0) Prelude - some life affirming poems and songs

When I was a child, I grew up on some very life affirming songs and poems. I'll show some examples:

The first song that comes to mind is Zdravica ("A toast") by a Serbian poet Duško Radović. It goes like this:

 A toast

Everything that grows would like to grow
 let it grow, indeed it should grow!
 Everything that blooms would like to bloom,
 Let it bloom, indeed it should bloom!

Let everything that has eyes see,
Let each wing fly high in the sky!
To fly, to fly, it's beautiful to fly!
To live, to live, it's beautiful to live!

Everything that flies would like to fly,
let it fly, indeed it should fly!
Everything that sings, would like to sing
Let it sing, indeed it should sing!

Let everything that has a leg jump
Let everyone who can run!
To jump, to jump, it's beautiful to jump
To live, to live, it's beautiful to live

Everything that runs would love to run
Let it run, indeed it should run
Everything that pecks would love to peck
Let it peck, indeed it should peck

Let everyone who has a voice sing
no one in a more beautiful, joyful manner than us
To sing, to sing, it's beautiful to sing
To live, to live, it' beautiful to live.

Now for negative utilitarians or anyone concerned about animal welfare (both of farm and wild animals), this song is terribly naive and misguided. I agree, but I can't deny powerful life-affirming message of the song, and I also believe, on some level, it's true. At least for the poet himself, it's subjectively true - they have no reason to lie. Even if it's not materially true in all senses in our world, it still functions as a powerful vision, of how beautiful life might be.

But I'll not stop here. There are more songs with pretty much the same message (Don't worry, later in this article, I'll discuss all this in a more cold-headed, rational way. For now I just want to show some more examples, of poems and songs that strongly affirm life, even when it's full of adversity)

Here's another poem by a Serbian poet Jovan Jovanović Zmaj. It's worth noting that his life was full of personal tragedy: his children and his wife all died.

In spite of this, at some point he wrote a poem that goes like this:

How beautiful is this world

Oh how beautiful

Is this world

Here's a brook

There's a flower

Over there a field

Here a fruit grove

Behold the Sun,

Here's a shade.

Over there Danube

full of gold

There's grass

Here a bush

 Nightingale sings

I don't know where

Here's my heart

You are there.

Here's another toast by Serbian poet Ljubivoje Ršumović. It goes like this:

A toast to Serbian people

People, let this toast 
serve instead of a blessing to you

Whatever you do, may your children be born!

And when you sing, and when you dream
And when you resist the suffering
May your children be born!

And when you go to war, and when you suffer
And when you revenge
May your children be born!

He's not rich who has cattle,
but daughters and sons
He's not mighty who has rifles,
but cradles!

Let love overcome
So there's no crying
Except children's

And when you study, and when you suffer
And when you uncover a holy secret
May you children be born

Let the mighty quarrel among themselves,
let the week negotiate
But to you, may your children be born!

And when you love
And when you grow tough
And when you lose your head from your shoulders
May your children be born

And God will give so that we have enough oats
and wheat ready for harvest
so that there's enough both for horses and for ourselves.

And when you celebrate your saint
And when you build a school
And when you're amazed by wonders
May your children be born
Oh, Serbian people!

Here's another life affirming poem by Branko Radičević who wrote it when he thought he would die (he indeed died young of tuberculosis)

When I thought I would die

Leaves are already becoming yellow on trees,

Yellow leaves are already falling there

I'll never ever see green ones anymore!

My head is sickly, my face darkened

Illness has turned my eyes inside

My arm is injured, my body exhausted

and my weak knee is trembling!

The time has arrived for me to go to grave.

Goodbye life, my wonderful dream,

Goodbye dawn, goodbye white day!

Goodbye world, my former paradise!

Now I have to go to a different place!

If only I hadn't loved you so much

I would still watch your bright Sun,

I would listen to thunder, I would listen to storms

I would be amazed by your nightingale

by your river and your spring

the whirlpool of my life is at its confluence!

