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1 results

  • Chapter 4 - Perversity and Futility

  • Catia Faria, Complutense University of Madrid
  • Book:
    Animal Ethics in the Wild
    Published online:
    18 January 2023
    Print publication:
    22 December 2022, pp 88-103

  • Summary

    By elaborating on Albert O. Hirschman’s map of the rhetoric of reaction, which identifies the main theses of conservatism in its opposition to social change (perversity, futility, jeopardy), this chapter considers the first set of objections that might be put forward against intervention: perversity and futility. According to perversity objections, we should refrain from intervening because intervention will actually make things worse. According to futility objections, intervention should not be attempted because it is bound to fail, due to either structural or substantive limitations. It subjects these objections to Bostrom and Ord’s Reversal Test and identifies instances of status quo biases in them, providing us with additional reasons to reject them. It concludes that, at most, these objections suggest what the interventionist may easily concede: That intervention should be performed just in case it is informed and when the expected outcome is net positive for wild animals.