Wild Animal Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering is a 2020 book by the philosopher Kyle Johannsen, published by Routledge. The book examines whether humans have moral obligations to reduce wild animal suffering and argues, from a deontological perspective, that such duties exist. Johannsen discusses sources of suffering in nature, including predation, disease, adverse weather, starvation, injury, and parasitism. He also considers possible interventions, including habitat management and genetic engineering, and discusses objections concerning naturalness, liberty, and the risks of intervention. The book was the subject of a symposium in Philosophia, with commentaries by Clare Palmer, Bob Fischer, Nicolas Delon, and Gary David O'Brien.
Publication history The book was published as an ebook by Routledge in New York and London on October 29, 2020, and was issued in hardcover and paperback on October 30, 2020.
Summary Johannsen examines the question of what is good about nature and argues that wild animals often experience substantial suffering. He attributes this partly to reproductive strategies in which many offspring die before reaching adulthood, as well as to factors such as predation, adverse weather, starvation, stress, injury, and parasitism. He also discusses views about nature, including the claim that naturalness has intrinsic value. The book argues that humans have a collective moral obligation to intervene in nature to reduce wild animal suffering, while also considering the risks of intervention. Johannsen discusses technologies such as CRISPR and gene drives as possible means of reducing suffering. The book concludes with a discussion of how intervention in nature relates to animal rights activism.
Reception
Symposium A symposium on Wild Animal Ethics was held in April 2021 by Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law, and Ethics (APPLE) at Queen's University, with commentaries by Nicolas Delon, Bob Fischer, Gary David O'Brien, and Clare Palmer. The commentaries were later published in Philosophia with Johannsen's response.
Commentaries Nicolas Delon argued that the book gives too little attention to agency and freedom. He nevertheless credited Johannsen with treating liberty as a relevant consideration and with favouring interventions that limit restrictions on liberty. Bob Fischer challenged Johannsen's discussion of habitat destruction on two grounds. He questioned Johannsen's estimate of how many animals have lives that are positive overall. He also argued that, even if Johannsen's framing of positive and negative lives is accepted, it does not support Johannsen's conclusion because there are independent reasons against it. Gary David O'Brien disputed Johannsen's claim that the nonidentity problem does not affect reasons to intervene in nature. He argued that large-scale interventions would alter which animals come into existence and would thereby cause harms experienced and inflicted by those individuals. He concluded that "by causing animals to exist, knowing that they will inflict and suffer harms, we become morally responsible for those harms." Clare Palmer questioned Johannsen's claim that naturalness, or wildness, has no intrinsic value, as well as his view that most wild animals have very bad lives. She argued that more evidence is needed for the latter claim and that Johannsen misrepresents the value of wildness in a way that creates possible conflict with his proposed large-scale interventions. Palmer concluded that, if Johannsen wants such interventions to gain democratic legitimacy, he must take those conflicts more seriously. Johannsen responded to the commentaries in "Defending Wild Animal Ethics". He defended his views on intrinsic value and the evaluation of harmful natural processes, rejecting appeals to intrinsic value in this context. He also considered intentional habitat destruction as a response to wild animal suffering, arguing that it is not justified within a moderate deontological framework. In addition, he discussed agency in wild animal well-being, its relation to the exercise of agency, and its effect on quality of life. He also addressed identity-affecting actions and the possibility that they generate secondary duties, extending considerations of rectificatory justice to interventions intended to reduce harms to wild animals.
Reviews Jeff Sebo described the book as "an excellent book that makes a powerful case for reducing wild animal suffering". Jeff McMahan wrote that: "The suffering of animals in the wild is a serious moral issue, to which this book is a sensible, well-argued, and humane response." Elizabeth Mullineaux gave the book a positive review, writing that it presents clear arguments accessible to readers without specialised knowledge of philosophy, ethics, or animal welfare. She wrote that it combines familiar ideas with more challenging claims about reducing wild animal suffering, and recommended it to readers interested in the topic.
See also The Importance of Wild-Animal Suffering – 2009 essay by Brian Tomasik Animal Ethics in the Wild – 2022 book by Catia Faria
References
Further reading Johannsen, Kyle (September 27, 2021). "Précis of Wild Animal Ethics". Philosophia. 50 (3): 847–851. doi:10.1007/s11406-021-00423-6. ISSN 0048-3893. S2CID 244178679. Lepeltier, Thomas (July 2021). "Manipuler les animaux sauvages pour leur bien" [Handling wild animals for their own good]. Sciences Humanes (in French). 338.
External links Official website A chat with Kyle Johannsen, author of Wild Animal Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering Reducing wild animal suffering with Kyle Johannsen - Knowing Animals podcast Kyle Johannsen, "Wild Animal Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering" (Routledge, 2020) - New Books in Philosophy podcast
