Executive summary: The author reflects on how direct contact with insects and cows during a field ecology course exposed a gap between their theoretical views on animal welfare and the felt experience of real animals.
Key points:
The author describes killing an insect by accident and contrasts the instant physical harm with the slow formation of their beliefs about animal welfare.
The author recounts using focal animal sampling on cows and finding that written behavioral transcripts failed to convey the richness of the actual encounters.
The author argues that abstract images of animal suffering are built from talks, videos, conversations, and biology rather than real memories, which removes crucial detail and context.
The author claims this abstraction makes it harder to care about individual animals, easier for trivial motives to override welfare considerations, and more likely to prompt self-evaluation rather than empathy.
The author questions whether beliefs about animal welfare formed mainly through theory may function poorly in practice and suggests that direct experience might help.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: The author reflects on how direct contact with insects and cows during a field ecology course exposed a gap between their theoretical views on animal welfare and the felt experience of real animals.
Key points:
The author describes killing an insect by accident and contrasts the instant physical harm with the slow formation of their beliefs about animal welfare.
The author recounts using focal animal sampling on cows and finding that written behavioral transcripts failed to convey the richness of the actual encounters.
The author argues that abstract images of animal suffering are built from talks, videos, conversations, and biology rather than real memories, which removes crucial detail and context.
The author claims this abstraction makes it harder to care about individual animals, easier for trivial motives to override welfare considerations, and more likely to prompt self-evaluation rather than empathy.
The author questions whether beliefs about animal welfare formed mainly through theory may function poorly in practice and suggests that direct experience might help.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.