Recently, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives or have been subject to unimaginable suffering due to an earthquake and typhoon - natural disasters that occur and re-occur continuously. At any given moment, many thousands of people will die from starvation, lack of nutrition, genocide, war, and disease throughout Africa, Asia, and South America. Many of our fellow citizens went hungry last night, will go hungry tonight, and will go hungry tomorrow night; they will sleep on park benches or in filth, "burden" our healthcare system, fall further into psychological despair, and die slowly, miserably. This is existence - it characterizes the lives of many millions of human beings.
[The year] 2000 began with 24 million Africans infected with AIDS. In the absence of a medical miracle, nearly all will die before 2010. Each day, 6,000 Africans die from AIDS. Each day, an additional 11,000 are infected.
Would it be acceptable to remove many, or any, of these individuals from their environment, house and feed them, provide them with antibiotics, some health care, and protect them against external threats? This would have to be done in an economically efficient way, therefore, these individuals would have to be used instrumentally - perhaps some would be used for their labor, others for their bodies (e.g., toxicity testing). However, their lives would undeniably be more satisfying than their natural condition: slow death from AIDS, and hunger, war, etc.
Imagine, we could remove those 11,000 soon-to-be infected Africans from their homes thereby preventing their infection, provide them with a safe, albeit unnatural, home and life. Yes, these 11,000 individuals would have to be exploited, often at the expense of their health and lives; however, their other option is one of abject misery. Maybe a child grows to the age of 18 in good health until she becomes an unconsenting organ donor. But that's better than contracting the virus from her mother at birth, and dieing at the age of 5 from malnutrition, the absence of medical care, and everything else that accompanies AIDS in Africa.
Would you agree to support this situation? If not, why is this argument employed to justify our exploitation of nonhumans? Why is it argued that "they would most likely suffer and die in the wild anyways," when attempting to justify enslaving a pack of wolves in a zoo or hunting deer, when this argument wouldn't ever be thought to justify removing the starving infant population from a southeastern Asian country and providing each child with food (while exploiting them to our advantage)?
If we are to assume that we truly benefit nonhumans by removing them from "nature" thereby justifying our exploitation of them, why ought we not do the same to mitigate the plight of humans who similarly suffer and die because of "nature." If this assumption is valid, which would suggest that it is likely moral or "right," then it's reasonable to believe that we have an obligation to do the same for humans - afer all, it's the moral thing to do. So much so that this assumption is often used to justify the exploitation of over 9 billion nonhumans annually in the U.S. alone.
Will be crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox
