Wild Animal Ethics: A Freedom-Based Approach

[EDITED: I have included a brief outline of the main argument]

For some time, I have been writing about wild animal welfare, defending the claim that we have a positive obligation to intervene in nature to eliminate, or mitigate, naturogenic harms.

A common objection I have encountered, both from other academics and the general public, is that this kind of interference goes against wild animal freedom and is, in general, morally wrong. This seems to be, for instance, Sue Donaldson's & Will Kymlicka's view in their influential Zoopolis.

Well, I've written a paper arguing that taking seriously the value of wild animal freedom actually gives us reasons to interfere in nature to help these animals, rather than against doing so. 

If I'm right, that should increase our credence in the view that we have general positive duties of assistance on behalf of wild animals.

Abstract and link below, for those of you who might be interested. Aftwerwards you can also find a brief outline of the main argument.

On expectation, most wild animals have lives of net suffering due to naturogenic causes. Some have claimed that concern for their well-being gives us reasons to intervene in nature on their behalf. Against this, it has been said that many interventions to assist wild animals would be wrong, even if successful, because they would violate their freedom. According to the Freedom-based Approach I defend in this paper, this view is misguided. Concern for wild animal freedom does indeed gives us reasons to secure these animals against control-undermining interferences, but also to intervene in nature in order to enrich their choices.

https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/RSTNQD7HT2WI8JPAPAIY/full?target=10.1080/21550085.2023.2200728

Outline

Consider a wild animal, W, and a particular choice-situation, C, defined by a set of mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive options, x and y. Now we will say that

       W’s choice is free with respect to C (x, y) to the extent that:

1. W has the capacity to choose among any of the options, x and y, that define C, and
2. No other agent interferes with that choice in ways that undermine W’s control over it

The main idea is that there are two main ways of increasing W's freedom over C. One is to make her more secure against interferences by other agents that undermine W's control over her choice. Another is to enrich W's choice by adding high-quality options to the choice situation or removing horrendous ones.

W's freedom as an agent is a function of how secure and rich her choice situations are (or, at least, her most important ones).

Wild animals' choice situations are terribly poor. If their freedom is a moral value, that means we have have moral reasons to try and enrich said choice-situations. For instance, through the various ways which have been suggested in the wild animal ethics literature during the past 15 years or so.

Of course, there's the legitimate worry that some enriching interventions might be control-undermining for some animals. As always, there will be trade-offs and we'll need a theory that tells us when these are justified. We will have to make sure all affected animals' interests are taken into account (as we see them given the best evidence available and our most robust theories) .

Motivation

Why this paper?

I'm a classic utilitarian. Still, in a rather Millian way, I think the ideal of freedom is the optimal proxy for institutional design. This is a way to reason how it would apply to wild animals.

In addition, most people are not utilitarians. I think it's valuable to show them how their conclusions should approximate mine, even assuming their own evaluative and normative principles.

If you can't access the article, but would still like to read it, I can send you a copy. Just drop me an email here.