Animal Ethics| Suffering Focused Ethics | GCR | EA community Building
S_Adi
Thank you for writing this thought provoking post. I relate with a lot of your thoughts. I faced a similar situation with cockroaches and ants that had infested my home, it was quite easy to just kill them. But pondering upon it I realised it would be very bad for them, I also considered the fact that maybe it’s net positive to kill them now, because most future insects that’ll be born would have a negative life. I tried vinegar, bay leaves, traps, they didn’t work. Finally I bought a low power vaccum cleaner, sucked them out and relocated them to a park far away from my home. Most of them were unaffected by the suction however few did die. It was quite stressful decision. Maybe their life would be worse in the park than at my home, but I guessed it to be a better option than killing them myself. Fortunately, now I’ve found herbal non toxic vegan repellants to keep away cockroaches, ants and other insects which is working quite well. Just because the status quo of our society does not impose duties towards insects, does not mean that we shouldn’t do our best to try reduce the harm as much as feasible. But I agree that we should accept responsibility for the consequences of our actions irrespective of the size of the sentient being.
The authors cautiously conclude that “striving to eat a plant-based diet with lower intake of animal fats may be linked to better mental health” and express hope that, with further research, plant-based diets could one day be a considered as part of “front-line treatment for mood disorders.”-
https://faunalytics.org/veganism-help-reduce-stress-anxiety/
Has the result analysis of the above survey been shared somewhere?
+1 , it is stuck on the Captcha check stage for me.
Is there a pdf version available for the Handbook?
Initial thoughts: Very much needed! Strong upvote. Also found the AA Africa study of Asia quite useful. Context sensitive country based research is the need of the hour. And once we have the problems/solutions, I also feel we currently fall short on the ability of operationalising the solutions within orga. Looking forward to more SER work in Animal advocacy especially in global South.
Upvoted! I liked the reasoning of your post, Highlighting the qualitative difference assuming non aggregationism , to show how they both need to be represented in their own seperate horrors. I think most animal activists use this analogy mainly to immediately communicate the badness of animal agriculture industry. Which is that since most of the audience is densensitized to animal torture, comparing it to holocaust, provokes the audience member to compare and justify how it is different from the holocaust. This might be net negative strategy but might occasionally cause a shift in the attitude. I am not sure of it’s effectiveness, however I think your article makes a good case.
I think it’s also of noteworthy to include the trillions of sentient farmed animals that are and will be exploited and are being put through intense suffering for rest of the future as the demand for animal products continues to increase . Also the gigantic scale of suffering of the wild animals most of whom suffer and die in painful ways soon after coming into existence.