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2.6.2: Is it wrong to harm grasshoppers for no good reason?

  • Page ID
    90158
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    Humans deserve moral consideration, which is to say that their interests deserve to be taken into account when we’re deciding what to do. This explains why we can’t crush humans. Playdough, however, doesn’t deserve moral consideration. This explains why we can crush it. But what about grasshoppers? Do they deserve moral consideration? Can we crush them?

    You might think that humans are the only things that deserve moral consideration. This view is called anthropocentrism. If anthropocentrism is correct, then since grasshoppers aren’t human, they don’t deserve moral consideration, and therefore it is perfectly permissible to harm or even kill them for no good reason. While this view is coherent, it’s rather implausible. My neighbor’s dog isn’t human, but surely it would be wrong for me to kick it, and thereby harm it, for no good reason.

    In response to this objection, you might admit that it would wrong for me to kick my neighbor’s dog for no good reason, not because my doing so involves harming a dog, but because my doing so harms someone’s property or harms something that someone cares about. On this view, it is perfectly permissible to harm grasshoppers provided that no one owns them or cares about them. Again, although this view is coherent, it’s still rather implausible. After all, it seems like it would be wrong for me to

    kick any dog for no good reason, even if that dog is unowned and unloved.
    In response to this further objection, you might admit that it would be wrong for me to kick any

    dog for no good reason, even if it were unowned and unloved, not because it is wrong for me to harm dogs, but because it is wrong for me to do anything that makes me more likely to harm humans. But even if it’s true that my kicking dogs would make me more likely to harm humans, this seems like the wrong explanation for why it is wrong for me to kick dogs. It is wrong for me to kick dogs because of what it does to the dogs, not because of what it does to me.

    In light of these arguments, we should reject anthropocentrism. We should admit that humans are not the only things that deserve moral consideration, that at least some nonhuman animals deserve moral consideration. But which ones? According to one relatively popular view, all sentient beings (i.e., beings that have subjective experiences or are capable of experiencing pleasure and pain) deserve moral consideration. This view is called sentientism. Whereas anthropocentrists cannot explain why it is wrong to harm dogs for no good reason, sentientists can.

    Let’s say that we accept sentientism. Does that mean that it is wrong to harm grasshoppers for no good reason? Not necessarily. According to sentientists, grasshoppers deserve moral consideration only if they are sentient. But it’s not clear that grasshoppers are sentient. While it’s relatively clear that they are conscious (i.e., that they have subjective experiences), it’s less clear that they are capable of experiencing pleasure and pain. So, if what makes a being deserving of moral consideration is that it is capable of experiencing pleasure and pain, it’s not clear that grasshoppers deserve moral consideration.

    This might lead us to believe that we simply cannot know whether it is wrong to harm grasshoppers for no good reason. But I don’t think that’s correct. The reason for this is that some actions are wrong simply for being unnecessarily risky. Imagine that your friend works in demolition and her and her team have been tasked with demolishing an old warehouse. While you are visiting her over your lunch break, she asks you if you would like to use the wrecking ball to destroy it. You love destroying things, so you get behind the controls. Just as you’re about to strike the first blow, you see a dog run behind the warehouse. Although you think you saw it run away, you realize that it may have run into the building. Your lunch break is almost over, so you don’t have time to let her and her team search the warehouse for the dog. If you’re going to use the wrecking ball, it’s now or never.

    In this case, is it permissible for you to destroy the old warehouse before your friend and her team search the warehouse for the dog? Of course not. Why not? Because doing so is unnecessarily risky; it is irresponsible. Even if you would enjoy using the wrecking ball, that fact doesn’t justify your performing an action that may kill a sentient being. We can say the same thing about the neighbor boy who crushed the grasshopper. Was it permissible for him to step on the grasshopper? No. Why not? Because it was unnecessarily risky; it was irresponsible. Even if he enjoys stepping on grasshoppers, that fact doesn’t justify his performing an action that may kill a sentient being.

    In this section, I have argued that humans are not the only things that deserve moral consideration. Many nonhuman animals do as well. Some environmental ethicists have gone so far as to argue that plants and even ecosystems also deserve moral consideration. I have not discussed those arguments here simply because you do not need to accept them in order to accept the conclusions that I argue for in 2.6.4. (In fact, you may not even need to accept my argument for sentientism to do that.) What you do need you to accept, however, is that unnecessarily risky acts are wrong. We cannot endanger others for the sake of minor benefits.


    2.6.2: Is it wrong to harm grasshoppers for no good reason? is shared under a not declared license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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