Should you buy plants with less animal deaths then other plant products?

[thebestofenergy]

The main concern for me would be how much does a bug want to stay alive and avoid pain?

It's hard to quantify exactly how much it wants something without having the tech to know it precisely yet.

What you can do, is get an idea in terms of comparisons with other things, to know what's a reasonable stance on the matter (i.e. wanting to drive to work > the chance of an ant being splattered).

And just because its hard to avoid doing something (indirectly killing bugs) doesn't necessarily make it morally ok, but it doesn't necessarily mean its not morally ok either.

It means it's not really practicable, and that if you wanted to really avoid killing bugs you would have to meticulously check where you step inside the house, and avoid going outside completely.
It's not doable.

But do bugs want to stay alive more then I want to drive a car, walk without sweeping the floor in front of me, sprint on grass to work out, or mow the lawn? I agree now that level of sentience can change things with respect to weather or not its moral to cause somethings death, but I'm not sure to what degree I'm morally allowed to cause the death/suffering of others when talking about a bugs level of sentience.

No, they likely don't have interests in living more than you wanting to do something.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't care about stepping over insects' nests rather than deviating a little, but that you shouldn't forbid yourself to walk.

The insects that are sentient are barely so, and some of them are in a grey area and could possibly be non-sentient.
If you study an ant's brain, you'll see it's very primitive and just over the threshold to be sentient. The neurological structures are extremely simple, just enough to allow a basic level of sentience.
The difference between an ant and a human, or even just an ant and a dog, is many magnitudes. And it's very likely large enough that forbidding yourself from taking a walk would cause more suffering than the statistical chance of killing an ant.

If you care about not killing ants, you can always pay attention where you are, and try not to mindlessly run where you already see many ants about (like if you see a colony in a certain area, don't run close to it without paying attention).

[NickNack]

@thebestofenergy
Can you provide a scientific or philosophical case that the insects that are barley sentient are so much less that it would cause more negative utility for me to limit insect deaths extremely then to not?
When I say limit insect deaths extremely, I mean I can only drive to get the things I need to survive/stay healthy but I cant ever walk on grass, walk without sweeping the floor infront of me, kill insects in my home (unless they put my life in danger), or drive when I dont need to get the essentials for survival.

[thebestofenergy]

Can you provide a scientific or philosophical case that the insects that are barley sentient are so much less that it would cause more negative utility for me to limit insect deaths extremely then to not?

Yes, I can.
However, it's important to understand what insects are taken into consideration, and what and why you're doing something.
There isn't a deontological one-fits-all answer.

In the case of getting a pleasure walk vs the chance of killing an ant, we can make these observations:
- an ant has 250'000 neuros on average (pretty much the same as a fruit fly, for comparison), and the moral worth of that is multiplied by the chance of killing the ant (statistics)
- a human has around 80 billion neurons
So, even if you were to consider the entirety of all the neurons found in the ant working at once, vs the neurons that would send signals when you are sad for not taking the walk, it's clear that you would have a much stronger signal for suffering if you couldn't take the walk than the ant if it died.

You also have to consider the opportunity cost for killing the ant (the happiness the ant missed out on by dying), but even considering that, the scale would still be in your favor: your happiness from being able to take a walk would probably still be higher than the total happiness the ant would have had in its remaining life if you hadn't killed it * chance of killing it.

(suffering from not being able to take a walk + happiness from being able to take a walk) > [(negative of the the ant dying (wants broken) + happiness the ant would have missed out on with its statistical remaining life) * chance of killing the ant]

kill insects in my home (unless they put my life in danger)

Going out of your way to kill insects needlessly in your home would be a net negative (if you have some kind of infestation or they're dangerous insects, it's not needless).
You wouldn't give up anything by simply picking them up in a glass and putting them outside, while in the other scenario you would give up taking a walk - and for a chance of killing an ant, not a certainty.

[NickNack]

@thebestofenergy
So the science shows that its a linear relationship between amount of neurons fired and amount of suffering there is?
If that's the case then you've won me over as long as all human suffering fires more neurons then the most intense of insect suffering. I might want to be safe though, do you know what the insect with the most neurons is? I could take a guppy to be safe but that may be too big, it has about 4,000,000 neurons. Do you know if all human suffering goes over 4,000,000 neurons?

And sorry kind of a side note but does that mean we don't have to be ethically against honey since bees don't have a lot of neurons and humans do?

[thebestofenergy]

So the science shows that its a linear relationship between amount of neurons fired and amount of suffering there is?

No, total amount of neurons and amount of ability to suffer are not linearly directly proportional, but there's a very strong correlation and it is proportional, even if not linearly.