Oh my poems, you poor orphans

My children of my young years!

I wanted to bring down the rainbow from the skies

I wanted to dress you all with the colorful rainbow

To decorate you with shiny stars

To illuminate you with sunshine

There was a rainbow, and now there's no more

There were the stars, and now there are no more

And the Sun that always warmed me 

Even the Sun, has fallen from the sky!

Everything that I was preparing for you has gone!

Your father leaves you in rags.

Finally here's a famous song from American culture.

What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom, for me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

I see skies of blue, and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces, of people going by
I see friends shaking hands, sayin', "How do you do?"
They're really sayin', "I love you"

I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow
They'll learn much more, than I'll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

Yes, I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Oh yeah

1) Introduction

So what should we make of all this? The songs and poems are there to set the mood, and I will refer to them in my discussion. I will try to defend the following points:

1. There might be a strong positive value in living and in life itself, regardless of its hedonic tone.
2. People seem to be willing to accept nontrivial amounts of suffering, if this is the cost that they need to pay for experiencing the world, life, and positive experiences even when they are fleeting.
3. Pleasure is not the only value people care about. They might care more about meaning, and meaning can lead to more contentment and fulfillment even if it takes some suffering to get there.
4. It might be risky or unwise to jump to conclusions about net-negative lives of any kind of entities, such as farm animals, or wild animals. Even if their lives are slightly net negative from the perspective of hedonic calculus, they might still be worth living.
5. Interfering with natural order of things could be unwise

Finally my intention is NOT to persuade you that you're wrong and that my perspective is correct. My perspective might well be wrong, naive and misguided, and adopting it might lead to complacency in the face of widespread suffering in the world. My intention is simply to make this perspective present and discussed, debated and criticized, and perhaps defended if it has some merits. My intention is to make this perspective taken into consideration, and rejected only if we have robust ways to reject it.

My personal position is somewhere in the middle. I personally don't fully embrace this, perhaps naive, life affirming stance that I will present in this article, but I also can't fully accept certain type of thinking that casually deem certain lives net-negative and therefore potentially suitable for being eliminated.

For example, I can't logically refute Brian Tomasik's idea of turning our lawns into gravel, in order to prevent the existence of millions of net negative insect lives. If all those insects mostly suffer, then it's logically correct conclusion that it would be better for them if they never lived in the first place, so gravel yards are better than grass lawns. But this way of thinking makes me incredibly uncomfortable on many levels, and I take this discomfort seriously, I don't refute it as just "irrational emotions" getting in way of rational reasoning. I think those emotions are trying to tell me something, and shouldn't be dismissed - at least we should try to listen to what they are trying to tell us. And only after we've understood and fully considered their message, we might reject them, if we find Tomasik's arguments more persuasive, even after such deep dialogue with what our emotions are trying to tell us.

2) A strong positive value in living and in life itself

There might be a strong positive value in living and in life itself, regardless of its hedonic tone. Where's the evidence for it?

Well, if we start with the poems that I copied, we can notice that poets intuitively felt that all the living creatures have this drive to live. They want to live. And the poet says, they also should live. ("Everything that grows would like to grow / let it grow, indeed it should grow!"). They don't have a logical proof for it, they simply intuitively feel it. If we observe animals in the wild, indeed they are always striving to survive no matter what.

And people are no different. Most of the people, even with disabilities or serious diseases choose to live and strive to prolong their own life as much as possible.

Yes, euthanasia is a thing, but most of the people choose to live as long as they can. Even if it means low quality of life, disability, or ongoing pain. They accept medicines that would prolong their life, even if it means, observed from the outside, just more years of suffering.

In fact, by simple hedonic calculus, many of their lives might be net negative. They might experience more suffering than pleasure on day-to-day basis, but they still choose to live. Why? Because, it could be that life itself is intrinsically valuable to those people, and they prefer a life filled with suffering, as long as it's tolerable, to death.

