1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000 Hello. Hi. Hi. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. 2 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Hello. I'm Katrien Devolder. This is thinking out loud conversations with leading philosophers from around the world on topics that concern us all. 3 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:18,000 This is a special edition on ethical questions raised by the Corona pandemic. 4 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:25,080 In this video, I talk to philosopher Peter Singer about the causes of the pandemic and what ought to be done to prevent future pandemics. 5 00:00:25,080 --> 00:00:29,000 So so this time I wanted to talk about the causes of the pandemic, 6 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:36,330 so there are quite a bit of conspiracy theories out there about the origins of the Corona virus. 7 00:00:36,330 --> 00:00:45,570 Some believe it has been that the virus has been manufactured to boycott the Chinese economy or other things that comes from people eating bats. 8 00:00:45,570 --> 00:00:56,790 But where does it really come from? Well, the best evidence that we have is that it came from what are called wet markets in the city of Wuhan, 9 00:00:56,790 --> 00:01:01,000 where, of course, the virus was first found and became widespread. 10 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:08,700 A wet market is a market at which consumers go up and there are live animals there in the market. 11 00:01:08,700 --> 00:01:11,000 And then the consumers say, I want to buy that one. 12 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:17,430 And the animal is taken out of the cage and slaughtered on the spot and then handed over to the 13 00:01:17,430 --> 00:01:25,000 consumer and as well as there being these sort of wet markets for chickens and other domestic animals, 14 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:31,000 of which there are in a number of places. In Wuhan, there is also a wildlife wet market. 15 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:38,000 So there were wild animals that were on sale that are eaten in China, 16 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:44,490 particularly the pangolins or scaly anteaters, were there, they're considered a delicacy. 17 00:01:44,490 --> 00:01:50,000 And it's believed that the virus was transmitted to humans through feeding pangolins. 18 00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:56,340 You've argued in a recent article that a good thing to do would be to 19 00:01:56,340 --> 00:02:02,000 ban these wet markets to help prevent spread of similar viruses in the future, 20 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:11,370 is that correct? That's right. And let me acknowledge my co-author of this was written with Paola Cavaleri, an Italian thinker, 21 00:02:11,370 --> 00:02:17,000 about animals who with whom many years ago I coedited the book The Great Ape Project. 22 00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:26,160 So, yes, we wrote this column op ed, which we published in Project Syndicate who syndicated it to many different newspapers. 23 00:02:26,160 --> 00:02:29,730 So people have seen it in a number of different newspapers around the world. 24 00:02:29,730 --> 00:02:39,050 It is calling for a ban on wet markets in general as being particularly likely to spread viruses. 25 00:02:39,050 --> 00:02:42,000 That's obviously the case is strongest for wildlife wet markets. 26 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:53,730 And the Chinese authorities have, in fact, reacted to the corona virus by prohibiting wild animal markets, live wild animal markets. 27 00:02:53,730 --> 00:03:04,350 How well this will be enforced or is stuck with after the crisis is hard to say because there was a similar prohibition after the SARS epidemic, 28 00:03:04,350 --> 00:03:10,000 which is also believed to have come to humans from eating wild animals. 29 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:16,260 And that ban didn't last. I think very much longer after SARs was over. 30 00:03:16,260 --> 00:03:21,600 So that's part of the danger that there may be a ban that that doesn't stick. 31 00:03:21,600 --> 00:03:27,060 But we would like to see this taken up more broadly, not just left to individual governments, 32 00:03:27,060 --> 00:03:34,000 but for the World Health Organisation to get onto this and say this is a general danger to the world. 33 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:42,000 And to put whatever pressure they can on governments everywhere to prohibit these wet markets. 34 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:49,440 Some important cultural and economic values maybe may get lost when when these markets are banned. 