If and when a new Tory government is elected in the UK, it is possible they may overturn Labour's ban on ye ancient and noble sporte of foxhunting.

But what do utilitarians have to say about this prima facie cruel sport? It occurs to me that the painful death of the fox has to be counterbalanced against saving 30 or 40 rabbits and voles from the painful death of being eaten alive, not to mention saving the fox itself from perhaps a more lingering death by winter cold or starvation. On the other hand -- killing the fox allows its prey to live and in turn suffer from sickness, misadventure and dying. How does one weigh up an action like this which has such complex positive and negative impacts?

(I'm interested specifically in the question above, but I think that utilitarians should probably support the foxhunting ban regardless because it contributes to the vital meme that animal suffering matters).

Your last point seems like the most important one of those you mention, but I don't think it's key.

In general with this muddled cause and effect chains I favour short-termism - look at the effects you're almost certain you'll cause, and decide on their net utility, then work on the assumption that the long term effects will even out (or rather, that their expected value in either direction is about equivalent, given your lack of info).

Here you know fox-hunting causes the painful premature death of relatively smart creatures (and probably a bit of suffering for the horses involved - I don't suppose the average fox-hunter has a spare-the-whip mentality).

arepo, it could be argued to the contrary that we are rather confident that a fox will eat many prey in its lifetime given that we know they otherwise starve. Sure, we're less confident of the sentience of these prey. Furthermore, the 'prey-sparing' effect might be mitigated by this fox encroaching on other foxes' prey. But it still seems far more likely that shooting foxes saves their prey than harms them.

Anyhow, I argue that the concern for communicating utilitarianism must dominate the concern for directly acting to motivate concern for the prey of foxes. Coherence is key to communication, so we can't get muddled up by this prey-sparing argument until we're confident of it beyond all reasonable doubt.

arepo, it could be argued to the contrary that we are rather confident that a fox will eat many prey in its lifetime given that we know they otherwise starve. Sure, we're less confident of the sentience of these prey. Furthermore, the 'prey-sparing' effect might be mitigated by this fox encroaching on other foxes' prey. But it still seems far more likely that shooting foxes saves their prey than harms them.

But we know enough about population to know with about equal confidence that removing carnivores from a food chain just replaces them with another population control mechanism - if it didn't, every time a carnivorous species died out or a herbivorous species got too touch for the carnivores, it would cover the surface of the planet (or at least the local landmass) in little time. So immediately we have a roughly equal balancing effect. Even in the short term, if you kill one of multiple predator species, the others will almost immediately do better as a result. (and why do we assume rabbits generate net utility? - in some areas they're a serious pest)

I agree - a world with N utilitarians disagreeing about everything seems like it would be much less good than a world with 2N utilitarians agreeing for the sake of convenience on things that seem reasonably likely to be true. But you need a heuristic on what to agree on. If you reject the short-termist argument (or allow for effects that you're not directly causing/ don't have a clear weight of evidence to suppose), why should we agree on opposing fox hunting rather than supporting it?

But we know enough about population to know with about equal confidence that removing carnivores from a food chain just replaces them with another population control mechanism - if it didn't, every time a carnivorous species died out or a herbivorous species got too touch for the carnivores, it would cover the surface of the planet (or at least the local landmass) in little time. So immediately we have a roughly equal balancing effect.

But when feral cats are removed from islands, the population of small herbivorous mammals can dramatically rebound. Assuming the lives of these small mammals (with all the sickness and starvation they still face) have positive utility, you seem to have a net gain in utility by ridding islands of feral cats. That's a counter-example to your idea that there's always a balancing effect. Sometimes, I suggest, getting rid of a predator can simply allow more prey species to flourish.

Even in the short term, if you kill one of multiple predator species, the others will almost immediately do better as a result.

It may make a small difference to take out one fox, but I don't see how you can argue it makes no difference. Imagine you're a rabbit. Do you want N predators in your woods tonight, or N-1?

If you reject the short-termist argument (or allow for effects that you're not directly causing/ don't have a clear weight of evidence to suppose), why should we agree on opposing fox hunting rather than supporting it?

Well, Arepo, I think utilitarianism needs to be as attractive as possible. Coherence is part of attractiveness. There are two elements of coherence. The first is utilitarianism needs to appear coherent to utilitarians. That is, it needs to be based on evidence and utility. The latter is that utilitarianism needs to appear coherent to non-utilitarians. The implications of this latter type are:
> whether or not utilitarianism actually increases happiness, it should appear as though it is.
> whether or not utilitarians actually improve animal wellbeing, they should perform activities that look as though they assist animals.
and so on.