Of course, I'm speaking here of tolerable levels of suffering. When suffering becomes intolerable, probably everyone would prefer death.

But I'm arguing that most of the people would prefer mildly hedonically net negative life to death or to not living at all.

What if simply being alive is extraordinarily valuable?

Maybe value of being alive, having consciousness and being able to experience the world is more profoundly valuable than hedonic tone of those experiences?

What would poets says of this? I've noticed that many of them payed a lot of attention to aesthetics and beauty. This is a category that is often undervalued or disregarded by utilitarians. A hedonic utilitarian would probably say that experiencing an orgasm or eating some delicious chocolate is more valuable then experiencing a breathtaking view of the nature, or listening to Beethoven's symphony, or watching a sunset, or stargazing in the night. But poets,  and many people would disagree. We forget most of our orgasms even if they were very intense, but we remember breathtaking views from the top of the mountain, and we remember some fantastic movies we watched and novels we read. But objectively speaking, we probably experienced more pleasure during orgasm than during stargazing or taking in the view from the top of the mountain.

This aesthetic pleasure is closely tied to being alive. Only a living person can watch stars, be amazed by nature and its wonders, etc. This is a value that poets recognize:

If only I hadn't loved you so much

I would still watch your bright Sun,

I would listen to thunder, I would listen to storms

I would be amazed by your nightingale

by your river and your spring

the whirlpool of my life is at its confluence!

Or as Louise Armstrong puts it:

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom, for me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

I see skies of blue, and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

So if we accept simply being alive and able to experience the world and its wonders as a very important value in itself, a hedonically net-negative life could turn out to be positive, when this value of life itself is added to the equation.

Now some might be saying, we cling to life because we're evolutionary programmed to cling to life. As a Christian I have reasons to doubt some aspects of evolution, but that's not a topic now. What I can say is, even if it's true - so what.

The possibility of some preferences being shaped by evolution, doesn't undermine the validity of such preferences.

We could use this same logic to dismiss anything else we do or find valuable.

Our preferences stand by themselves regardless of how they came into being. In the same way, our thoughts and ideas should be judged based on their truth and how much sense they make, and not on what factors influenced them.

Preferences are entities that don't need justification, they exist of themselves and for themselves. We can just respect them or disregard them, but we can't invalidate them based on how they came to be.

And the preference of most people and animals is to live and to stay alive, even if their life isn't very hedonically positive (i.e. pleasurable).

3) People accept some suffering if this is the price to pay for life and positive experiences

People  seem to be willing to accept nontrivial amounts of suffering, if this is the cost that they need to pay for experiencing the world, life, and positive experiences even when they are fleeting.

This seems like restating of the previous point, but there is more to it. I'll focus exclusively on people now. Here are examples of people accepting a lot of suffering in order to obtain rewards that are probably not as hedonically positive as the suffering needed to obtain them was negative.

1. Having a full time job - we accept to work full time, and this takes a lot of effort, concentration, causes a lot of stress, and might be slightly net negative hedonically. Sometimes it can be more than slightly net negative - in case of some physically demanding or very stressful jobs. We are willing to accept such a deal, even if the reward might not be hedonically pleasurable enough to offset its negativity completely. People get just evenings and weekends to enjoy their hard earned money. Even in evenings they sometimes have to reply to work emails. But people accept it and most don't complain. Perhaps we would be hedonically better off if we chose part time jobs instead? We would get twice as little suffering, and twice as much free time. And lower income probably wouldn't compromise the quality of products we consume so much to make us worse off. But most of the people choose full time jobs, for reasons that often don't have much to do with hedonism. Sometimes we want to support a family, have kids, or make donations, and this requires more money. Sometimes we just want more status and social standing. This all requires more work (therefore more effort, more suffering), and in return, we often don't get as much hedonic utility.
2. Many people, even if they aren't professional athletes, decide to run a marathon. Running a marathon requires a lot of effort, and let's be honest, suffering. For people who aren't accustomed to this level of intensity of exercise it might even be harmful for their health. It seems like a bad deal, a lot of suffering, risking health, for a very small reward. At least if we talk about hedonic utilitarianism. But for many people this is incredibly valuable and meaningful experience, a personal victory, a  proof of their persistence and ability, etc... And for many people it's worth each drop of the sweat they shed - even if they don't get any reward money, or pleasure.