35 00:03:49,440 --> 00:03:59,000 So how should we take these considerations into account? Well, I think that they are clearly outweighed here by the public health consequences. 36 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:04,410 And we don't respect everything that cultures do. 37 00:04:04,410 --> 00:04:13,000 Obviously, we've had campaigns against female genital mutilation, even though cultures may practise them. 38 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:20,000 And I think this is something too, whether the consequences for everyone in the world. 39 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:25,560 is so serious that even if it is part of people's culture to eat particular animals, 40 00:04:25,560 --> 00:04:34,590 and even if there are some people who make a living from capturing these animals or selling these animals, it's a it's a fairly small industry. 41 00:04:34,590 --> 00:04:41,430 And I think it's pretty clear that it is, as I say, decisively outweighed by the benefit to humans. 42 00:04:41,430 --> 00:04:46,320 And I should say, obviously, there's a great benefit to the animals themselves, to the wildlife, 43 00:04:46,320 --> 00:04:54,000 because these are horrible conditions in which the animals are captured and kept caged before finally being slaughtered. 44 00:04:54,000 --> 00:05:00,000 And obviously, they're not slaughtered in a way that uses any kind of stunning or anything of that sort. 45 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:06,230 Do you think banning wet markets is sufficient? I mean, what about factory farming, for example? 46 00:05:06,230 --> 00:05:10,330 I mean, does factory farming also contribute to the spread of infectious disease? 47 00:05:10,330 --> 00:05:12,310 Yes, undoubtably it does. 48 00:05:12,310 --> 00:05:22,210 That seems, as I said, not to have been the case with Corona virus, but it is an ever present risk of new viruses developing and forming pandemics. 49 00:05:22,210 --> 00:05:35,410 And in fact, that's clearly happened in the past. The swine flu epidemic of 2009 is believed to originated in an American factory farm. 50 00:05:35,410 --> 00:05:42,220 And the reason this happens is factory farms concentrate very large numbers of animals very close together. 51 00:05:42,220 --> 00:05:47,350 And the crowding and stress is likely to weaken their immune systems. 52 00:05:47,350 --> 00:05:58,390 So viruses can get hold and they can mutate very quickly and then they can emerge and be very dangerous to humans. 53 00:05:58,390 --> 00:06:09,760 People often don't realise how serious the swine flu epidemic was because it mostly wasn't Western people in contrast to corona virus, 54 00:06:09,760 --> 00:06:17,000 which is causing this enormous panic because it is affecting people in Europe and North America and here in Australia. 55 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:22,300 But so far, it's killed. I think what is it was 30,000 people. 56 00:06:22,300 --> 00:06:26,230 That's bad. But according to the Centre for Disease Control, 57 00:06:26,230 --> 00:06:35,680 the swine flu epidemic killed somewhere in the range of between 150 to five hundred and seventy five thousand people. 58 00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:40,000 So that's a good example of how dangerous factory farming is for human health. 59 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:51,700 If we think that a ban on wet markets is justified, even if that comes with a major economic costs, 60 00:06:51,700 --> 00:06:57,760 if we want to be consistent, should we also ban or severely restrict factory farms for the same reason? 61 00:06:57,760 --> 00:07:02,020 I think there's a very strong case for saying that we should. 62 00:07:02,020 --> 00:07:09,000 And that is partly due to the pandemics, partly due to the environmental damage that they do, 63 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:15,340 because by concentrating so many animals, they obviously also concentrate the manure and waste of those animals. 64 00:07:15,340 --> 00:07:20,260 So they cause pollution of rivers and streams in the area. 65 00:07:20,260 --> 00:07:29,860 Very often they cause air pollution for neighbours. They're also wasteful of overall food production because we end up feeding much more food value. 66 00:07:29,860 --> 00:07:33,000 Whether you talk about it in terms of calories or in terms of protein, 67 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:37,510 there's always more that goes into the animals than actually comes out of the animals. 68 00:07:37,510 --> 00:07:42,490 There are good reasons for saying that, yes, we should ban factory farming. 69 00:07:42,490 --> 00:07:46,000 Politically, that's going to be far more difficult, of course, than than banning wet markets, 70 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:50,980 which don't have anything like the clout of factory farming. 