme depths of our oceans, living off the minerals erupting from undersea volcanoes, and of other creatures who eat them.

The limits of what is doable in the universe are unknown, and in fact unknowable, given the fact that much of the universe is outside our own event horizon. That means we cannot get access to any information inside them.

Unless the laws of physics change as you go, and hey, they might, once you have figured out the rules here you have figured out the rules everywhere. We'll never know everything about states of affairs in the universe, but we'll know everything there is to know about how our local space/time works and what you can do in it.

Science is a process. It's not tending toward some endpoint of knowledge. I very much challenge the assertion that own capabilities are tending towards infinity, and any model which suggests they are.

Good for you, go challenge it, have fun.

My example of volcanoes is meant to illustrate that what may be a problem to you locally is not a problem in a more global sense. Your seeing predation as a problem is selfish on your part due to your own feelings about it. In the bigger scheme of things--those outside your own head--it's not a problem at all.

I have no idea what you think you are arguing. If someone hits you on the head with a hammer, that's not a problem for me. That has no bearing at all on whether or not it is good or bad for you to be hit with a hammer, in any scheme of things.

Please don't characterise my position as one based on my own feelings, by the way. It's based on logic and moral philosophy.

Oh, excuse me, I'm committing the naturalistic fallacy again. I'm so sorry, but the universe as a whole seems to be committing it right along with me. I just can't help it.

Why is this relevant? Because it's a counterexample to your claim that predation is a problem. It may be to the hapless prey animal about to be caught and eaten, but it's not to the hungry predator or to the ecosystem in which they both live. It's not a problem for life on earth or the universe in general. In fact, it's not a problem to the population of animals to which the prey animal lives. It's vital to it, in fact. Without predation, that animals' population would explode and lead to mass starvation. That of course, would lead to widespread suffering for them, which I suspect you would agree is not something you want to encourage.

Your "problems" are not black and white, as you appear to wish them to be.

The only black and white thing here is your straw man. Naturally we would have to regulate animal populations if we set out to eliminate animal suffering as much as possible. That's a no-brainer. Doing anything is counterproductive if you do it sufficiently stupidly.

 

[Khalid01]

Allow me to say bluntly as a student of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, I find this idea of "eliminating predation" utterly horrifying and nonsensical. Not only because it would remove a vast chunk of research material for me in the future (and the succeeding generations), but because I think it would be one gigantic cluster %^#@ for ecosystems and species.

I think it's a case of over-extending our own morality to the animal world. And what I think certain individuals are forgetting is that morality requires abstract thought and intelligent value judgment (this more or less has been stated). As much as I personally would like to see this level of intelligence exhibited in other animals (and study it), it is very unlikely the be existent outside of our own species. After a lion chases down a gazelle, it doesn't think, it can't think, "gosh, this gazelle's last dying breaths must have been filled with pain, maybe I should eat some grass next time instead". It can't make these decisions, its instincts, condintioning, and aeons of evolution lead it to consume meat because it requires the protein and fat so it can continue to live its active lifestyle. The suffering that prey encounter is unfortunate, but inevitable. This means that the problem is practically insurmountable.

It should be noted that animal suffering itself is not a problem that remains compeltely unsolved. Nature has a system in place already! It's called "evolution". As less well adapted members of the prey species are eliminated and the better adapted ones survive and reproduce, the population as a whole improves its survivability (meaning less suffering). Without the selective pressure from predators, an avenue in evolution is lost, and a wide range of survival adaptations may become vestigial for prey. Why run fast and have these legs built for sprinting when there isn't anyone to outrun? Why have eyes set on the sides of your head if you don't need to have a panoramic view of your environment to discern threats? It could be a horrible waste of energy, could be. On the other side of the coin, adaptations that do evolve or have been developed could have other applications, for predators and prey alike, although I find this less likely than adaptations and the energy used to create them merely being wasted. I put it to you that much more suffering is caused in this fashion than allowing animals, or more accurately, species to evolve naturally, to handle their own problems as they have for millions of years.

