How should ethical vegans think about insects

Many vegans, perhaps most, eschew honey and silk on the grounds of cruelty to the bees and silkworms. On the other hand, some non-vegans are suggesting that insects such as grasshoppers could be a significant food source in the future (link via @JaymiHeimbuch) [Of course, to vegans it goes without saying that becoming a vegan would be the most dramatic step toward "food security". But we must be prepared to confront arguments rationally and scientifically without resorting to vague, ambiguous claims.]


I think most of us subscribe to the somewhat vague notion that "animals suffer" and that we should try to lessen this suffering as much as possible. But when I've asked folks how far down the tree of life we should extend this principle, things get a little fuzzy. The honey/silk situation says that many people regard insects as being capable of suffering. But is this true?

First a few, uncontroversial facts. According to the most recent phylogenetic classification (Wikipedia), the 6 Kingdoms of life are: bacteria, protozoa, chromista, plantae, fungi, animalia. The chromista include certain algae. So, I submit by the process of elimination that insects are certainly animals.

Next the question is more controversial: are all animals capable of suffering? Again, the word suffer has many meanings, e.g., He suffered a heart attack. But for purposes of discussion I use the following from the MW on-line dictionary: to endure death, pain, or distress. This is what we're talking about. Let's exclude death for the moment since it's possible to imagine a death that occurs so rapidly that no consciousness or stress are involved.

So we've reduced the problem of whether all animals can suffer to whether they can feel pain or distress. Here I believe distress and pain should be regarded as interchangeable. A tomato plant can be distressed by lack of water. The distress we're talking about is more at the level of pain, whether psychological or physical.

Here is the definition of pain given by the authors of Fetal Pain: A Systematic Multidisciplinary Review of the Evidence. These authors are prestigious medical doctors some of whom were responsible for the development of anaesthesia for fetal surgery. "Pain is a subjective sensory and emotional experience that requires the presence of consciousness to permit recognition of a stimulus as unpleasant. Although pain is commonly associated with physical noxious stimuli, such as when one suffers a wound, pain is fundamentally a psychological construct that may exist even in the absence of physical stimuli, as seen in phantom limb pain. The psychological nature of pain also distinguishes it from nociception, which involves physical activation of nociceptive pathways without the subjective emotional experience of pain. For example, nociception without pain exists below the level of a spinal cord lesion, where reflex withdrawal from a noxious stimulus occurs without conscious perception of pain"

In the particular case of fetal pain, the authors conclude that there is no evidence for fetal pain before the third trimester. In any case, to say that an animal feels pain is to "associate a psychological construct that may exist even in the absence of physical stimuli." Despite our limited ability to communicate, it is completely implausible to suggest that the more evolutionarily adapted animals (primates for example) are not conscious and therefore cannot feel pain.

At the other extreme, is there any evidence that insects are conscious? If you google the question you'll find many approaches to answering it essentially all of which conclude that there is no way of knowing. For instance in the Discover Magazine article Consciousness in a cockroach by Douglas Fox, a number of leading edge neuro-scientists are interviewed: "We have literally no idea at what level of brain complexity consciousness stops," says Christof Koch, another Caltech neuroscientist. "Most people say, 'For heaven's sake, a bug isn't conscious.' But how do we know? We're not sure anymore. I don't kill bugs needlessly anymore."  Elsewhere in the article experiments are described that show an amazing interconnectedness between a mouse's brain and a fly's, which is minute in comparison.

So, the upshot of current research is that it's possible that insects as primative as fruitflies are sufficiently developed neurologically that they have what we would call consciousness.

Going back to the original vegan vs insect examples: boiling the cocoons of Bombyx Mori is questionable since I don't know the stage of neural development of the silkworm. But I assume it's pretty well developed in order to get the largest cocoon. So, off limits. Harvesting honey is different since it doesn't directly involve killing the bees, but it is a form of exploitation since it results in removing the bees' food (honey and polen) and the eggs, larvae and pupae. To me this is less obviously unethical, but we can't know what distress it causes the bees. So, off limits.

But as a practical matter I would point out that every time you take a plane, bus, train, car, or even a bicycle, insects will almost certainly be killed. Riding a bike in Colorado during the dry summer will result in a veritable hecatomb of grasshoppers.  Unless you walk with a broom before you sweeping away creatures from your path you are killing insects (and therefore potentially conscious beings) routinely. If I catch a fly in the house in the winter and put it outside, I may feel like a sensitive fellow animal, but the fly will certainly die a short and possibly painful death in the cold air. My own compromise, for what it's worth: I don't worry about any harmless insect in my house.  I draw the line at Black Widow's, who could really cause some damage.  And when I ride.  I regret it sincerely every time I hear the crunch of a grasshopper under my wheel, but it doesn't keep me from riding.


In conclusion: the kingdom anamalia should be off-limits to human exploitation. All of it. If you want to worry about bacteria, protozoa, chromista, plantae or fungi, then let me hear your arguments (suicide not being one of them).