Home / M. Wild animals, new minds and the future / Part DIR
"Wild animals live free and happy"
the wild animals we see are the survivors. In most species, each female produces hundreds, thousands or even millions of offspring over her life, and in a stable population only a few reach adulthood. All the others die young, of hunger, cold, disease, parasites or predation. A nature in which the rule is to be born and die within a few days is not a paradise for those who live in it.
Note: this family takes the sentience criterion beyond exploitation. Many vegans disagree with parts of it, and the debate is legitimate. The test proposed in each chapter is simple: apply the same scenario to human beings and see whether the answer would be accepted.
Short answer
The animals we see are the ones that survived. In most species, each mother has a huge number of young, and almost all of them die of hunger, cold, disease or predation soon after birth. If this happened to human children, we'd call it a catastrophe, not freedom. That doesn't make exploitation any less wrong: it only shows that leaving animals alone isn't enough for them to live well.
For children
A sea turtle lays lots of eggs on the beach. Of the babies that hatch, almost all are eaten by birds, fish and crabs before they grow up. Only a few become big turtles, and those are the ones we see in videos. Nature is beautiful, but life for the animals living in it is often very hard.
"If almost all the babies in a human population died of hunger in their first days, would you say they live free and happy?"
Como pode aparecer
"A free animal is a happy animal."
"Nature is paradise for animals."
Images of healthy adults in a beautiful setting, without the young that didn't survive
"The only problem animals have is humans."
"Do you think a free animal suffers more than one locked in a factory farm?"
"Wild life has positive value for the individuals who live it."
The strongest version
"A free animal is a happy animal. In nature they're free; no one is exploiting them."
Strongest version (steelman):
- P1What harms animals most is human action: exploitation, hunting and habitat destruction.
- P2In nature, away from humans, animals live according to their own way of life.
- P3Living according to one's own way of life is, in general, living well.
- CSo wild animals live well, and the only moral task is to leave them alone.
P1 is largely true for exploited animals. The problem lies in P3, which describes an idealized nature, and in the conclusion, which looks only at the visible adults.
The argument is valid, but not sound: P3 is refuted by the population dynamics of most species.
Full answer
- a
Reconstruction and diagnosis
The argument looks at a biased sample: the adults we manage to see.
Who we see Who we don't see Healthy adults, filmed in documentaries The young, eggs and larvae that died before growing up A small fraction of each generation The vast majority of each generation Large animals, such as mammals and birds Fish, amphibians, insects and other invertebrates, which are the overwhelming majority It's a classic case of survivorship bias: drawing conclusions about a group by looking only at those who made it through the filter.
- b
Where the argument breaks
1. The population arithmetic refutes the idyllic view.
In a stable population, each animal is, on average, replaced by a single offspring that goes on to reproduce. If a female produces hundreds or thousands of young over her life, almost all of them must die before reproducing. This is arithmetic, not opinion. It's the so-called r-selected reproductive strategy, the most common one in nature.
2. Those who die young usually die badly.
Hunger, dehydration, cold, parasites, disease and predation aren't quick and painless deaths. If these animals are sentient, as many of them seem to be, their short lives are mostly deprivation.
3. The numbers are immense.
Estimates suggest hundreds of billions of wild birds and mammals, trillions of fish, and somewhere between a hundred quadrillion and ten quintillion terrestrial arthropods. Even with great uncertainty about the sentience of the smallest, the scale is many times greater than that of animal farming.
4. The human test.
If a human population lived without medical care, with most children dying of hunger or infection in their first days, no one would call it freedom. We'd call it a humanitarian crisis and send help. The only thing that changes in the case of animals is the victims' species.
5. Freedom isn't the same as wellbeing.
Being free from humans doesn't mean being free from hunger, disease or fear. The word "free" hides the question of how life goes for the one living it.
- c
Data and sources
Source What it says Note Animal Ethics, "Wild animal suffering: an introduction" Most wild animals die shortly after birth, because of the dominant reproductive strategy in nature Tomasik, "How many wild animals are there?" Mammals: 10¹¹ to 10¹²; birds: about 1 to 4 × 10¹¹; fish: 10¹³ to 10¹⁵ or more; terrestrial arthropods: 10¹⁷ to 10¹⁹ Estimates with wide margins Horta, "Debunking the idyllic view of natural processes" (2010) Shows that population dynamics make suffering and early death the rule, not the exception Télos, 17 Ng, 1995 Argues, from evolutionary biology, that suffering probably outweighs wellbeing in nature Biology and Philosophy, 10; proposes welfare biology - d
The strongest counter-reply: we don't know these lives are bad
The most serious version says: we have no way to measure the wellbeing of a baby fish or an insect. Perhaps their short lives have good moments that make up for the end. Concluding that nature is dominated by suffering would be as speculative as concluding it's a paradise.
- e
Why the counter-reply doesn't reach the conclusion
Uncertainty doesn't favor the idyllic view.
If we don't know, we can't claim animals "live free and happy". The counter-reply brings down the original argument, not the concern.
Some deaths we know are bad.
Dying of hunger, of cold, or eaten alive by parasites isn't an ambiguous experience for whoever feels it.
Uncertainty calls for research.
That's exactly what welfare biology proposes: studying the wellbeing of wild animals before concluding or acting (M5).
Reasoning errors
Epistemological
Does the evidence support it?
Survivorship bias
Generalizing from large animals
Logical
Is the form valid?
Equivocation
Moral
Is the criterion coherent?
Appeal to nature
Biases
Extrapolations
The principle being tested is: "away from human intervention, life is good for those who live it".
If it applied to…Isolated human populationsTap to see
They wouldn't need vaccines, doctors or disaster relief
No one accepts this
If it applied to…Abandoned domestic animalsTap to see
They'd be better off loose than cared for
Anyone who rescues animals knows they aren't
If it applied to…Injured wild animalsTap to see
Helping them would be a mistake
Most people approve of rescue
Contradictions
No one thinks past infant mortality was a sign of freedom.
Recognizes that disease and parasites do harm, even though they're natural.
And that presupposes the animal was in danger, not "free and happy".
What the argument gets right
What is true
It's right that human exploitation is an enormous and avoidable source of suffering, and that for exploited animals the first step is to stop harming them. It's also right that nature has beauty and that many animals have moments of wellbeing.
But
But the beauty of the landscape isn't the same as the wellbeing of those who live in it. For most animals born in nature, life is short and hard, and that matters if what counts is what they feel.
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:
- How Do Natural Processes Typically Affect Wild Animals? Vol. VII, ch. 3
- What Should We Do About Animals Living in the Wild? Vol. VII, ch. 1
References
Animal ethics and wild animals
- Animal Ethics. Wild animal suffering: an introduction.
- How many wild animals are there? *Essays on Reducing Suffering*.
- Debunking the idyllic view of natural processes: population dynamics and suffering in the wild. Télos, 17.
- Towards welfare biology: evolutionary economics of animal consciousness and suffering. *Biology and Philosophy*, 10.