Peter Singer.Animals suffer like us, it is a moral issue that we must face

Peter Singer is one of the world's most influential living philosophers.His interest in animals led him to reflect on the human-animal relationship and to remind us how much their pain is the same as ours.

In the daily lives of each of us there are, sometimes, situations that appear to have been created on purpose and which, instead, are the result of a lucky roll of the dice that help govern our actions.This is how, a few weeks ago, while I was going to the meeting with Peter Singer, father of anti-speciesism and considered one of the most authoritative and revolutionary philosophers of the modern era, I took a taxi.It was led by a boy of just over forty who, shortly after, announced to me that he was "new to the job".An uncommon thing among Italian taxi drivers who, as a rule, pass down their license and profession from generation to generation and start at a young age.

“Until 2022 I worked in a slaughterhouse.One of those who supply large-scale retail supermarkets.But I didn't make it.After ten years I gave up.It was terrible.And I wasn't even one of those in the killing department.I took care of the cutting.It's all mechanized now.The cows are put on a conveyor belt, under the supervision of mostly foreign staff, and directed to where the guns are.Boom boom boom, one after the other."

With the image of a row of frightened animals going to their deaths to become a steak, encounter Peter Singer atState University of Milan and I briefly tell him what just happened, asking him for a comment.

Interest in animal welfare is growing, but very slowly.Too much than I expected and hoped for.We'll get there eventually, one way or another, but I don't think I'll be here to see the change.

Peter Singer

Singer, 77 years old, originally from Australia and professor of ethical philosophy at Princeton University, published "Animal Liberation”, of which there is also a revised edition updated in 2023.A book full of logical thoughts on why inflicting suffering on other animals has ethical implications that affect our entire social system.A text destined to change the way many people look at livestock animals.

Professor Singer, is it still possible, in 2024, to justify the killing of approximately 200 billion farm animals a year by claiming that it is a necessary choice to keep the system afloat and feed the world population?
At the basis of speciesism is the concept of diversity.We live constantly overwhelmed by a cognitive bias that leads us to see other animal species as "other" than us.A reasoning very similar to that which provides the basis for racist and sexist theories and which finds its basis in Genesis itself, which speaks of the dominion of men over animals, and in Aristotelian thought which maintains that plants were created for beasts and animals for men.Instrumental theories that also find confirmation in Thomas Aquinas, who maintained that it does not matter how men behave with animals because all the creatures of the Planet have been subjected by God to man, and in Emmanuel Kant, who maintained that animals did not have a conscience but were only instruments.

All this changes with Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher, jurist and economist who for the first time combines the idea of ​​morality with that of man's behavior towards animals and asks whether these, in fact, are capable of suffering.Today we know that animals suffer and, for this reason, we absolutely must address the moral issue linked to the way we treat them.And stop justifying our choices with the need to have food on the table, to advance in scientific research (the killing of two hundred million animals for experimentation no longer makes sense and can be counterproductive) or with the defense of anachronistic traditions .The necessary mental shift is absolutely possible.History proves it.There have been times when sodomy and same-sex marriage were abhorrent and openly condemned practices:today they are not only conceived as issues that are part of the personal and private sphere, but they are also defended as part of the right of the person.

In this regard, in an era in which we continue to divide the world into categories and have to find physiological, historical or legal reasons for the assignment of a right, what should we force ourselves to reflect on in the way we treat other animals?
Today we have a deeper understanding of the intelligence of many creatures, from pigs to octopuses, and we have evidence to prove that veganism, more popular than ever, is good for our health and the environment.Yet, global meat and fish consumption continues to increase, the world's first octopus farm is being planned and the intensification of the ecological crisis is driving many animals to extinction.To understand why the way we treat other animals is wrong, we need to investigate our reasons for doing so and how we see them.The ability to use reason or language cannot be discriminating factors not only because we know that other species have abilities very similar to ours, but also because, upon closer inspection, they do not belong to young children and to those who suffer from cognitive disabilities or linguistics.This is why pain is the most important factor to consider.As humans, we view pain as a universally bad thing.Just as we don't like pain inflicted on us, we shouldn't inflict it on others without justification.The species boundary is not relevant:pain is pain if a creature is capable of feeling it.This seems to me to be a simpler and more direct argument than the one based on cognitive abilities.

