Honestly, that sounds absolutely insane to the point where I’m not sure if you’re trolling. Playing God for no reason except forcing our personal morals on animals that neither understand nor care for those morals. Nature is not “pretty awful”. Nature is amazing! Millions of years of evolution have created more species than we can ever hope to even discover, let alone study. Who are we to decide we’re so important and all-knowing that we can just undo that because animals eating each other feels icky to some of us?
I am serious but also realize it’s an extreme idea. That’s why I’m putting out there, seeing if I can moderate it a bit with other perspectives. But I see it as a natural extension to animal ethics. I don’t see how we can wash our hands of animal suffering as soon as we’re not involved in it.
Again I’m thinking distant sci fi future here, where life (at least human life) doesn’t require death. But even before that, does life require suffering before that death?
We’re talking philosophy here right? I’m ok if you figure “That’s just your opinion, man…”. But is there anything logically inconsistent with extending “I’d like to reduce suffering” to “We need to control nature, eventually”?
Taking away a predator’s ability to eat meat causes at least as much suffering as protecting prey from being eaten takes away. They are hardwired to hunt. There is a reason why everything from a pet dog to a lion in a zoo needs constant enrichment activities to stay healthy - both physically and mentally. If they can’t hunt (or simulate hunting), they suffer.
Evolution would be stopped dead in its tracks. The reason why we have so many different species on our planet is mainly because they compete with each other. Predators adapt to catch more prey. Prey adapt to not get eaten. At the same time, there is competition between species that rely on the same limited food sources. If we ever managed to make sure every single animal has exactly what it needs (which in itself is utterly unrealistic), there would be no pressure to adapt. Biodiversity would slowly dwindle when species get wiped out by factors we can’t control and without natural selection, nothing new would evolve to fill a certain niche because every mutation that occurs is equally viable. Ecosystems would destabilize rapidly and eventually collapse when your super technology can’t keep up anymore.
And most importantly: it’s not our job to control nature. We’re not god-like creatures who can just force our will onto everything else. Doing so is pure hubris. Nature has managed to regulate itself for hundreds of millions of years. Who are we to decide that the way things have always been is incorrect? Genetically engineering animals not to eat other animals is no more ethical than engineering them to be tastier.
You would turn the whole planet into a zoo that exists only to please your personal worldview. For me, that is the opposite of animal ethics. It reeks of ultra-conservative prescriptivism. Everyone must follow your ethics because anything else is icky and barbaric and certainly you’re doing those less enlightened than you a favor by showing them the light.
To add some more: that’s just not how genetics works.
The reason why humans can decide to be vegans is because we’re already omnivores. We have evolved over a long time to be able to eat pretty much anything.
Most predators aren’t. They are strict carnivores, not because they choose to be but because their whole body plan has evolved that way. Take wolves for example. Their teeth are designed to kill and rip apart their prey. Their stomachs are designed to digest meat. Their eyes, ears and noses are designed to find prey. Their legs are designed to run after prey. Every single cell in their bodies is hyper-specialized on one thing: eating other animals. You can’t replace all that with traits that help it survive on a plant-based diet and expect to still have a wolf. You won’t even have a dog. I don’t know what you would get but it would probably be closer to a sheep.
These are valid points from the perspective of the present, near, and even semi distant future. I’m thinking centuries long sci-fi stuff here but I can appreciate not many people would have an interest in that kind of discussion; there are zero things I’m suggesting we do now.
Thanks for coming back with the counterpoints though. I find the “predators would suffer” the most compelling.
No.
Honestly, that sounds absolutely insane to the point where I’m not sure if you’re trolling. Playing God for no reason except forcing our personal morals on animals that neither understand nor care for those morals. Nature is not “pretty awful”. Nature is amazing! Millions of years of evolution have created more species than we can ever hope to even discover, let alone study. Who are we to decide we’re so important and all-knowing that we can just undo that because animals eating each other feels icky to some of us?
I am serious but also realize it’s an extreme idea. That’s why I’m putting out there, seeing if I can moderate it a bit with other perspectives. But I see it as a natural extension to animal ethics. I don’t see how we can wash our hands of animal suffering as soon as we’re not involved in it.
Easy: there’s nothing ethically wrong with killing animals to eat. Life requires death.
Again I’m thinking distant sci fi future here, where life (at least human life) doesn’t require death. But even before that, does life require suffering before that death?
We’re talking philosophy here right? I’m ok if you figure “That’s just your opinion, man…”. But is there anything logically inconsistent with extending “I’d like to reduce suffering” to “We need to control nature, eventually”?
Several points:
Taking away a predator’s ability to eat meat causes at least as much suffering as protecting prey from being eaten takes away. They are hardwired to hunt. There is a reason why everything from a pet dog to a lion in a zoo needs constant enrichment activities to stay healthy - both physically and mentally. If they can’t hunt (or simulate hunting), they suffer.
Evolution would be stopped dead in its tracks. The reason why we have so many different species on our planet is mainly because they compete with each other. Predators adapt to catch more prey. Prey adapt to not get eaten. At the same time, there is competition between species that rely on the same limited food sources. If we ever managed to make sure every single animal has exactly what it needs (which in itself is utterly unrealistic), there would be no pressure to adapt. Biodiversity would slowly dwindle when species get wiped out by factors we can’t control and without natural selection, nothing new would evolve to fill a certain niche because every mutation that occurs is equally viable. Ecosystems would destabilize rapidly and eventually collapse when your super technology can’t keep up anymore.
And most importantly: it’s not our job to control nature. We’re not god-like creatures who can just force our will onto everything else. Doing so is pure hubris. Nature has managed to regulate itself for hundreds of millions of years. Who are we to decide that the way things have always been is incorrect? Genetically engineering animals not to eat other animals is no more ethical than engineering them to be tastier.
You would turn the whole planet into a zoo that exists only to please your personal worldview. For me, that is the opposite of animal ethics. It reeks of ultra-conservative prescriptivism. Everyone must follow your ethics because anything else is icky and barbaric and certainly you’re doing those less enlightened than you a favor by showing them the light.
To add some more: that’s just not how genetics works.
The reason why humans can decide to be vegans is because we’re already omnivores. We have evolved over a long time to be able to eat pretty much anything.
Most predators aren’t. They are strict carnivores, not because they choose to be but because their whole body plan has evolved that way. Take wolves for example. Their teeth are designed to kill and rip apart their prey. Their stomachs are designed to digest meat. Their eyes, ears and noses are designed to find prey. Their legs are designed to run after prey. Every single cell in their bodies is hyper-specialized on one thing: eating other animals. You can’t replace all that with traits that help it survive on a plant-based diet and expect to still have a wolf. You won’t even have a dog. I don’t know what you would get but it would probably be closer to a sheep.
These are valid points from the perspective of the present, near, and even semi distant future. I’m thinking centuries long sci-fi stuff here but I can appreciate not many people would have an interest in that kind of discussion; there are zero things I’m suggesting we do now.
Thanks for coming back with the counterpoints though. I find the “predators would suffer” the most compelling.