Veganism and Driving

[HollyAli7]

What are peoples’ thoughts on being vegan and driving with respect to the wildlife/ bugs that it harms on the roads? I always find flies or worms that have been injured in the road and so move them out of the way. I am reluctant to start learning to drive because personally I highly value the life of bugs on equal par with mammals (I understand that others may not). I was just wondering what other people thought?

[teo123]

What are peoples’ thoughts on being vegan and driving with respect to the wildlife/ bugs that it harms on the roads? I always find flies or worms that have been injured in the road and so move them out of the way. I am reluctant to start learning to drive because personally I highly value the life of bugs on equal par with mammals (I understand that others may not). I was just wondering what other people thought?

I think animals should not be given moral value unless they have been proven, beyond reasonable doubt, to feel pain. And it has not been proven beyond reasonable doubt that fish feel pain, as many, if not most of the, neuroscientists think they do not. And the situation is much worse for insects.

[thebestofenergy]

Welcome Holly! Hope you'll like it here.

Feel free to ignore Teo, he's the clown of the forum that is into pretty much every conspiracy under the sun and always makes absurd claims with nothing to back them up.

What are peoples’ thoughts on being vegan and driving with respect to the wildlife/ bugs that it harms on the roads? I always find flies or worms that have been injured in the road and so move them out of the way. I am reluctant to start learning to drive because personally I highly value the life of bugs on equal par with mammals (I understand that others may not). I was just wondering what other people thought?

It is actually likely that you will do more damage through emissions with your vehicle (unless you drive an electric car) than by potentially squashing some insects - as in, your emissions are going to have worse consequences on sentient life than the accidental ant that will get squashed.

While the majority of insects are sentient (or at least barely so) because they possess a basic central nervous system and are able to work with operant conditioning, they are much lower on the sentience scale than mammals.
Insects have a much more rudimentary brain, and their ability to suffer and have wants/interests is magnitudes inferior in intensity to that of mammals.
Level of sentience correlates with the complexity of the brain, meaning the more complex the brain the higher level of sentience a being has.
For example, a bee has about 250'000 neurons, while a dog has about 530'000'000. Already from this it's very safe to bet that the dog is much higher on the sentience scale than ants - which means higher capacity to suffer or experience happiness and a higher strength of wants/interests, which means a dog has to be regarded morally on a higher level than an ant, as your actions affecting a dog will affect it much more than they will an ant (e.g. squashing a dog will cause more suffering and a bigger opportunity loss of happiness than squashing an ant would - same goes for interests the animal has, like the interest to keep living).

Regarding every sentient being on the same level of importance is a mistake and is deontological - that doesn't mean you shouldn't care about insects at all, quite the contrary, but it means that equating them with mammals will paint the wrong picture and make you do either unnecessary stuff or something counterproductive.
(if you want to read more on sentience: wiki/index.php/Sentience)



When it comes to driving your car, you have to both consider emissions and potential accidents.
However, there is a significant difference between different scenarios and you can't successfully draw a deontological rule to 'checkmate' all scenarios - there are scenarios where driving is worth it, and when it's not, and it's not either always yes or always no.

For example, if we're talking about having a joy ride in the woods, it's almost always not worth it - as you could do something else that's fun instead, without causing emissions and potentially killing wild life.
If we're talking about having to drive to work, it's a different story - the chances of killing insects/animals on asphalt roads is actually low, and the emissions are still bad but they're outweighed by the fact that you need to go to work to survive.

Insects that get killed on the road are also usually very low on the sentience scale, even lower than the average insect - like flies (and certain small flies are in a grey area as to whether they're sentient or not to begin with).

You can easily make the sound argument that your interests of having to buy groceries or going to work in order to survive and live well off (necessity) far outweigh the interests of the accidental fly you might squash every once in a while.



I'm not sure where you live or what your situation is, but if driving is a necessity I certainly wouldn't avoid it because of potential insects being squashed.
When you need to drive, the need outweighs the very small interests of a fly and the emission (and you can always make up the harm by donating to a charity every year to offset your carbon footprint), and when driving is done purely out of fun, it would be better to have fun some other way instead (or bike/run/walk).

[HollyAli7]

Hi thank you very much! Your reply was really informative I understand that insects do not feel pain or emotions on the same level as mammals but, for me, any organisms, even those with lower levels of consciousness or sentience to other organisms still have similar worth. This may be quite an extreme view, and one that I’m sure many others don’t agree with, but sentience may not necessarily directly equate to value. I live in the countryside where insects are everywhere (including on the roads) so it can be quite difficult to drive without harming them. It was just a thought I had and wondered whether others had similar or different views.

[Red]

To add to @thebestofenergy, while needing to drive to work is definitely better for the environment if you don't really have any other option it isn't something to lose sleep over. However if you don't need to drive, obviously walking/biking is the better option.

