CEHV's Aaron Yarmel Publishes Editorial: "Animal Exploitation Viewed Through the Extraterrestrial Mirror"
CEHV Associate Director, Dr. Aaron Yarmel, recently published an editorial in the Columbus Free Press: Animal Exploitation Viewed Through the Extraterrestrial Mirror.
In his piece, Aaron uses the possible existence of spacefaring extraterrestrials to re-examine our current justifications for animal exploitation on Earth. He first invites us to imagine that advanced extraterrestrial organisms exist and are seeking to use us for food, clothing, scientific research, and entertainment. He then asks us to consider how we would react to claims, by such extraterrestrials, that using us in such ways is their personal choice, is justified due to its great cultural significance for them, or is permissible due to the vast differences between their unimaginably sophisticated cognitive abilities and our own.
"Re-examine, one by one, the justifications for our various practices of animal exploitation by imagining how they would strike us if uttered by advanced extraterrestrials. When these justifications strike us as repugnant, we must, on pain of hypocrisy, search for new justifications or transform, replace, or abandon the practices that they had previously propped up."
