Presumably, some people here will be familiar with Australian author and philosopher Peter Singer's perspectives on ethics and animal suffering. Singer is, according to Wikipedia, a preference utilitarian. Utilitarianism "defines right actions as those that maximize pleasure and minimize pain", but preference utilitarianism is more specific to preferences / interests: A preference utilitarian is someone who "promotes actions that fulfill the interests (preferences) of those beings involved". (See preference utilitarianism in Wikipedia.)
In an article in edition #89 of Philiosophy Now titled "Peter Singer says you are a Bad Person", Howard Darmstadther writes :
For a preference utilitarian like Singer who holds that all pleasure and suffering counts equally, this line of thinking can have odd consequences:
Then, moving on to the more interesting topic of animal suffering:
I find this to be an interesting argument, and it certainly seems like a typical way, if not necessarily a natural way, to think about animals.
He also brings up the old argument that some animals might prefer the safety and free food they enjoy in captivity over the uncertain life in nature. This, of course, is a false choice as these animals would not have existed were it not for their human masters, so they would never have had the choice between safety and freedom in the first place. To humans, it's a choice between breeding animals for captivity and suffering on one hand, and non-existence of these animals on the other.
In an article in edition #89 of Philiosophy Now titled "Peter Singer says you are a Bad Person", Howard Darmstadther writes :
To convince you that you should give more of your wealth to alleviate suffering, Singer uses a persuasive analogy. Suppose you see a child drowning in a pool. You can rescue the child at no danger to yourself, but at the cost of ruining your new suit (PE, p. 229). Clearly, you are morally obliged to wade in, suit be damned. But, says Singer, if you are a moderately well off citizen of first world nation, donating 10% of your income to CARE or Oxfam will similarly relieve much suffering, with only a modest impingement on your lifestyle (p.222). As with the drowning child, you can't just walk by. You have to grab your chequebook and wade on in.
For a preference utilitarian like Singer who holds that all pleasure and suffering counts equally, this line of thinking can have odd consequences:
Consider: if all pleasure or suffering counts equally, then (as his argument goes), the pleasure or suffering of your own children should have no special place in your calculations. So if you live in Ohio abd are deciding whether to spend $200,000 to send your daughter east to Princeton for four years, or instead spend $80,000 to send her down the road to Ohio State, while giving the other $120,000 to save the life of hundreds of African children -- well, Hello, Columbos (Ohio)!
Then, moving on to the more interesting topic of animal suffering:
Then there's the nearly intractable problem of what it is like for an animal to suffer. Animals don't react exactly like us, and they can't describe their suffering. But animals do react to events that would cause pain to us, often in ways that seem familiar from our own experiences. To the extent that animals are like us (especially neurologically), we project that they can suffer like us. But with each retreat down the evolutionary path -- from primates to mice to birds to crustaceans -- we become less inclined to see their suffering as akin to our own. When we drop a lobster in a pot of boiling water, does it feel like a human, or just react, like a thermostat? (When I asked my niece why she eats chicken and fish but not red meat, she told me that pigs and cattle just look too much like people. It's a natural way to think about animals.)
I find this to be an interesting argument, and it certainly seems like a typical way, if not necessarily a natural way, to think about animals.
He also brings up the old argument that some animals might prefer the safety and free food they enjoy in captivity over the uncertain life in nature. This, of course, is a false choice as these animals would not have existed were it not for their human masters, so they would never have had the choice between safety and freedom in the first place. To humans, it's a choice between breeding animals for captivity and suffering on one hand, and non-existence of these animals on the other.