That’s not really equivalent, though. If you think about it, all species are speciesist – musk oxen will defend their own young from a wolf, but I wouldn’t expect the musk oxen to intervene to save a caribou calf from the same wolf.
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In my mind this is like saying that a situation involving a Hemipteran is not equivalent to a situation involving a Coleopteran because I like beetles more (I don’t, just an example). The very point is that these situations are equivalent and are only being treated otherwise for arbitrary reasons, speciesism being a primary one. Only pointing out that your defense is speciesism does not actually constitute a defense. Speciesism itself needs to be defended, and on a basis other than “other animals appear to partake in it” (naturally they do, although there are scads of documented cases of interspecific altruism; but animals also engage in many other behaviors we would find unacceptable).
Probably
Does a spider abandon a web just because it is torn?
Do they always immediately run out?
Do they hide from humans?
etc.
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i mean this here is a belief too. Many cultures don’t see it that way at all. All you have is your own beliefs to act from, sure, but dont act like its universal.
I guess it benefits that one gazelle, and harms the lion, which either dies or goes on to kill another gazelle. If it’s like your pet or something sure, otherwise, it seems at best a morally neutral act. BBut the point seems to be to make you feel good about yourself so as long as you dont follow the lion around and save all gazelles until it starves to death i guess that’s fine.
i don’t actually think that’s true. Again, at best it is one belief system. You seem to think you know how much a gazelle, lion, and piece of acacia plant suffer which is interesting.
yeah that is a good way to describe it.
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There is a story from the Jain tradition that speaks to this dilemma: Part 7: Story of the dove and hawk (wisdomlib.org)
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Thank you, this was a fascinating read. I have heard of Hemachandra and I am mildly obsessed with Dharmic philosophy/theology, but I know relatively little about the Jain tradition. I do find it fascinating though, for the depth and richness of its philosophical exploration; so much of Indian thought was so far ahead of its time. Jains obviously thought extensively and radically about non-human suffering, including wild animal suffering, and had views on these topics many would consider extreme today.
The steps Jain monks and nuns undertake to mitigate animal suffering are probably the most extreme in world history (wearing masks not to breathe in insects, sweeping bugs aside as they walk, obviously not eating meat, even considering the suffering of plants somewhat). There is also an emphasis in the text on self-sacrifice in the service of compassion, not just pertaining to giving one’s flesh to a hawk but also the fasting tradition which is brought up a few times (which may be a bit dodgy for me to get into the details of here, but it is pretty extreme; I am not saying I personally advocate anything like this).
There also are bits of this text, like “a good wife follows her husband”, which are less commendable (though these views are challenged elsewhere in pre-modern Indian literature), but I have to say in general that I have extreme admiration for the radical ethical frameworks posed by the Jainas and other Dharmic traditions. They developed ethical (not to mention epistemological, ontological, etc) philosophy into a stunningly complex corpus well over 2,000 years ago and developed it in spectacular ways in the time since.
Agreed, of course, morality is not an objective thing, these will only ever be our beliefs we are discussing. If somebody tells me their belief is that anything flies and they don’t care too much for morality at all, what can I do about that? We still discuss morality to try tease out which views seem to make the “most sense”, by some measure, even if it is not exactly QED. Believing that we should not intervene in natural processes due to ecological considerations is equally a subjective moral framework. Science can not ever grant us “ought” claims, only “is”. I don’t think you are arguing otherwise, I’m just emphasizing.
So I think we are in some agreement, we both view this act as morally neutral. The only thing I would say is that people are not doing this to feel good about themselves, unless one adheres to a kind of cynical psychoanalysis wherein every good act is selfish. They are doing it in a very proximal, immediate way out of compassion, the same way one would for a pet or the like. They are not thinking in depth about ramifications when they do it.
I think it’s difficult to argue it is not true. Even if adrenaline dulls the pain, lions and gazelles can be reasonably considered animals with equivalent levels of sentience, and having your jugular annihilated is far less pleasant than being hungry for longer. Sure, the lion suffers for longer, maybe that complicates our calculus. But if you asked someone which fate they would rather endure, their answers would immediately betray their true intuition (that is, it is obvious which is worse). Maybe plants can suffer, but maybe, for a solipsistic take, even other humans besides myself cannot. We can’t know. But everything tells me humans and gazelles and lions can suffer in a way acacia cannot. I cannot get in a plant’s “brain”, nor a fellow human’s or a dog’s, but science points kind of unambiguously at the answer in these non-edge cases.
Well, i guess i extrapolate it to where it would go if you actually tried to follow it, which i guess would be driving all predators to extinction and then somehow controlling the population of herbivores with birth control or who even knows what, because otherwise they destroy the ecosystem. Which doesn’t make much sense to me and certainly ends up being a duller, kind of awful world compared with this one, even if less risky. I guess you could sterilize all animals that aren’t humans to stop all suffering. That’s even worse. And why wouldn’t you just sterilize all humans too? Then it’s just some sort of nihlism. I guess this is why i just don’t find these sorts of philosophical thought very compelling, and i feel like they lead to harmful ecosystem management sometimes. Though I can imagine wanting to save some gazelle from a lion if i had some way to do so, of course. It’s understandable. But what even is death? What is suffering? etc. I don’t feel like the idea of a hawk trying to eat a dove because of a past life conflict is very compelling to me personally. The hawk is just trying to eat. I can’t imagine they look upon the dove with spite. That isn’t to trample anyone’s religious beliefs or anything i just don’t really understand the concept. It works well as a metaphor for human behavior but not for hawk behavior i guess.
And honestly? I’d rather be eaten by a predator than slowly starve to death. I’d prefer neither and to die in my sleep at age 98 or whatever, but starvation is pretty damn brutal.