What scientific evidence do we have regarding animal suffering?
What tells us that animals suffer just like us is the existence of a similar physiological system, tests on reactions and behaviors (have you ever accidentally stepped on your dog's tail?Did it seem like he wasn't in pain?).It's the sharing of same evolutionary history.All characteristics that also concern fish, often ignored, despite the fact that studies on their pain began way back in 1975 demonstrating that they too suffer like us.Not to mention the effects on the environment of our induced need to feed on animals.An adult salmon, like the one placed at the center of the Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve feast, usually comes from farms that are destroying Chilean Patagonia and its precious ecosystems.Before being killed, that salmon had been fed at least 66 kilos of caught fish.Multiply this figure by millions of specimens, locked in cages positioned in the sea or in large tanks, and you will have the measure of how sustainable fish farming is.

In a world where individual animal abuse is a crime but systematic animal abuse is considered a business model, is the system improving?
Approximately seventy billion chickens are killed every year.THE broilers, the ones you find in the supermarket wrapped in cellophane, or that you happily go to eat on a Saturday evening in one of the many chains that have a nice smiling rooster as a mascot, are bred to grow so fast that they can no longer support their body weight.After a couple of weeks from birth, they are so fat that they cannot stand and cannot sit because they are raised on a kind of litter full of their excrement and with such a high level of ammonia that they burn their legs when perching. and the chest.If human babies grew at the same rate as today's broiler chickens, they would weigh 660 pounds at two months old.This information is now easily available.Yet, demand is still so high that chicken farming has intensified.

A panorama that hardly bodes well.But is there any good news?Have there been any positive changes, at least since the first edition of your book?
Although a truly extensive cultural leap has not been made, there is some good news.Among these, the fact that controls and regulations on breeding and slaughter methods have been introduced:at least nine US states and the European Union ban calf cages, chicken cages or sow pens.The major US supermarket chains have decided to sell only eggs from cage-free farms by 2026 and McDonald's has done the same.Denmark, a major exporter of pork and dairy products, will introduce instead a tax on carbon dioxide emissions from livestock starting in 2030.And many people's perceptions are changing.Vegans and vegetarians are no longer viewed with a critical eye always and in any case:General acceptance of various diets is spreading promisingly.

Professor Singer, one last question:How did your reflection on the treatment we reserve for other species begin?
Although many people take it for granted, I am not an animal lover in the strict sense.I understand the affection and affection one can feel for them but that's not what moves me.Mine is a reasoning that finds its foundations in philosophical studies for which the ethical question, in relation to these topics, is objective:it is necessary to minimize animal suffering and maximize shared happiness.This is the basis of my work and my thinking.

As the room empties and Singer heads towards the exit, where waiting for him is a group of loyal fans who hold his book in their hands and are hungry for answers, I think of a conversation I had with a friend the night before .He is spasmodically curious to discover as soon as possible the potential that artificial intelligence holds, I am increasingly convinced that our extreme trust in engineering genius can lead us towards a evolutionary trap.

In addition to attempts and studies to replace animals with robots capable of responding to our personal emotional needs, in the careful work of replacing nature and various results of natural evolution, theartificial intelligence (TO THE) it also arrived on farms.Now we applaud the great economic results that can be achieved by entrusting it with the control of food and water animal growth locked up waiting to be slaughtered.You don't need to know anything about them or have experience managing them.If there is a problem, the staff in charge can resolve it remotely.And, when the time comes, there is no need for any human being: animals live and die alone, in a black box from which they emerge only as ready-to-use products, in the last great work of cognitive dissociation created by man.

Thus, the last bastion in defense of the rights of these creatures also fails:the relationship between human being and animal, governed by empathy and that common evolutionary path that should remind us how their pain is ours too.