There is a strong analogy between the communication of utilitarianism and the communication of policy. Allow me to explain. Suppose a left-wing government is percieved as soft on immigration. They might make a token gesture of toughness by turning around one or two immigrating boats. This particular event appears contrary to the left-wing ideology. However, it contributes to the government's attractiveness, which increases the popularity of its policy. Coming back to utilitarianism, utilitarian support for a ban on fox-hunting would be just that sort of token gesture. Although it might appear contrary to utilitarian goals, in the long run, it will actually help us to cut through to our target audience. Of course, as we sacrifice hard-line utilitarian positions, we must ensure that the utilitarianism that we sell to the masses remains preferable to the alternative.

spindoctor wrote:But when feral cats are removed from islands, the population of small herbivorous mammals can dramatically rebound. Assuming the lives of these small mammals (with all the sickness and starvation they still face) have positive utility, you seem to have a net gain in utility by ridding islands of feral cats. That's a counter-example to your idea that there's always a balancing effect. Sometimes, I suggest, getting rid of a predator can simply allow more prey species to flourish.

I don't really see why that's a counter-example. It seems quite obvious that removing predator species will lead to more of their prey ('obvious' in a slightly guarded sense that sudden changes to ecological systems are notoriously unpredictable), but so what? Then you have more prey and fewer predators - perhaps more sentient biomass, but animals higher up the food chain seem likely to have more developed brains, thus to be more efficient generators of utility.

Meanwhile, the deaths the animals do suffer will tend to be longer and more unpleasant than a relatively quick visit to a carnivore's jaws, and even throughout their healthy lives they'll have to work harder to find less food than they would if there were some form of population control about. Eventually in small ecosystems they might exhaust their food supplies altogether leading them to go all but extinct.

(I suspect a lot of how you might feel about this depends on where you think net 0 utility lies on the scale - that still seems to me like a very important question that hasn't received anywhere near enough attention.

[quote=RyanCarey]Of course, as we sacrifice hard-line utilitarian positions, we must ensure that the utilitarianism that we sell to the masses remains preferable to the alternative.[/quote]

Hm, so I guess you could summarise this as the view that where our options are clear we should pick the one that obviously gives greater utility, and where it's difficult to prove anything about expected utility either way, we should pick the most popular one? Seems sensible... although presumably you want to be choosey about which demographic you want it to be popular among - some room for research on which area of society you find people most likely to become utilitarians if they're not already, perhaps?

I don't really see why that's a counter-example. It seems quite obvious that removing predator species will lead to more of their prey ('obvious' in a slightly guarded sense that sudden changes to ecological systems are notoriously unpredictable), but so what? Then you have more prey and fewer predators - perhaps more sentient biomass, but animals higher up the food chain seem likely to have more developed brains, thus to be more efficient generators of utility.

Meanwhile, the deaths the animals do suffer will tend to be longer and more unpleasant than a relatively quick visit to a carnivore's jaws, and even throughout their healthy lives they'll have to work harder to find less food than they would if there were some form of population control about. Eventually in small ecosystems they might exhaust their food supplies altogether leading them to go all but extinct.

I was responding specifically to your claim that there's always a balancing effect in terms of population control. Clearly there isn't always a balancing effect -- getting rid of predators can allow more prey to flourish. Which is why I said that if the lives of small mammals have net utility in the absence of predators -- that's a big if, but it's certainly arguable, since they may have longer deaths but they also have longer lives in which to experience pleasure -- there may be a gain in utility by getting rid of predators. The more developed brains of predators, and the harder work that prey have to do in the absence of population control, may both be offset by the fact that there are numerically far more sentient individuals experiencing utility than there were before.

Ok, fair enough - I guess I was thinking more of conscious biomass.

I still think all the 'mights' in the equation amount to the same - Alan would argue for similar reasons to you that insect suffering is possibly the world's biggest source of net utility, but I find such claims unconvincing, mainly since emotion is much less useful to more basic organisms than it seems to be to us. If we can accurately simulate the behaviour of an organism on a non-sentient computer it seems to me that evolution can program insects just as effectively and with no need for sentience.

Any overall good treatment of individual animals on the long run will, necessarily and logically, be a result of honestly wanting to treat animals better. The real interest of wanting to treat wild animals better will necessarily go first through a stage of non-interventionism with the nation of the wild: just like an exploited colony needs to separate themselves, state their independence, before they engage in positive relationships with previously conflicting nations, so will be the case with the nation of the wild in regards to the nation of the humans.

Thus the sooner in the present we support non-interventionism in the wild, the sooner we will build up respect towards animals and the sooner truly good interventionism will follow in the future. Without animal rights, any consequences of our actions that happen to be good to wild animals are overall more arbitrary than headed towards doing good.

As far as the issue of taking popular positions vs. correct positions, it seems to me utilitarians should basically just ignore these issues altogether: We have limited time and resources in which to communicate messages, so let's just talk about the high-value causes and ignore these side issues (just as politicians often reply to trivial questions by bringing the discussion back to their preferred sound bites).

Regarding insect sentience, I'll just include a link to this more recent thread on the topic. In particular, I'd encourage reading the quotes in the "Consciousness in a Cockroach" piece. The commonality of brain systems across organisms at varying levels of complexity seems to me a rather important point. Consider also, e.g., the behavioral evidence in these Donald Griffin quotes.