So this is another argument that questions the narrative of "hedonically net negative = not worth living".

4) Pleasure is not the only value people care about. Meaning matters too.

This has been already mentioned in the previous example of amateur marathon runners. But let's expand it. Marathon running might seem like an exception, but I would argue it perfectly fits in a general pattern of not optimizing for hedonic pleasure in life. There are some people who are big hedonists and who do exactly that, but most of us don't. Instead we seek to make a life that would be meaningful for us, and if we live up to our values, then we feel some sense of serenity and contentment. And this serenity is often more valuable to people than any physical pleasure they might feel.

5) We should be cautious when talking of net negative lives

So the previous points show that amount of pleasure and suffering probably isn't the only thing that matters in life, and that most people would prefer slightly net negative, but bearable and meaningful lives, over death or not having lived at all.

Life itself might be one of the greatest values, and this is a revealed preference of most of the living entities. Preference itself is valid regardless of its origin. So appealing to evolution can't really dismiss the preference.

Or as the poet would say:

Everything that flies / runs / jumps / grows / lives would like to fly / run / jump / grow / live,
let it fly / run / jump / grow / live, indeed it should fly / run / jump / grow / live! 

So I think it might be risky or unwise to jump to conclusions about net-negative lives of any kind of entities, such as farm animals, or wild animals or even some people (like those with Down syndrome - in fact they might have more positive lives than most of us due to being more worry free).

Even if their lives are slightly net negative from the perspective of hedonic calculus, they might still very well be worth living. And if asked, if they could decide, most of those creatures would choose life over death, even if it's slightly net negative. This is their revealed preference that we can observe any day by simply interacting with living creatures in this world.

If we take this argument seriously what could it mean in practical terms:

1. Efforts to improve lives of farm animals should perhaps be more appreciative of "logic of the larder" and focus more on actually IMPROVING lives of farm animals rather then focusing on just reducing meat consumption and striving to eventually turn people into vegans and phase out meat production entirely.

I'm very conflicted about it. On one hand I feel that lives of most farm animals suck, but on the other hand, I truly appreciate the enormous value of even getting a chance to live in this world and experience it, even if briefly. Farm animals still get to taste food, to drink water, to experience certain aesthetic pleasures, etc. Most of them do suffer a lot and have rather boring and not very stimulating lives, but it's not fully clear where should we go from there? Maybe their life is still worth living because the suffering they experience is not so great to overcome the huge value they get from simply getting to live.

Maybe slight reduction of farm animal numbers combined with substantial improvements in their quality of life would be a more life-affirming  (and perhaps wiser) course of action rather then insisting on minimizing farming, or striving to eliminate it entirely.

2. Efforts to improve lives of wild animals perhaps should be very cautious of the temptation to "help" them, by reducing their numbers

If our goal is to simply reduce suffering, there are some very easy, and for some "tempting" ways to go about it. Like annihilate wildlife entirely. No animals - no suffering. Problem solved.

This often seems like a caricature and strawman argument but isn't Tomasik's argument for converting  grass lawns into gravel a movement exactly in this direction? Aren't the arguments that redeem moral value of humans from the fact that we might be reducing suffering by eliminating wild habitats and by causing many insects who would otherwise live, not to live, exactly in that vein?

So by all means, we should strive to help wild animals and reduce their suffering, if it is possible, but I'm not at all sure if destruction of habitats and reduction of wild animal numbers is the correct method.