71 00:07:50,980 --> 00:07:57,040 But there is a public move away from it where in Europe there've been restrictions on it. 72 00:07:57,040 --> 00:08:04,070 There are a lot more people looking for organic and ecologically produced foods. 73 00:08:04,070 --> 00:08:12,070 And in the United States, whenever people have been given a chance to vote in states that have citizen initiated referenda, 74 00:08:12,070 --> 00:08:16,000 they voted against standard practises of factory farms, 75 00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:24,510 such as the degree of confinement of animals in those farms. Factory farms have these negative impacts on the world. 76 00:08:24,510 --> 00:08:31,000 And on the one hand, they have this immediate impact on animal welfare and maybe on humans through spread of infectious disease. 77 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:39,000 And then there is the slower negative impact that you mention on climate change. Is this slower impact, 78 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:46,360 I mean, should we give it as a different weight is this morally less relevant or how should we look at this? 79 00:08:46,360 --> 00:08:51,190 No, I think I'm sure that I think we should certainly be concerned about the future. 80 00:08:51,190 --> 00:08:54,280 I don't think we should discount it. 81 00:08:54,280 --> 00:09:01,740 But I suppose if you're really objecting to factory farms in terms of their climate impact, you would have to differentiate between different species. 82 00:09:01,740 --> 00:09:08,140 And in fact, it would be the big cattle production feedlots, which are very intensive, 83 00:09:08,140 --> 00:09:13,300 but confine animals less than, say, chickens or pigs are confined and die. 84 00:09:13,300 --> 00:09:19,690 They are the worst because the ruminant animals produce the most methane, which is a very potent greenhouse gas. 85 00:09:19,690 --> 00:09:28,450 And then pigs would be next and chicken would be after that. Whereas in the point of view of animal welfare, as well as some of the environmental, 86 00:09:28,450 --> 00:09:36,280 local environmental pollution and the production of pandemics, it's the pigs and chickens which are the worst. 87 00:09:36,280 --> 00:09:40,000 So, you know, it it goes in different ways. 88 00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:49,600 As I said, I think it can be very difficult to get some governments, the United States government, for example, to prohibit all factory farming. 89 00:09:49,600 --> 00:09:54,340 But I'm hopeful that the development of alternative products where the plant based 90 00:09:54,340 --> 00:10:00,000 meat like products or what's now being called cellular agriculture growing. 91 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:04,520 meat at the cellular level, cultured meat as it's sometimes also called. 92 00:10:04,520 --> 00:10:13,000 If that can produce products that are very similar to the products or factory farms and are economically competitive. 93 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:21,000 That might be in the longer run, a way of stopping this threat to human health and to animal welfare. In general 94 00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:28,000 the source of the epidemic, the pandemic sorry, has received relatively little attention. 95 00:10:28,000 --> 00:10:38,000 Do you have any idea why that is? I mean, suppose that it was actually a person killing all the people that have so far died from the COVID-19 96 00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:43,910 epidemic. I mean, people would be outraged and they would want to do something about it. 97 00:10:43,910 --> 00:10:49,610 But now, I mean, people don't seem all that interested in looking at the source of the problem. 98 00:10:49,610 --> 00:10:55,000 Yeah, you're quite right. They're not. And that's because they're worried about controlling the pandemic. 99 00:10:55,000 --> 00:11:00,000 They're worried about themselves and their loved ones getting 100 00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:11,710 the disease and about hospitals being overwhelmed by it and whatever its origin is not going to prevent that happening. 101 00:11:11,710 --> 00:11:21,000 The way to prevent that happening is to stop it spreading. And that's what people are focussing on right now. 102 00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:29,000 I think that perhaps when that's over, when the immediate anxiety of "Is everyone going to get this, 103 00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:33,380 how many people are going to die from it" when that anxiety is over, 104 00:11:33,380 --> 00:11:42,530 then I hope the people will sit down and take a cool look at how did this happen in the first place and what can we do to. 105 00:11:42,530 --> 00:11:46,490 I would like to say make sure it never happens again. But I don't think that's possible. 