Do Humans and Animals Really Care About Their Future?
A reply to three of our commentators.
In a recent post, I discussed a paper I published with Heather Browning in the journal Animals on whether humane animal slaughter is possible. Since I have received numerous replies, I would like this opportunity to answer the questions that have been raised and respond to the criticism that has been uttered against our position.
(Context: We have defended the claim that animal slaughter can never be truly humane since animals will inevitably lose the possibility of future welfare-consisting of pleasure and other positive affective states such as excitement-if they are killed prematurely.)
Today I am going to respond to three comments simultaneously.
Kevin M. Ian Schutte writes:
The counter-argument to the position that there is a moral difference could also be made the other way. Perhaps we are not distinct from animals because our apparent “conception of [ourselves] as a being persisting through time” is inauthentic, illusion, or metaphor. Maybe we don’t care about our futures, despite our inclination and tendency to believe otherwise.
Mikolaj Zybala offers a different perspective:
As an animal trainer, I have seen a lot of anticipatory behaviours in animals, hence I am really interested what science will uncover regarding the perception of future in animals.
And another anonymous commentator writers: “cult vegan activists actually care much more about humans than animals and nature” (see here).
Walter Veit and Heather Browning: There is a lot to unpack here and we will start with the final comment. Firstly, animal activists don’t just care about the just treatment of animals because it benefits humanity in the long run. In many ways, we are interested in improving the conditions for animals at a cost for ourselves. It is not just the goal to improve the health and wellbeing of animals such that they will produce more offspring/milk or other goods humans want to use them for.
Let us now turn the more substantive comment by Mikolaj and Kevin. Both offer contrary suggestions, and we share more sympathy for the position of Mikolaj Zybala. Most mammals are closely related to humans. Our brains are similar and so is our behavior in many ways. Biological organisms have to face a number of trade-offs during their life-time. What to do? Hide, scavenge, hunt? Actions involve risks and costs and so does inaction.
These trade-offs apply not only to the present but also to the future of animals. BUT because these risks are often substantial animals often trade short-term benefits for what would be better for them in the long term. Such a heuristic is only natural. After all, animals often die young unless they have no natural predators.
Yet, this also suggests that for animals that have long lives and a reasonable degree of safety, they would be ill-advised to stick with a heuristic that gives up all future benefits for the sake of short-term appeals. Now, these questions are empirical questions and we will need more studies on this — but as the marshmallow experiments in kids show, animals and humans are much more continuous with each other than many believe.
Originally published at https://www.psychologytoday.com.
