Hello, everyone!

I'm new here and I only really joined because I wanted some clarity on utilitarian views on this topic. I do lean somewhat towards preference utilitarianism in my own personal ethics, though I generally describe myself as someone with utilitarian sympathies rather than outwardly identifying as a utilitarian. I would, however, describe my ethics as purely consequentialist to the point of biting the bullet on some of the more emotionally unappealing thought experiments.

I live in Ireland where people are working on reintroducing eagles and there is also some debate about reintroducing wolves to the country. People, for the most part, seem to see it as a good thing. If reintroduction would somehow be "beneficial" (I admit to not being 100% sure what I mean by that) to the ecosystem as it currently is, I would probably be in favour of it, but I feel the local ecology as probably already adapted to their absence and I am unsure if anything is gained from it other than providing aesthetic "warm fuzzies" (the two eagles species actually rank as least concern on the conservation index) and maybe contributing to tourism.

I looked to see if Peter Singer had any particular views on the subject, but all I could find was concerning the cloning of extinct species. I get the impression, however, that utilitarians should not support the practice of reintroduction, particularly when we have countless people dying of starvation to be worried about. Not to mention, it seems that reintroducing predators would likely cause an unnecessary increase in animal suffering.

My question is this. Is there, from any reasonable utilitarian perspective, a case to be made in favour of reintroduction or is it utterly pointless (or even a net negative)?

Welcome, Melodia! Glad to have you stop by.

I think utilitarians would generally see reintroduction as useless unless it could be argued that the ecological side-effects would help a lot of animals. In practice, it seems like the opposite would generally be true: Reintroducing predators will cause a lot more fear and killing.

Quote:

In studies with elk, scientists have found that the presence of wolves alters their behavior almost constantly, as they try to avoid encounters, leave room for escape and are constantly vigilant. [...]

Conceptually similar activities are taking place between sharks and dugongs, the researchers found. When sharks are abundant, dugongs graze less in shallow water where they are most vulnerable to sharks, and sacrifice food they might otherwise consume.

I agree with you that some of the appeal may be aesthetics. Another appeal may be to curb prey's consumption of plants, but in my opinion, it's better if big animals eat plants so that there will be fewer small wild animals that have to live and suffer.

Not to mention that that quote gives the impression that the presence of predators causes the prey to live in constant fear, even if they're not eaten.

That point about constant fear is an interesting one and not something I had considered.

It seems strange to me that most people seem to think that reintroduction is some sort of self-evident moral responsiblity and most of the defences of the practice I have read claim that they have heard no good arguments for reintroduction. When talking about species of "least concern", I haven't seen a single argument in favour of reintroduction that I would consider a good one. I would, however, be more inclined to be concerned about species becoming extinct based on more or less the same reasoning as in this article here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-is-the-point-in-pres.

I find it somewhat odd that arguments against reintroduction are almost immediately branded as anthropocentric when I see it as being somewhat the reverse if anything. I can't think of a utilitarian argument for it, and utilitarianism has probably done a great deal more for nonhuman animals than any other moral theory in history and the fact that it does not privilege based on membership of the human species is something I would see as one of its defining features.

I'm now curious to know what the hard animal rights stance would be on this issue (e.g. Tom Regan, Gary Francione, abolitionism etc.). I suppose it would make more sense from that perspective. Are there any writings from that point of view? I suppose they wouldn't necessarily be concerned with wild animal suffering though.

Hey Melodia!

I also live in Ireland! It's great to know that there are other consequentialists out there! Feel free to add me on facebook !

I think you are right that species re-introduction is not a project utilitarians should focus on. I think it's unclear if the total utility would be net positive or net negative and I imagine would differ depending on the unique circumstances.

However we are very interested in the issue of wild animal suffering. We would like people to take wild animals into moral consideration, Oscar Horta argues this case excellently here. And that hopefully in the future, with more advanced technology, humans could aid wild animals.

In general we often seem to clash with "conservationists" while presenting this view. Conservationists or deep ecologists often believe that "natural" environments have intrinsic value and that things such as starvation, disease, parasitism and so on in the wild are morally permissible, and even that it would be wrong to stop them. There are a whole bunch of reasons why this doesn't make sense: What is counted as natural? Why shouldn't all humans return to the African Savannah then? Why does something (nature) which is not sentient have any moral value or dis-value, etc.

I wrote a blog post on the subject of grey squirrels in Ireland where I argue against the deep ecology view, you can read it here ! I'm sure the squirrel debate is one you are well acquainted with.

Here are some links to material on wild animal suffering (WAS):

Reducing wild animal suffering facebook group

Utilitarian facebook group

Article on WAS

Jeff MacMahan on WAS in the New York Times

Papers by Oscar Horta

Brian Tomasik's awesome essays, many of which are about WAS


I'm unsure if I really answered your questions, sorry :/

Basically what I wanted to say is:

1. The conservationist/deep ecology view is messed up.

2. Utilitarians support radically helping wild animals.

3. I'm unsure of the (dis)-value of this particular project.

4. Contact me if you're interested in this stuff!

Thanks !

Oh also

Hi Ruairi! Thanks for all the interesting reading. I'm afraid I'm not all that keen on revealing too much about myself on the internet, though that may change with time. I did consider attending on of LessWrong's Dublin meetups in the past, though I decided against it in the end. Assuming you are the same Ruairi from LessWrong, I think you also missed it .

I may come around eventually, but I like not having some of the things I say on the internet associated with my offline self. I regret the things I say far too often .

Melodia wrote:Hi Ruairi! Thanks for all the interesting reading. I'm afraid I'm not all that keen on revealing too much about myself on the internet, though that may change with time. I did consider attending on of LessWrong's Dublin meetups in the past, though I decided against it in the end. Assuming you are the same Ruairi from LessWrong, I think you also missed it .

I may come around eventually, but I like not having some of the things I say on the internet associated with my offline self. I regret the things I say far too often .

Oh haha I actually made it to the meetup in the end!

Haha I regret things I have said too. If you ever want to talk anonymously feel free to email me at rd5683@hotmail.com or message me here

A friend emailed it to me