Before the pandemic, I used to drive to school (which I didn't like, I felt as though it was just a bunch of unnecessary emissions), but once the lockdowns started, even when some classes were semi-in-person I still went with the remote option just for the sake of minimizing emissions. Now the only time when I drive is to the supermarket that has all the mock meats I want (which is usually once a month); When I just need some soy milk or produce I just walk to my local supermarket.

The lockdowns are not going to last forever though, and I still feel hypocritical for driving to school as far as the environment is concerned.

[Jebus]

I highly value the life of bugs on equal par with mammals

Welcome.

Do you consider other mammals on par with humans? If not, why so?

Are you constantly grieving the lives you kill just by walking around? If not, why so?

[thebestofenergy]

sentience may not necessarily directly equate to value.

If this is something you want to hold as true and do not want to discuss, that's fine.
But otherwise we can discuss it.

As long as you hold sentient beings as the ones that are morally valuable (what else could be morally valuable? rocks?), then it follows that sentience directly equates to moral value.

If you hold sentient beings as the ones that are morally valuable, it inherently means you ought to morally care about sentient beings, meaning taking into consideration their best interests and how you can do right by them (as the sentient beings' interests are at the base of how you would affect sentient beings, encompassing everything they would or could care about).

And of course, by taking into consideration their best interests and how you can do right by them, certain interests outweigh others. For example, I think you would agree that by killing 2 ants you go against interests more than by killing 1 ant, thus causing more harm.
That is because 2 ants together would have a higher strength of interests to keep on living than 1 ant.

The same goes for suffering and happiness - giving 2 grains of sugar to 2 ants results in more satisfaction than giving 1 grain of sugar to 1 ant, and cutting a leg off 2 ants results in higher suffering than cutting a leg off 1 ant. In the first scenario the amount of interests and wants double the second one, so you have a bigger impact.

You can then easily see, scientifically, that a dog would have a higher level of interests than the ant (similar to how the 2 ants had a higher level of interests than the 1 ant). That's because the dog's cognitive abilities are able to give him stronger wants and interests, and a higher capacity for suffering and happiness.
So, you can see that by cutting a leg off an ant, you would cause less suffering and go against interests less than cutting a leg off a dog.
In the latter, not only there are more pain receptors, but there is also a stronger interest to keep living healthy and well, and all in one piece.

To determine the level of cognitive abilities a being has, that show how strong their interests/wants are, sentience has to be looked at, with level of sentience meaning exactly that - more or less of the cognitive abilities that allow for interests of a corresponding strength to be there.

You can run any scenario you may want in your mind, and by taking into consideration level of sentience and amount of interests you're going for/against (as long as you have knowledge of that), you're going to be able to determine whether an action is a net positive or a net negative for sentient beings, and how good or bad it is for them (which is what matters, since sentient beings are what matters to begin with).

It is important to remember that what matters is the amount of interests you're going for/against, and not the total amount of sentient beings you're going for/against.
You could torture 1 ant and cause more harm doing that than depriving 3 ants of their food for 1 day.
Total number of sentient beings is arbitrary without taking into consideration what gives them moral meaning to begin with - their ability to have interests and want things, which is what allows you to do right by or wrong by them, and by a certain amount (whereas you couldn't do right by or wrong by things that do not have interests).

[HollyAli7]

Thanks guys for your replies
@thebestofenergy it is really interesting when you think about it like that. I suppose sentience does equate to moral value, and that method of reasoning is most practical. I would still try to avoid all situations where I could harm insects though, such as walking to my local food store instead of driving etc like @Red
@Jebus i do consider mammals on par with humans in terms of moral value, and I do feel sad or upset if I accidentally kill an insect- but I wouldn’t grieve them in the same way as if a human or mammal died as that would make daily life quite incompatible or difficult since I find several insects dead everyday on the roads or in my garden. What about you?

[Jebus]

@Jebus i do consider mammals on par with humans in terms of moral value, and I do feel sad or upset if I accidentally kill an insect- but I wouldn’t grieve them in the same way as if a human or mammal died as that would make daily life quite incompatible or difficult since I find several insects dead everyday on the roads or in my garden. What about you?

I get upset when I learn about the death or suffering of sentient animals. I don't generally get upset when I learn about the death of humans; the exception being the death of people who have a net positive impact on the world. I don't at all get upset by the death of non-sentient animals, such as insects.

[brimstoneSalad]

Hi Holly, welcome to the forum. Great post to get started from!

Another way to think about relative value: What about each brain cell? If we're looking at the most primitive sensation, wouldn't each nerve cell have value? And if so, don't humans (and other mammals, birds, etc.) have a whole lot more of them than insects?