To fully understand how much a being can suffer exactly, you would ultimately have to observe the brain and see what the activity is, and run tests.

Synapses, for example, are dependent by the amount of neurons, but different types of neurons can have more or less synapses.
However, unless you have better knowledge, amount of neurons is the basic way to roughly determine something.

I might want to be safe though, do you know what the insect with the most neurons is? I could take a guppy to be safe but that may be too big, it has about 4,000,000 neurons. Do you know if all human suffering goes over 4,000,000 neurons?

You can look up specific insects yourself, but this can give you an idea of overall animals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_a ... of_neurons

It's very important to remember what you're doing that would justify inflicting the pain on the animal.

I would be right in saying that taking a walk justifies the statistical chance of stepping on an ant, as long as I'm careful not to step on an ants' nest, but I wouldn't be justified in squashing ants if it gave me pleasure for the sake of pleasure, even if the momentary pleasure would be bigger than the ants' suffering.
That's because of three things:
1. I wouldn't just go against the interests of the ants, that would die with certainty, but also against my own interests - psychopathic behavior is very self-detrimental.
2. While not having the freedom to ever go for a walk, or go outside unless it's under strict circumstances, would be depressing and I would lose on something meaningful, not having the 'pleasure' of squashing ants wouldn't make me suffer, and I could just go do something else less harmful that would still give me pleasure.
There isn't an opportunity cost with not intentionally squashing the ants for a few giggles, as you wouldn't lose on anything meaningful and you could easily replace the lost pleasure with some other activity. While there is a significant opportunity cost by restricting your movements to what's strictly necessary.
3. The chance of killing an ant, while being mindful not to step on ants' nests, is relatively low. Bugs usually get out of the way, and when they don't they get easily fit into crannies (like the openings under your shoes), or get saved by unevenness of dirt (stepping between two bunches of grass, and leaving the dirt below untouched), or get saved by the dirt simply being soft in that spot (it's not that easy to kill an ant in soft terrain with grass, for example). While killing them intentionally, would lead to multiple certain deaths.

I know you're not comparing going on a walk with squashing ants on purpose, but I'm saying this to give you more perspective of comparison.

The point being is that you have to look at the opportunity cost of not being able to do something in the long term, beyond the present suffering vs happiness.
Not being able to go outside unless you're under strict necessity would make you feel worse and worse as time goes by, you would lose on many life opportunities (and therefore lose on a lot of happiness), and it would eventually lead to serious mental health issues.

[NickNack]

@thebestofenergy
Yeah I'm kind of already suffering mentally from this kind of thinking. I suppose I could try to argue mental health is more suffering then the insects suffering? Or if not I have a right to mental health? I don't know, but not having honey wont make you mentally Ill so that makes more sense why honey is not vegan but walking, running or driving is (without going out of your way to kill bugs). But thanks for talking to me this much. You've helped me a lot!

[thebestofenergy]

Yeah I'm kind of already suffering mentally from this kind of thinking.

Not sure what you mean. Does thinking about this stuff cause you anxiety?

I suppose I could try to argue mental health is more suffering then the insects suffering? Or if not I have a right to mental health?

You have to consider all pros and all cons, yes.
You seem to keep going back to 'rights'. Rights don't really mean anything morally, it's an arbitrary line drew by humans that tries to base itself on morality, but fails many times.
Slaves didn't have many rights, and neither do animals right now. Looking at what has rights is pretty useless, look at the consequences of things.

I don't know, but not having honey wont make you mentally Ill so that makes more sense why honey is not vegan but walking, running or driving is (without going out of your way to kill bugs).

Walking, running, or driving is a necessity to keep on living and being happy, for very minimal harm.
It's a win.
Animal products are not a necessity to keep on living and being happy, they're actually detrimental for your health, for enormous harm (most harm of any practices for sentient beings high on the sentience scale, most environmental destruction of any practices, biggest risk of pandemics and antibiotic resistance of any practices).
It's a lose-lose (with a very, very big emphasis on the lose, when it comes to suffering).

[NickNack]

@thebestofenergy
Couldn't I argue that rights are based on consequences? Like no one has the right to do something if it only gives X positive utility for Y negative utility? I understand the line is different for each person but there's nothing wrong with that as long as someone's own personal moral system has no contradictions, right? Its a very personal choice for my moral system to put rights in but I don't see it as something legal in a country, but rather legal in morality. If someone else's moral system doesn't have rights in it, there's nothing I can say that makes my morality objective or their morality objective, rather you just play a consistency test within their own moral framework. Do you think morality can be individualized like this or do you think there's something overarching about morality that is more objective?

And thinking about this stuff can make me feel guilty if I don't think I can justify my current actions within the moral framework that feels right to me, that's what gets me down sometimes.