I found the logic curious because of the way it implicitly cleaves humans from other life. We’re just one life form on a planet that’s bursting with them. In my view, there is nothing that distinguishes us from any mole or fish or bacterium. Pathogens are here and they serve a role.
Swatting one insect is quite different from consciously eliminating an entire species. I don’t know whether that’s morally different, but it does feel like a chasm of difference to me. (The cow must occasionally kill flies with its tail, which feels roughly equivalent to me.)
My gut reaction is no, I would not. Though that may mostly be related to the sheer impossibility of proving that there would be not a single negative ecological effect. How would one even measure such a thing? Life goes on, either way. How would we define a “negative” effect?
On the other hand, I can pivot to the Carlinesque view that the planet will be fine, it’s us who are screwed.
Is there a reason we can’t target the reproductive cycle of the Plasmodium microorganisms that actually cause the disease instead of the mosquito species that carries it?
Lots of critters eat those mosquitoes but I don’t think many would miss the Plasmodium.
What I’m trying to get at is a separation of the question of the unintended consequences and the wisdom/morality of the act apart from that consideration.
Well, we may be approaching this from fundamentally different views of the world, as I happen to believe that there is quite a bit that separates a human being from a plasmodium parasite.
You mean are there other arguments against driving species to extinction? Of course, for one thing, it’s not vegan. But they’re academic in comparison unintended consequences which effect everyone regardless of their personal moral value system.
But I’m not trying to play hide the ball here–I fully agree that there are a host of unintended consequences that should be considered, but I also think that wiping out a pathogen like plasmodium or the mosquito species that carries it, that cause untold misery and suffering for millions of people, is pretty much ok. I recognize that this view requires placing a greater value on human life than those of other species, but I’m pretty much ok with that as well.
Per Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminati Papers 8 Circuit Model Winner and Loser Scripts:
VII. The neurogenetic winner:
“Future evolution depends on my decisions now.”
We can consciously participate in evolution; I am pretty amoral about the whole thing, but if anything we do is considered “Good”, it would be easing the misery of millions by killing off a pathogen species.
That’s the logical conclusion of applying utilitarian ethics to your personal value set. I tend to agree. But the universe has no intrinsic value-set, so others may not share mine or yours.
Just that a strict ethical vegan is going to have different priorities. Here’s an example to elucidate what I’m getting at. Would it be ethical to wipe out a species to save one human? A thousand? A hundred thousand? Where we place the boundary is a function of our personal values.
But our exposure to unintended consequences is not, so that’s first a pragmatic consideration and only second a deontological one.
My own moral framework is a balance between deontology, pragmatism and consequentialism.
And I would too, except I’m uncertain as to whether it’s worth risking the unintended consequences. And realistically, I need to learn a lot more about ecology to collapse that uncertainty into certainty.
But better believe I want the little fuckers gone.
I care about potential unintended consequences for other species and the ecosystem as a whole, but that’s as far as my moral queasiness about this goes. Otherwise, my main concern about this method of eliminating mosquitoes is that it apparently doesn’t involve tormenting them with a high-pitched whining noise and numerous itchy welts first.
I looked at this page and gave up. Ethics and unintended consequences aside, it certainly does seem easier to just wipe out the mosquitoes. Or possibly remove the liver from every human on the planet…
