Jakob Lohmar's article in Ethics volume 135, July 2025 "The Moral Importance of Low-Welfare Species," tackles a complex and challenging question in animal ethics: how do we weigh the well-being of species with a limited capacity for welfare against significant human benefits?
Lohmar begins his article , dealing the problem of welfare ranges, by noting that many species—such as insects, fish, birds or some mollusks—seem to have a much smaller "welfare range" than humans. Their capacity for both suffering and flourishing is, due to their biological and psychological makeup, significantly less than ours. This raises a difficult question: should the alleviation of a major harm for one of these low-welfare species ever outweigh a minor benefit for a human? It reminds us of the kasmiri seperatist using the economically deprived as stone throwers when their own children received western education. This phenomenon not being new is always justified by the "Irrelevance" Argument. The article first explores a common intuition: that benefits for low-welfare species are simply "irrelevant" when compared to significant human benefits. The argument is that since the maximum possible benefit for a low-welfare individual is small (e.g., comparable to a mild human headache), no number of such benefits could ever outweigh something as significant as a human life. This is a common view in some forms of utilitarianism and is often based on the idea of "thresholds" where a certain level of benefit is required to be morally relevant.
Photography credits - thehindu.com, Article by Malini Parthasarthy.
(The article discusses the plight of these young men from a critical lense focused on the government with a dense blind spot for the benefactors of this tragedy. To me - There is a 'high welfare species ' keeping these stone pelters engaged in a low welfare state.)
Lohmar challenges this "irrelevance" with the "High-Welfare Species" Counterargument argument using a thought experiment. He introduces a hypothetical high-welfare species whose capacity for welfare is vastly greater than our own. If we apply the same logic, then any human benefit, no matter how significant, would be considered "irrelevant" in comparison to the maximum possible benefit for a member of this high-welfare species. This leads to an ethically unacceptable conclusion, suggesting the initial "irrelevance" argument is flawed.
After rejecting the initial argument, Lohmar proposes an arguments from fairness and empathy by stating that we should give the welfare of low-welfare species significant moral weight. He suggests that fairness requires us to give special consideration to low-welfare species precisely because of their limited capacity, not despite it. Similarly, our empathetic responses, while often based on a perceived similarity to our own experience, should not be the sole determinant of moral value.
The article concludes by proposing a principle that attempts to reconcile these competing intuitions. Lohmar suggests a "partially aggregative" view, where for every individual, regardless of their welfare range, there is some level of benefit that is never morally irrelevant. This principle allows us to give moral consideration to the welfare of low-welfare species without leading to the counterintuitive conclusion that a vast number of minor benefits could outweigh a human life. The principle provides a more nuanced and philosophically robust framework for making inter-species comparisons and ethical decisions that involve beings with differing capacities for well-being.
My perception
I have come across this argument often enough to state that the author has proposed nothing new. From the platonic thoughts of utopia and Marxist arrangements to preserve equality to my own country's effort to ensure equality , it appears that the low welfare segment is an deliberate structural component in equations of "few for many" or "enough for all". Lohmars proposal of ' some level of benefit is never morally irrelevant ' is not only superficial but rather vacuous. It only constructs a fragile argument to inevitably fall out into the existing state. At the same time, I confess , I wish to cry out Lohmars argument and knowing its argumental cul de sac, I don't have an answer either. And so the stone throwers will stay and be evoked at the will of the ' high welfare species '
Pratyush Chaudhuri
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