I think in having lightly addressed the fundamentals of this idea, I've responded to Randfan's question. Of course if you take the premise that eliminating predation is practical and somehow a worthy goal, I suppose it could be done to a decent extent with vat-grown meat. I suppose it's the only way to go, those predators aren't going to jump into a vegetarian lifestyle over-night, but they could be conditioned to pursue artificial meat. I still think it's a horrible idea.

On a personal side note (more emotional, at that), I'm opposed to killing in many regards. I respect life tremendously, and appreciate its beauty. I try hurt as little life as possible, and keep it limited to what directly impacts my physiological survival. Eating meat is ok and killing a mosquito that lands on me is ok. I stress at accidently stepping on snails because they had no intention of hurting me and there wasn't any benefit had from their death. I don't like the idea of sport hunting because it doesn't tangibly benefit anyone's survival.

I think vat-grown meat is a great development for humanity, because we can be weaned off of animal meat, and that does mean less killing. More scientifically, I think we can conserve a lot of land and energy if we directly grow meat rather than having to support a herd of animals that expend energy in forms other than growing flesh, such as the oft mentioned problem of losing efficiency through heat loss. Plus, I enjoy that it bears some resemblance to the "yeasts" mentioned in Asimov's "Prelude to Foundation".

I conclude my post on that note, I wrote it in the early morning, so it includes the normal disclaimers if the grammar, logic, or spelling are off here or there.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Allow me to say bluntly as a student of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, I find this idea of "eliminating predation" utterly horrifying and nonsensical. Not only because it would remove a vast chunk of research material for me in the future (and the succeeding generations), but because I think it would be one gigantic cluster %^#@ for ecosystems and species.

I would like to think we would do it after we understood the ecosystems and species involved. Otherwise, yes, it would be stupid. But as I said earlier, you can do anything in a stupid way and get bad results.

I think it's a case of over-extending our own morality to the animal world. And what I think certain individuals are forgetting is that morality requires abstract thought and intelligent value judgment (this more or less has been stated). As much as I personally would like to see this level of intelligence exhibited in other animals (and study it), it is very unlikely the be existent outside of our own species. After a lion chases down a gazelle, it doesn't think, it can't think, "gosh, this gazelle's last dying breaths must have been filled with pain, maybe I should eat some grass next time instead". It can't make these decisions, its instincts, condintioning, and aeons of evolution lead it to consume meat because it requires the protein and fat so it can continue to live its active lifestyle. The suffering that prey encounter is unfortunate, but inevitable. This means that the problem is practically insurmountable.

I think you have badly misunderstood the whole idea.

I do not know why you think we would try to educate lions to act morally, since no one has suggested such a thing, but rest assured that nobody I know of is suggesting that.

The argument is that suffering is bad, even if the entity suffering is not a moral agent. If we had the power to prevent animals suffering we should use it to do so. So if, in the future, it became possible to end (among other things) predation without causing disastrous effects we should do so.

This could take the form of providing lions with bowls of vat-grown spam, or it could take the form of allowing them to mostly die out and altering their prey animals to breed more slowly (like the kakapo and similar animals that have no natural predators).

There are lots of other wild animal welfare problems to solve as well, of course. We aren't talking about something that will be remotely possible in the near future.

It should be noted that animal suffering itself is not a problem that remains compeltely unsolved. Nature has a system in place already! It's called "evolution".

Evolution has nothing to do with suffering, unless that suffering directly gets in the way of genes being passed on. Even then, competing organisms are busily evolving in ways that allow them to cause more suffering more efficiently.

 

[jimlintott]

There are lots of other wild animal welfare problems to solve as well, of course. We aren't talking about something that will be remotely possible in the near future.

The single biggest wild animal welfare problem is man. I am fortunate enough to live in a country that has much unspoiled wilderness. In those areas untouched by humans the wild animals are doing fine. In areas where man has influenced predator populations the prey populations have to be managed (in other words shot and killed).

To me this is about morality. The thought of man using technology to control nature is completely immoral, wrong, reprehensible and stupid.

 

[AmateurScientist]

To me this is about morality. The thought of man using technology to control nature is completely immoral, wrong, reprehensible and stupid.

I couldn't agree more.

AS