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I don't see any rational ground to make the suffering of an amoeba a million times less relevant than the suffering of a single chimp. Of course there is the i
by misja111 9y ago
I don't see any rational ground to make the suffering of an amoeba a million times less relevant than the suffering of a single chimp.
Of course there is the irrational ground that chimps look similar to us and therefore we find it unpleasant to think about the fact that they are suffering.
So in the end it is all about our pleasure and nothing else. The tradeoff is between the amount our pleasure we get and for which it is unavoidable that the animal suffers, against the amount of our pleasure it costs because we feel sympathy for this particular animal race.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- robinduckett 9y agoIt wouldn't matter, if amoebas were microscopic copies of chimps, it would still be fairly easy for us to make millions of them suffer just by stepping on them with boots on, would it not be significantly harder to cause the suffering of a chimp without significant personal injury or forethought, considering your average chimp is a wild animal?
- danieltillett 9y agoThere is none, but that doesn't change that we need to make this decision. Your body kills millions on amoeba every day just to stay alive. Ultimately the tradeoff between human pleasure and animal suffering is arbitrary and set by society and personal preference. The only reason I chose chimps is I rather like them so it would take a lot for me to hurt one. Equally, I don't like Bullrouts [1] (having been poisoned by one) and I would not be upset if they were all to die a slow and painful death. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullrout https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullrout
- pessimizer 9y agoI think the only problem with that criterion is that it doesn't work for Azerbaijanis and Armenians.