106 00:11:46,490 --> 00:11:55,070 So realistic what I can say, people could say, what can we do to minimise the chances that this will ever happen again? 107 00:11:55,070 --> 00:11:59,820 And clearly, one of the things that will do that is to prohibit wet markets. 108 00:11:59,820 --> 00:12:09,440 And so do you think that actually this pandemic receives is receiving too much attention compared to other diseases that also have a major impact? 109 00:12:09,440 --> 00:12:14,180 So I'm thinking of tuberculosis or malaria or conditions caused by worms. 110 00:12:14,180 --> 00:12:21,000 I mean, can we use this pandemic to raise the profile of public health threats more generally? 111 00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:25,550 It would be good if we could. 112 00:12:25,550 --> 00:12:32,780 But again, what's happening is that we have a disease that is affecting affluent people and they're worried about it. 113 00:12:32,780 --> 00:12:45,320 They're panicking about it. And malaria, say tuberculosis, by and large, those are not threats to affluent people. 114 00:12:45,320 --> 00:12:49,880 So it's not going to be easy to raise their profile. 115 00:12:49,880 --> 00:12:55,850 It was exactly the same with Ebola when Ebola was confined to Africa. 116 00:12:55,850 --> 00:13:03,410 There was very little attention paid to it once a couple of cases got to the United States or Europe. 117 00:13:03,410 --> 00:13:10,000 Then suddenly it was all in the headlines and a lot of research went into finding treatments and finding a vaccine for it. 118 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:15,980 So I think we do need to keep making that comparison. 119 00:13:15,980 --> 00:13:26,930 We do need to say, look, you know, far more people are dying because of malaria and TB and other preventable conditions in low income countries. 120 00:13:26,930 --> 00:13:32,060 And if we're putting so much effort into trying to save lives in our country 121 00:13:32,060 --> 00:13:37,000 and causing very serious consequences in terms of the economy slowing down, 122 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:40,640 people becoming unemployed, 123 00:13:40,640 --> 00:13:48,140 eventually that will affect our capacity to develop new hospitals and to provide good health care services to everyone. 124 00:13:48,140 --> 00:13:58,760 So if we're ready to run those costs to save lives, then what about the fact that we can save lives so much more cheaply in low income countries? 125 00:13:58,760 --> 00:14:04,000 Are we really prepared to say that they don't count because they're not like us? 126 00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:13,040 Basically they're not, they're not white people. They're not affluent people, whatever it is that we used to say, to draw that line between us and them. 127 00:14:13,040 --> 00:14:17,000 Do you think that the world will be a different place when this pandemic is over? 128 00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:21,650 Or will we soon forget and just make the same mistakes all over again? 129 00:14:21,650 --> 00:14:26,000 I hope the world will be a different place. It certainly needs to be a different place. 130 00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:30,000 There are several things that we could have done better. 131 00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:34,800 Obviously, preparedness for pandemics is one thing. 132 00:14:34,800 --> 00:14:41,240 Apart from what we've been talking about, particularly in the United States now, it's very clear that they were not at all prepared. 133 00:14:41,240 --> 00:14:50,120 The New York Times has a story about how there was supposed to be there was a federal contract led to produce a reserve supply of ventilators. 134 00:14:50,120 --> 00:14:54,000 That was started 13 years ago, which never happened. Not a single ventilator was produced. 135 00:14:54,000 --> 00:14:59,000 So, you know, you would hope that people will investigate that and make sure that incompetence 136 00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:02,510 doesn't happen again. And, of course, as I say, 137 00:15:02,510 --> 00:15:09,860 you would hope that people search the origins for pandemics and try everything they can to minimise pandemics happening again, 138 00:15:09,860 --> 00:15:15,000 whether they originate from wildlife or from domesticated factory farmed animals. 139 00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:20,520 Thanks so much. That was very informative, as usual. 140 00:15:20,520 --> 00:15:41,320 Thank you. If you like this video, don't forget to subscribe to the practical ethics channel and the Thinking Out Loud Facebook page.