And at what point does an animal become simple enough that we don't need to care anymore?
I think we care should about animals/people in proportion to how much they're able to suffer, and to appreciate being alive. When the decision is a life or death one, that includes how much they will be able to appreciate being alive in the future (this is why I place a high value on the lives of human embryoes/foetuses).
With bacteria and yeast, all evidence we have suggests these abilities are at zero, or something very close to zero.
Animal suffering that isn't caused by human beings is, as you say, a massive can of worms. But part of Utilitarianism involves spending your time and money on the most cost effective interventions, and at the moment I can't think of any way of preventing non-human-caused animal suffering which is definitely more effective than all the ways we have of preventing human suffering and human-caused animal suffering.
If we were living in a Utopia where all humans lived blissfully happy lives where they didn't hurt animals at all, I could see there would be some thorny issues (perhaps we should prevent all carnivores from breeding until they die out, while managing the ecosystem to make sure that doesn't cause disaster? perhaps we should genetically modify them so they can live on plants?) but since that isn't ever likely to happen, I'm not too concerned about it (though it's vaguely interesting to think about).
no subject
I think we care should about animals/people in proportion to how much they're able to suffer, and to appreciate being alive. When the decision is a life or death one, that includes how much they will be able to appreciate being alive in the future (this is why I place a high value on the lives of human embryoes/foetuses).
With bacteria and yeast, all evidence we have suggests these abilities are at zero, or something very close to zero.
Animal suffering that isn't caused by human beings is, as you say, a massive can of worms. But part of Utilitarianism involves spending your time and money on the most cost effective interventions, and at the moment I can't think of any way of preventing non-human-caused animal suffering which is definitely more effective than all the ways we have of preventing human suffering and human-caused animal suffering.
If we were living in a Utopia where all humans lived blissfully happy lives where they didn't hurt animals at all, I could see there would be some thorny issues (perhaps we should prevent all carnivores from breeding until they die out, while managing the ecosystem to make sure that doesn't cause disaster? perhaps we should genetically modify them so they can live on plants?) but since that isn't ever likely to happen, I'm not too concerned about it (though it's vaguely interesting to think about).