Palmer, Chap 4:
Wildness, Domestication and the LFI
1. Wildness
a. Extent not humanized
b. Degree (more or less)
c. Constitutive wildness (wild vs domesticated)
i. Not selectively bred by humans or genetically altered by such things as hunting pressure
d. Location wildness: (Wild vs developed): Live in a place on which humans have had relatively little effect
i. End of nature idea; global warming all earth impacted by humans
e. Dispositional/behavioral wildness (Tame vs wild)
i. Wild animals those aggressive or fearful toward humans
f. Fully wild: Animals not domesticated and living in wild areas (1st and 2nd senses)
2. Domestication
a. “Bred in captivity; in human community that maintains complete mastery over its breeding, organization of territory and food supply”
b. Palmer’s definition:
i. Animals intentionally controlled by humans with respect to breeding, e.g., deliberate selective breeding, in relatively recent time frame
ii. Not include gray squirrel, even though behaviorally tame, co-evolved alongside humans, and live successfully in human communities
(1) As breeding not selectively controlled and no deliberate human intervention
iii. Not include zoo populations (even though become genetically isolated) as breeding not deliberately controlled by humans
3. Domesticated animals characteristically
a. Have smaller body sizes than wild ancestors
b. Smaller cranial capacities
c. Smaller teeth
d. Characteristically neotonous = persistence of youthful characteristics into adulthood
e. Exaggerate or diminish fattiness, possession of horns, muscle, appearance of fur, large breast size in turkeys so unintended result can’t copulate normally
4. Animals in contact zone
a. Neither fully wild nor fully domesticated
b. May be animals we most frequently encounter
c. Mutualism, commensalism, contramensalism
d. Exotics (constitutively wild, but not location wild)
i. Escaped parakeet
e. Feral (bred by humans, but not under human control)
i. Cats living in the bushes
5. LAISSEZ-FAIRE INTUITION (=LFI)
6. LFI in general
a. We have obligations to assist/care for domesticated animals, no such obligations to animals in the wild
i. But see no-contact LFI below where there can be duties to assist under certain circumstances (animals in contact zone)
b. All versions of LFI involve a prima facie (=possible to override) duty not to harm animals in any given context
i. This duty is capacity oriented (not relational)
7. Strong LFI: Neither harm nor assistance in the wild is permitted
8. Weak LFI: Harm is not permitted, but assistance in wild permitted but not required
9. No-Contact LFI: Harm not permitted, assistance is permitted but not required, but/except contact/entanglement with animals may generate special obligations to assist
a. Possibility includes case were we must assist in response to moral agents harming wild animals
10. All forms of LFI deviate from capacity oriented approaches in terms of duties of assistance
a. While duties not to harm are capacity oriented
b. Duties of assistance are relational: depend on relation of animal to human
11. HARMING VERSUS NOT ASSISTING
12. LFI makes distinction harming/not assisting
13. Consequentialism rejects this distinction
a. So LFI is non-consequentialist
14. Consequentialist argument rejecting harming/not assisting distinction:
a. Why distinguish causing X amount of pain (harming) and allowing X amount of pain to continue (not assisting)–when one could relieve it?
i. Button pain example
b. If permissible to allow X amount of pain when one could relieve it, then it is permissible to cause X amount of pain
c. What matter is what happens not who does what
d. Morally required to bring about best state of affairs (impersonally considered)
i. LFI seems to reject this (nor required to alleviate wild animal suffering)
15. Impersonal vs agent-centered/relative distinction
a. Distinction between consequentialism and deontology parallels the distinction between agent neutral (impersonal perspective) and agent-centered/agent relative perspective
b. Consequentialism impersonal perspective
i. Should kill one to save five
c. Deontology’s agent-centered perspective
i. Should not kill one even to save five, even though this would bring about better outcome from impersonal perspective
ii. For the agent is doing the harm/violation
iii. Morally relevant that it is the particular agent (me) that acts
iv. One is peculiarly responsible for what one does in a way not responsible for what one fails to prevent
v. Fits with LFI
16. Defense of distinction harming and not assisting
a. What happens isn’t only issue
17. Harm: When we harm someone we deprive them of something they otherwise would have had
a. We impose on them
b. We take away some good they were already in possession of, good they had independently and un related to us
c. If we had done nothing, person would have been better off
18. Assistance: makes someone better off (than if not acted)
a. Imposition on the agent rather than on the person being assisted
b. If do nothing, fail to aid, person remains in same situation they were in independently of and unrelated to us
c. In harming, we make situation worse, in failing to aid we just do not change it for the better
19. If only look at happenings, situations look same; but if look at responsibility of the agent, situations look quite different
20. Consequentialism entails negative responsibility
a. One is responsible not only for what one actually does but also for what one fails to prevent
b. Implies a hugely expanded scope of moral responsibility
21. LFI assumes a distinction between harming and not assisting and claims no duties to assist unless some kind of special relationship holds