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I don’t think you ought to, since we are both arguing it is morally neutral. I don’t believe we are compelled to do the things which produce the most moral good, whether or not saving prey animals actually does that in the long or short term, as I’ve said
I’m not saying I disagree with you, but a world being “duller” doesn’t mean it’s worse; it is just less preferable to you. A redder world might be preferable to someone who likes the color red. That doesn’t mean that world is better
Some people would argue that meaningful lives with minimal suffering are more valuable than no lives at all. Either way I am not advocating anything; my point in comparing suffering is just to defend the proximal, compassionate rationale for individual circumstances of this sort, not to expressly advocate them. So there is no “taking the logic to its end”, really
I don’t either, and I also don’t intend to offend in saying that. jasonhernandez74 just shared it because it was pretty shockingly relevant and interesting. But regardless of its historical or metaphysical accuracy, or one’s views on that (I do keep in mind there are a good number of practicing Jains in the world), it is interesting to examine medieval cultures grappling with seemingly very modern and sophisticated moral dilemmas. I think their views also hold some wisdom, even disregarding the more mystical elements
Anyhow I think I’ve managed to thoroughly take over this thread, wasn’t my intention but at least the discussion has managed to remain surprisingly on-topic. I do bear in mind this could be annoying so I don’t know if I will post in this thread much more, you are welcome to message me here or on iNat if you like! I do respect your views and understand where they are coming from, but we just fundamentally disagree on some things, I do appreciate that you can see some of my perspective as well, I do promise I have thought quite a bit about this! Thank you for hearing me out
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I see myself as a force of evolution for making spiders keep their webs tidy, in that case. Untidy tattered web, no food for you! Nice upkept web, you can keep your bugs.
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I’ve read through all the replies and everybody had something passionate and reasonable to say. But I had my mind up prior to reading what others had to say and it’s pretty simple in my eyes.
Don’t do it.
&
No.
It’s a seal I don’t want to break, but I would be lying if I didn’t see why some people do. So, I get it. But nah. Still shouldn’t do it. (In my opinion.)
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When I was a teenager I volunteered at a nature center, where I often took care of the animals. I spent a lot of time thinking about the morality of hawks. I loved the hawks and thought killing animals was wrong but if the hawks didn’t kill, they’d die (and their young would die, if they had nestlings). Clearly it wasn’t right to approve of the action of hawks just because I like hawks better than mice (their main food). What was right? I learned the term “amoral” – morals just didn’t apply to the issue.
Eventually I came to the conclusion that it was important for me to see the whole issue – suffering of prey, suffering of predator, ecosystem effects of alternatives. See it and not try to deny any part of it. See it, but not intervene. This issue did not have my name on it, and I didn’t have to pick it up, in fact shouldn’t pick it up.
I could intervene, of course, and sometimes I do. I rescued a bumblebee stuck in torn web just this summer! But that is just what I wanted to do and nothing is gained in the long run.
I also think it is important to do good (whatever good might be) and so I do rescue or euthanize injured animals on the road, I do give money to beggars, I do make charitable donations, I try to be polite and even kind, and I try to be of service to the extent compatible with my extremely unsocial personality (e.g. on iNaturalist). But I don’t think interfering in predator/prey interactions is appropriate. At least for me.
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I can’t remember ever saving anything from a spider’s web. Probably because the original animated Charlotte’s Web and the book were a seminal part of my childhood.
Even now, just thinking about this topic, I can hear Debbie Reynolds’ voice in my head when Charlotte scolds Wilber for making her release a bug, or for calling her bloodthirsty for how she consumed prey when his meals are delivered by humans.
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The bigger questions:
- Who built the railway and the trolley?
- Who put the cat and the lobsters on the rails?
- Who put the person next to the lever?
- Why don’t the cat and the lobsters just walk off?
- Wait, are they actually crayfish?
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The cat will cross the road.
But. Why? Are the 5 lobsters lined up in the road? Are they dead already?
Or perhaps the man has decided to let his dinner take its chance playing in the traffic instead of getting eaten.
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You have touched upon a moral conundrum.
On the one hand an every now and then rescue of something we immediately feel for. I think it is mostly natural to feel for the injured party.
On the other hand humans and their hunt for observations in the name of research, hobbies or science etc - using techniques like -Moth-screens, lighttraps, smoking trees (including I think fumigation) putting things in freezers to take pictures, call playbacks, baiting, throwing stones to flush things out, cutting and preserving — and so on. Then pest removal is another whole aspect ?
I think the scale itself makes the conundrum not so much of a conundrum . I don’t think anyone is saying lets be actionist and go out and scour spider webs and rescue things, it is in the off chance one sees it and may choose to do it.
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Not just lined up, but the directions they are facing is alternatating for each lobster.
I can’t say for sure lobsters wouldn’t arrange themselves that way, but it seems like a pattern that a human would have placed them in.
I don’t think they’re dead then, because then there’s ni dilemma, which leads to a disturbing thought…
that maybe whoever put them there also secured them to the track in such a way that they can’t turn or leave?
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Cat has its flag flying - not restrained.
The arranged lobsters are either very dead, or the man who looks very guilty, has just arranged them in front of an approaching trolley.
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I meant maybe they glued or otherwise secured the lobsters to the rail in the alternatating pattern.
The cat isn’t detailed enough to say it’s standing with its tail up; it could be sedated or under a muscle relaxant (not sleeping, though, because the eyes are fully open) and placed on its side with tail and limbs arranged as shown.
The animals’ mobility is moot, though; the real issue is the sicko going around putting non-railway employees by track switches, and cats and lobsters on railroad tracks. 
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