Home / A. Sentience and moral status / Part DIR
"What matters is the species, not the individual."
species don't feel; individuals do. The one who suffers in the slaughterhouse is a particular chicken, not the species Gallus gallus, which, incidentally, has never been more numerous. Worrying about extinction is legitimate, but it doesn't answer the question of what is owed to each animal: we wouldn't accept that the abundance of humans made it acceptable to kill one of them.
Short answer
Species don't feel pain; individuals do. The one who suffers in the slaughterhouse is a particular chicken, not the species. And chickens have never been further from extinction: today, about 70% of the mass of all the birds on the planet is farmed poultry. With humans, no one says killing a person isn't a problem because there are billions of us.
For children
There are millions of children in the world. Does that mean that if one child gets hurt, it's fine, because there are still lots of them? Of course not! Each child feels their own pain. It's the same with chickens: there are lots of them, but each one feels fear and pain on her own.
"If humanity isn't endangered, does killing a person stop being a problem?"
Como pode aparecer
"Chickens aren't endangered."
"As long as the species exists, it's fine."
"There are too many cows in the world."
"If no one ate them, cows would disappear." (which leads to B6)
"Are you going to cry over one chicken among billions?"
"We protect ecosystems, not every animal."
"The relevant moral value lies in populations, not organisms."
"Hunting controls populations." (which is H11)
The strongest version
"Chickens aren't endangered. As long as the species exists, there's no problem."
Strongest version (steelman):
- P1What has value in nature is species and ecosystems, not each organism.
- P2Farmed species, such as chickens, pigs and cattle, aren't threatened: they exist in their billions.
- CSo killing individuals of these species isn't a moral problem.
P2 is true. The strong version rests on a legitimate environmentalist view that values biodiversity. The problem lies in P1, when it's used to answer a question about individuals.
The argument is valid. Its soundness fails at P1: species are categories, and categories can't be harmed. The one who has interests is the individual.
Full answer
- a
Reconstruction and diagnosis
The argument swaps the subject of the question:
Question Subject Who can be harmed Is the species threatened? The species No one, in the sense of feeling: it's a category Is it wrong to kill this animal? The individual The animal itself Concern for species is a question of conservation. The question veganism asks is about what is done to each individual who feels.
- b
Where the argument breaks
1. Species don't have experiences.
A species doesn't feel fear, pain or pleasure. Only individuals feel. Saying the species is doing well says nothing about how each of its members is doing.
2. The abundance is created by the exploitation itself.
Farmed species exist in huge numbers because they're bred to be killed. In 2018, a survey of the planet's biomass estimated that farmed animals make up about 60% of the mass of all mammals, and farmed poultry about 70% of the mass of all birds.
3. No one applies the rule to humans.
Humanity isn't endangered either. If a species' abundance made it acceptable to kill individuals, the same would hold for us.
4. Conservation and animal ethics answer different questions.
It's possible to value biodiversity and, at the same time, recognize that each animal matters. The mistake is using one to cancel the other.
5. Concern for the species tends to be selective.
The argument appears in defense of breeding abundant species, and rarely to protect the threatened species that farming helps put under pressure, through deforestation and habitat loss.
- c
Data and sources
Source What it says Note Bar-On, Phillips and Milo, 2018, *PNAS* Farmed animals make up about 60% of mammal biomass, humans 36% and wild mammals 4%; farmed poultry about 70% of bird biomass Percentages checked against summaries of the article Our World in Data, animals slaughtered About 73.8 billion chickens slaughtered in 2021 Shows that the species isn't threatened, unlike the individuals - d
The strongest counter-reply: nature's value is collective
The most serious version comes from holistic environmental ethics, associated with Aldo Leopold: what is right is what preserves the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. On this view, the individual matters insofar as it contributes to the whole, and an animal's suffering wouldn't, in itself, be the central question.
- e
Why the counter-reply doesn't reach the conclusion
Farming doesn't preserve the biotic community.
It's one of the biggest causes of deforestation and biodiversity loss. By the holistic criterion, farming would be condemned, not defended.
Pure holism proves too much.
If only the whole mattered, it would be acceptable to sacrifice humans for the sake of the ecosystem. Almost no one accepts that.
The environment is a means, not an end.
Preserving or changing an ecosystem makes moral sense insofar as it improves the lives of real sentient beings (see the Beyond veganism section).
Reasoning errors
Logical
Is the form valid?
Changing the subject
Fallacy of division
Epistemological
Does the evidence support it?
Category treated as a being
Moral
Is the criterion coherent?
An abstract concept above the individual
Biases
Identifiable victim
The species has no face, and the individual disappears into it
Literature on the identifiable victim effect
Motivated reasoning
Concern for the species appears only where it excuses change
General literature on motivated cognition
Extrapolations
The principle being tested is: "if the species isn't threatened, killing its individuals isn't a problem".
If it applied to…HumansTap to see
Killing a person would be acceptable, because there are billions of us
No one accepts this
If it applied to…DogsTap to see
Killing dogs would be acceptable, because they're very numerous
The law and common morality say otherwise
If it applied to…Threatened speciesTap to see
Only they would be protected, and only while rare
Protection would vanish once the species recovered
Contradictions
No one accepts killing a person because humanity is numerous.
The existence of millions of dogs consoles no one who has lost theirs.
Concern for the species appears only for farmed species.
What the argument gets right
What is true
Concern for species and ecosystems is legitimate, and extinction is a real loss. Conserving biodiversity deserves attention, and there are cases where protecting populations requires difficult decisions.
But
But the question of what we owe each animal isn't settled by looking at the species. The one who suffers is always someone, not a category. The abundance of chickens doesn't make each one's life any less her own.
Connections
Usually comes before
Usually comes after
Go deeper in Questão de Ética
Chapters from the open-access collection A Journey Through Animal Ethics that discuss this argument in more detail:
- Do Species Have Interests? Vol. VI, ch. 13
- Questioning environmentalist assumptions Vol. V, ch. 10
References
Science
- The biomass distribution on Earth. *PNAS*, 115(25).
- How many animals get slaughtered every day? *Our World in Data*.
Philosophy
- A Sand County Almanac, essay "The Land Ethic".