Animal Rights

    Martin McDonagh's film "The Banshees of Inisherin" was my favorite film in 2022. I re-watched it recently, and I was struck by a certain piece of dialogue between one of the main characters, Colm, and a priest:

     Priest: "Do you think God gives a damn about miniature donkeys, Colm?"

    Colm: "I fear he doesn't. And I fear that's where it's all gone wrong."

    Animal rights are a very complex issue, one that I've avoided writing about because I'm not sure exactly where I stand. In Animal Liberation, Peter Singer made a pretty compelling case for vegetarianism. Before we get into what is moral to eat, we first have to solve a hard problem: what makes humans special? In my opinion, there is a flavor of sentience/consciousness that humans have that is extremely valuable. We are by far the most intelligent species, with a level of self awareness and decision making ability far beyond that of other animals. We are the only animal who can contemplate philosophy or wade in existential angst. Our capacity for language and problem solving has allowed us to traverse oceans and explore the stars. Other living creatures on Earth, for the most part, are really dumb. If you spend ten minutes alone with a chicken, you will realize that there is quite simply a not a lot going on upstairs. Yeah we probably shouldn't torture the thing, but if I had to kill a thousand chickens or a random guy, I'd feel pretty confident in my decision. 

    Also, the life of an animal in the wild is not ideal. Evolution is a mostly random process full of cruelty and waste, and most animals die horrifying deaths. Prey are hunted constantly by predators, and predators are constantly at risk of starvation. Starvation, disease, and getting eaten are more than commonplace in the wild, where in farms most animals only have to worry about the last one. Well, maybe some have to worry about living out a miserable life in what is essentially a cramped prison cell where they are kept until slaughter, and that is actually a good point. Here is my personal dilemma: I am confident that I can eat an oyster, and I am confident that we shouldn't eat chimpanzees. Distinct animal species basically either have rights or they don't, and it's weird that society is so logically inconsistent about this (if you eat a dog you are horrible, but go on and kill billions of pigs and that's fine). There is a large spectrum of intelligence from oyster to chimp, and the effective altruists probably draw the line for what we can slaughter too far down. But 97% of humanity draws the line too high, and it's probably better to be safe, especially given how little it costs us. But I find it hard to criticize too harshly whenever I actually see a chicken.