ABSTRACT
Many people believe the following two claims about nature: (a) that wild animals generally live good lives, and (b) that naturalness is a valuable property. As popular as these claims are, though, they suffer from a number of significant difficulties. In response to claim (a), I argue that only a proportionally small number of wild animals live good lives. Many wild animal species, specifically r-strategists, protect their genes by producing large numbers of uncared-for offspring, and as a result, the majority of sentient wild animal individuals die painfully and prematurely. With respect to claim (b), I argue, with some help from John Stuart Mill, that naturalness is not a sufficient condition for goodness, nor a source of intrinsic value. Though it does possess extrinsic value, that value comes specifically from our epistemic limitations and thus, it fades as soon as we acquire enough knowledge to identify and successfully implement desirable interventions.
