Oscar Horta of the University of Santiago de Compostela on why we should help wild animals

The Sentience Institute Podcast

“We want there to be animals like elephants, who on average have very good lives, rather than animals who tend to have very bad lives… If you have, say, a population of animals who reproduce by laying a million eggs. On average, only two of them would survive… Due to how the life history of animals is in many cases, we are not really speaking here about exceptions but rather about the norm. It's very common for animals to have lives that contain more suffering — sometimes much more suffering — than positive wellbeing… Regarding what needs to change most urgently, first of all we need to get more people involved. And also, of course, more funding would be greatly appreciated, because this is a severely underfunded field of research and advocacy.”

• Oscar Horta

Animals in the wild suffer, often to a large degree, because of natural disasters, parasites, disease, starvation, and other causes. But is there actually anything we can do to help them? And would that even be desirable?

Oscar Horta is a Professor of philosophy at the University of Santiago de Compostela and a co-founder of the nonprofit Animal Ethics. He has published and lectured in both English and Spanish on topics including speciesism and wild animal welfare.

Topics discussed in the episode:

• The work that is currently been done to help wild animals and what needs to change (2:08)
• The “idyllic view of nature” and why it seems incorrect (7:47)
• How can we best help wild animals? What should we focus on now? (25:19)
• Which interventions seem promising to help wild animals on a larger scale? (36:18)
• How does the case for intervention to help wild animals depend on different ethical theories? (46:27)
• Does uncertainty about the indirect effects of our actions to help wild animals make this area less promising? (54:09)
• Can we still help wild animals if we’re concerned about wild animals’ autonomy? (58:47)
• Does the case for working on wild animal welfare depend on an overall view about whether wild animals have lives that are net negative or net positive? (1:02:46)
• If we’re concerned about problems that will be large in scale over very long-term time horizons, should we still prioritize wild animal issues? (1:13:15)
• Why Oscar believes the concept of moral status should be abandoned (1:21:50)

Resources discussed in the episode are available at https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/podcast

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