the horrific views of Mr. Macaskill

 

There are very few passages in books that really horrify me. Some of De Sade's writing does, and certainly I am horrified by what is told about horrific mass murders, tortures, etc. But to be truly horrified by an argument is not my usual way of going about things.
 
So I was brought to a halt in a review of William Macaskill's book, What we owe to cryptocurrency fraudsters, oops, I mean, What we owe to the future. This is that odd philosophy book that had a million dollar publicity campaign behind it - just think how far Wittgenstein would have gotten with a million dollar publicity campaign! But I digress. Here is the passage I could not believe:

"It is very natural and intuitive to think of humans’ impact on wild animal life as a great moral loss. But if we assess the lives of wild animals as being worse than nothing on average, which I think is plausible (though uncertain), then we arrive at the dizzying conclusion that from the perspective of the wild animals themselves, the enormous growth and expansions of Homo sapiens has been a good thing."

It is as if Macaskill had casually  tossed out the idea that maybe the slave trade was a good thing, or the mass murder of Jews had its up side cause out of the concentration camp at Peenemunde came the rocket.

Is this a serious view? Apparently, Macaskill has written articles about how we should kill offlions because they are murderers. They prey on the other animals!

It makes me wonder how Oxford decided that this guy deserved to be the youngest full prof in the philosophy department. But what really gives me cause is that What we owe the future successfully flooded the media zone this summer, without, as far as I can see, anybody saying, you are an abhorrent man with abhorrent views. Or saying anything except, makes ya think, and "has the ear of Silicon Valley mega-minds!"