After all, even now, even in their natural, unimproved condition, the lives of wild animal might very well be worth living, even if they are hedonically net negative. We don't know if they are hedonically net negative or not. But even if they are, they might still be worth living, for the reasons I discussed here.

6) Interfering with natural order of things could be unwise

Theistic belief is a very popular worldview among people. Wild animals, in this worldview are a part of creation and have their place in natural order of things.

Even from some non-theistic perspectives, we could argue that animal species might be important part of the global order of things, and therefore it's not our place to declare their lives net negative or to strive to eliminate them from existence. Each of them has its role in the ecosystem.

Nick Bostrom mentioned "cosmic host" as some hypothetical alliance of civilizations and entities that care about global order and rule at the highest level. Even such "cosmic host", might care about the existence of wildlife and not support its destruction. Or not. I'm just speculating.

But deeming lives of animals that naturally existed for billions of years "net negative" and therefore potentially suitable for elimination seems to involve a lot of hubris.

Who are we to judge if their lives are worth living or not?

What if someone more powerful than we are made the same judgement about us?

My personal stance is the following:

Most of the lives are net positive, even hedonically. This includes lives of people, farm animals (they might be an exception), and wild animals. But there is A LOT of room for improvement. We should try to improve lives of all animals, but probably not by eliminating them or their habitats from existence. Even if their lives are somewhat net negative hedonically, they might still be very well worth living, due to enormous value of life itself, regardless of its hedonic tone.

That being said reducing suffering, especially extreme, unbearable suffering should be our no. 1 moral priority. There's nothing worse than extreme suffering, and this should, indeed be reduced and eliminated by all means.

But most suffering is not in that category.

My intuition about the value of life is that its value depends a lot on whether it includes positive experiences at all. If it doesn't, it might not be worth living, even if the suffering is just mild. But if it does, a single, small positive experience can offset and neutralize a lot of suffering. A person who lived in poor conditions and had to work hard their whole life, might still consider their life very meaningful and worth living, if they experienced just once or twice some peak experiences, like a breathtaking view from the top of a mountain, or seeing their child being born, or some other experiences like that.

Another important thing that I want to add is that focus on reducing suffering could disregard the interests of those who suffer. If your goal is just to reduce suffering, you can do it easily by eliminating those who suffer. But this is probably not what they would choose for themselves. And by treating them like that, we're treating them as means towards the end (of reducing suffering), rather then as ends in themselves. And also this disregards value their life might have (hedonic and non hedonic value), in spite of all the suffering.

7) Conclusion

Brian Tomasik and all the negative utilitarians are probably smarter then me and have thought more deeply about all of these topics. My intention is not to persuade you that they are wrong and that I'm right. Instead, my intention is to try to preserve a bit of common sense that is sometimes eluding us, to engage in conversation with my emotions that protest against turning lawns into gravel, to engage in conversation with those poets and their worldviews, and to try to elucidate certain blind spots that people in EA circles might have when it comes to this.

I fully support animal charities, both farm animal charities and wild animal charities.

Even though I generally lean towards human charities, I decided to make a donation to an animal charity this time. This is to show, as actions count more than words, that I'm on the same side, and that I fully support reducing suffering and caring about animals, both wild and farm animals. So I donated to Recommended Charity Fund on the website https://animalcharityevaluators.org/ 

I just needed to outline certain reservations that I have and some things that I perceive as potential blindspots in EA mindset.

Consider my theses as unproven, as a contribution to discussion, and if you see something valuable in what I said feel free to take it while discarding everything else. I think this needed to be said, and included in discussion, even if perspectives that focus more intently on reducing suffering might hold more water?

What holds more water? I don't know. I don't identify what what I said, nor do I endorse it. I just feel it to a large extent - it's a gut feeling, which I tried to articulate the best that I could. It might be worth something, or it might not.

P.S. this article is also available on my blog

https://jovex.substack.com/p/can-we-regain-innocence-and-common