Home / M. Wild animals, new minds and the future / Part DIR
"Who are we to interfere with nature?"
we are the same people who interfere with nature all the time, with cities, farming, medicine and environmental programmes. Helping an injured or sick animal isn't arrogance, just as helping a person isn't. And the "freedom" being protected is often just the freedom to die young of hunger or disease.
Short answer
We interfere with nature all the time, for ourselves. Helping a sick animal isn't arrogance, just as helping an injured person isn't. No animal wants to die of hunger or disease; helping it with that doesn't impose human values, it respects the animal's own interests.
For children
If a little bird falls out of its nest and breaks a wing, is taking it to a vet being bossy? Of course not. It wants to fly again, and we're just helping. Respecting animals isn't leaving them to suffer. It's helping in the way they'd want, if they could ask.
"Is helping an unconscious person, who can't consent, arrogance or respect?"
Como pode aparecer
"Who are we to interfere?"
"Wild animals must be free, not treated."
"Helping is humanizing animals."
"If we help, they'll become dependent."
"The best thing we can do is get out of their lives."
"The sovereignty of wild animal communities must be respected."
The strongest version
"Wild animals must be free. Who are we to decide what's good for them?"
Strongest version (steelman):
- P1Wild animals have a way of life of their own, independent of humans.
- P2Respecting a being includes respecting its autonomy and way of life.
- P3Intervening to help them replaces their way of life with our values, creates dependence and is paternalistic.
- CSo respecting wild animals means not interfering.
P1 and P2 contain some truth. The problem lies in P3: not being hungry, cold and sick isn't a human value imposed on animals; it's what any animal seeks.
The argument is valid, but P3 is false in many cases.
Full answer
- a
Reconstruction and diagnosis
The argument gathers several objections with the same background: the idea that helping is disrespecting.
Objection What it says Short reply Arrogance We have no right to decide for them We already decide, including when we do nothing Freedom Helping takes away their freedom Freedom from what? From hunger and disease? Humanization Helping imposes human values Not suffering isn't a human value; it's what every animal seeks Dependence Helping creates dependence Dependence is better than death; and much help, like vaccination, creates no dependence Paternalism We don't know what's good for them We know no animal prefers to starve - b
Where the argument breaks
1. We already interfere all the time.
Farming, cities, roads, dams, reforestation, reintroduction and elimination of species. We rarely call this arrogance. The charge appears almost only when the intervention aims at the good of the animals themselves.
2. Not deciding is also deciding.
Faced with a suffering animal we could help, omission also determines its fate. There is no neutral position.
3. The interests are the animals', not ours.
Avoiding hunger, cold, pain and fear is what animals themselves seek. Helping them with that is taking their point of view seriously, not ours.
4. The human test.
We help unconscious people, babies and people who can't consent without calling it paternalism, because we know they don't want to suffer. No one says vaccinating children "takes away their freedom". Denying help to animals with these arguments is applying a rule we don't apply to humans.
5. Respecting a way of life doesn't require accepting suffering.
It's possible to respect how an animal lives and, at the same time, spare it disease, parasites and hunger. No one thinks treating a sick dog disrespects its dog nature.
- c
Data and sources
Source What it says Note *A Journey Through Animal Ethics*, vol. VII, ch. 6 Is the proposal to help wild animals arrogant? See also chs. 7, 10, 11 and 12 Animal Ethics, "Why wild animal suffering matters" What matters is what animals feel, not the origin of the harm Donaldson and Kymlicka, Zoopolis (2011) Argue for respecting the sovereignty of wild animal communities, but accept help in certain cases Oxford University Press; the most solid version of the objection - d
The strongest counter-reply: the sovereignty of wild communities
The most serious version comes from Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka: wild animal communities should be treated as sovereign, like peoples with a right to follow their way of life without domination. Constant interventions would make them dependent, which would be a form of colonization.
- e
Why the counter-reply doesn't reach the conclusion
The authors themselves accept help.
Donaldson and Kymlicka accept interventions in disasters and specific cases, as we would with sovereign countries. Sovereignty limits how to help; it doesn't forbid helping.
Human sovereignty doesn't prevent aid.
Sovereign countries receive humanitarian aid in disasters and epidemics without losing their sovereignty.
The analogy has limits.
Human peoples can ask for or refuse help. Young animals starving in their first hours have no way of exercising any sovereignty.
Reasoning errors
Logical
Is the form valid?
Equivocation
False neutrality
Moral
Is the criterion coherent?
Double standard
Selectivity
Biases
Extrapolations
The principle being tested is: "respecting someone means not interfering in their life, even when they suffer".
If it applied to…Unconscious peopleTap to see
Helping them would be disrespect
No one accepts this
If it applied to…ChildrenTap to see
Vaccinating them would be undue paternalism
Rejected
If it applied to…Countries in disasterTap to see
Humanitarian aid would violate sovereignty
Aid is accepted and requested
Contradictions
Reforestation and species control are interference too.
Without thinking it humanizes or disrespects it.
Which is exactly interference to help.
What the argument gets right
What is true
It's right that respecting wild animals includes respecting their way of life, that interventions can be invasive and that creating dependence can be a problem. It's also right that humans have already done much harm to nature through careless interventions.
But
But respecting isn't abandoning. When helping is possible and safe, refusing help in the name of freedom or humility is letting others suffer for a principle we'd never apply to ourselves.
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:
- Is the Proposal to Help Wild Animals Arrogant? Vol. VII, ch. 6
- Is the Proposal to Help Wild Animals Anthropocentric? Vol. VII, ch. 7
- Does the Proposal to Help Wild Animals Violate Their… Vol. VII, ch. 10
- The Charge of Creating Dependency Vol. VII, ch. 11
- The Charge of Paternalism Vol. VII, ch. 12
References
Philosophy
- Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights. Oxford University Press.