Animals, like humans, suffer and die from natural causes. This is particularly true of animals living in the wild, given their high exposure to, and low capacity to cope with, harmful natural processes. Most wild animals likely have short lives, full of suffering, usually ending in terrible deaths. This book argues that on the assumption that we have reasons to assist others in need, we should intervene in nature to prevent or reduce the harms wild animals suffer, provided that it is feasible and that the expected result is positive overall. It is of the utmost importance that academics from different disciplines as well as animal advocates begin to confront this issue. The more people are concerned with wild animal suffering, the more probable it is that safe and effective solutions to the plight of wild animals will be implemented in the future.
1. Moral considerability
2. Speciesism
3. Wild animal suffering
4. Perversity and futility
5. Jeopardy
6. Relationality
7. Priority
8. Tractability
Catia Faria is an Assistant Professor of Applied Ethics at the Complutense University of Madrid and a founding member of the Centre for Animal Ethics at Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona. She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on wild animal suffering.
"Animal Ethics in the Wild makes a powerful case for helping wild animals. It also provides the most comprehensive treatment to date of the incredibly important, and yet incredibly neglected, problem of wild animal suffering. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in combating speciesism."
– Kyle Johannsen, Trent University
"Catia Faria has for some years been a pioneer in the effort to make both moral philosophers and members of the wider public think seriously about the appalling suffering that many billions of animals endure in the wild every day. In this book, she states the case for beneficent human intervention and then meticulously analyses and rebuts a large variety of objections that have been or might be made to her proposal. This book is thus a carefully argued and timely discussion of a highly serious moral problem that remains tragically underappreciated."
– Jeff McMahan, Sekyra and White's Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Oxford