Eze Paez, "Wild Animal Suffering: The Freedom-based Approach"
Channel: GRÉEA
Date: 26/04/2021

Speaker | Conférencier : Eze Paez, Pompeu Fabra University,  CRÉ-GRÉEA visiting fellow/chercheur invité
Organization | Organisation : CRÉ, GRÉEA

Also available on | Également disponible sur
- PeerTube, https://tube.tchncs.de/videos/watch/0154ee19-3846-4b6c-ae01-77b59f5f1060
- Soundcloud, https://soundcloud.com/greea/eze-paez-winter2021

Abstract | Résumé

Wild animals probably have net negative lives because of the naturogenic harms they suffer (Ng 1995; Horta 2010; Tomasik 2015; Faria 2016). Since there are over 1 quintillion of them (Tomasik 2009), they constitute the majority of sentient individuals. It is important to determine what reasons, if any, we have to assist them.

Arguments for a permission or a requirement to help wild animals have been typically based on a concern for their well-being, rather than their freedom (Pearce 1995; Horta 2010; Palmer 2010; Faria 2014; McMahan 2015; Paez 2019a, 2019b). Even political accounts of our duty to help deny that animals have an interest in autonomy (Cochrane 2018). When a concern for the freedom, or sovereignty, of wild animal communities has appeared in the literature, it has been to argue for non-intervention (Donaldson and Kymlicka 
2011).

In my talk I will present a freedom-based account of our duty to assist wild animals. I will argue, first, that animals can be free or unfree. They cannot assess normative or evaluative principles, but they update their intentional states and choose according to them in pursuit of their aims. This kind of control is all that freedom requires. In order not to compromise it, we should relate to animals in ways compatible with the practical standards 
implicit in their rational and volitional activity.

Second, guaranteeing their freedom requires us to recognise animals as our fellow citizens, immune from the unjustified interferences of others. But being in control is compatible with both scant and abundant opportunities for choice. The most important choice-situations of wild animals are restricted to flee-or-fight, greater or lesser suffering, or a more or less painful death. Concern for their freedom also requires us to improve the richness of their choices, if necessary by modifying nature.