Project

A philosophical inquiry into insect industries.

Entomophagy, the eating of insects, is frequently proposed as a sustainable alternative to conventional animal protein. The mass rearing of insects has lower land and water requirements, and emits less greenhouse gasses, compared to traditional livestock. Therefore, the development of the insect industry is a potentially important component of the protein transition, and the transition of our food systems more generally; especially in view of the expected growth of the human population towards 9-10 billion by 2050 and thus a foreseeable increasing demand for high-quality protein (FAO, 2009).

At first sight, stimulating entomophagy sounds promising. On closer inspection, however, we can identify several philosophical questions, moral concerns, and practical obstacles, which potentially undermine the prospected merits of the insect industry. First, keeping billions of insects under intensive and industrial conditions raises questions about the ethical treatment of these animals, often framed in terms of sentience and welfare. Second, as Western consumers are unlikely to adopt insects as a part of their regular diet (Shelomi, 2015), parts of the sector now want to utilize insects as feed for poultry and pigs; and although this could still contribute to a circular agriculture by using agricultural sidestreams such as manure for rearing insects, indirect consumption could undermine the professed environmental benefits. Finally, following the virtue of temperance and compassion, there could be ethical reasons to prefer other (non-conscious) alternatives over insects (e.g. legumes, seaweed, cultured meat).

Aim
To provide philosophical reflections on and practical ethical analysis of the emerging insect industries.

Approach
This research takes a Wittgensteinian approach to philosophy and an Aristotelian approach to ethics. Philosophy, here, provides conceptual elucidation by means of logico-grammatical investigation, and criticizes ethical theories and scientific claims that transgress the bounds of sense. Specifically, it does so by illustrating the nonsensicality of the concept of sentience - which follows from the misconceived understanding of (animal) consciousness in modern psychology and neuroscience -, and, related thereto, the concept of moral status, both of which play a crucial role in contemporary animal ethics. Subsequently, it refutes and rejects the two dominant doctrines in animal ethics, utilitarianism and deontology. Instead, it takes an Aristotelian (or virtue ethical) approach to analyse the ethical aspects of the emerging insect industry, while simultaneously adopting Aristotle’s notion of the psyche (cf. Bennett & Hacker, 2022) to avoid the conceptual confusion surrounding (in this case, insect) sentience.

References

  1. FAO. (2009). High-Level Expert Forum: Global agriculture towards 2050.
  2. Shelomi, M. (2015). Why we still don't eat insects: Assessing entomophagy promotion through a diffusion of innovations framework. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 45(2), 311-318.
  3. Bennett, M. R., & Hacker, P. M. S. (2022). Philosophical foundations of neuroscience: John Wiley & Sons.