Please find other links for Matti Häyry below:

YouTube

X

Matti was also kind enough to send us his response to some additional questions we could not get to during the speaker session:

Do you think we also should prevent wild animals from reproduction? Wouldn't mere human extinction be a moral tragedy, given that sentient life would continue to suffer until the death of the Earth?

From the negative utilitarian point, yes, it would be a moral tragedy of sorts. Even from the negative utilitarian angle, however, the question of feasibility would have to be considered. Do we have the proper means to stop wild animals (which ones?) from reproducing and at what cost (in suffering) to them and with what certainty? I put my head in the sand with this one, if not forced at gunpoint to give an answer.

There is a debate between vegan activists on welfarist and abolitionist efforts, with some arguing that welfarist means should never be used to achieve abolitionist ends. Would it be appropriate to use soft antinatalist/selective pronatalist efforts to achieve hard antinatalist/extinctionist ends (e.g. non-human animals going extinct)?

I am not sure that I understand the question. But a dream that I wrote down in the morning of 14 July 2022 may have some relevance as an expression of my somewhat doubtful attitude. Here:

Saviours – an idea for a TV series

In the post-human world, the Visitors faced an issue. Humankind had been removed by the Big Pulse to make the lives of animals better, but now many of them were trapped in their former keepers’ homes. Something needed to be done. Like Fred from Operations put it: “Something needs to be done.” She then added: “Something really needs to be done.” So, the Saviours squad was established, with Fred in charge. Initially, the remit was simple: go into houses and liberate animals. Then, however, problems began to accumulate. Not all animals could cope in the outside world. How far should Fred’s team go to help them? “Surely”, said the Mission Commander in the Executive Council meeting, “no one is suggesting a welfare state for animals?” It was too late, though. Ideas were brewing, and continue to brew and clash all through the series. The pilot episode starts when Fred gets a report of the last three remaining animals in post-human captivity.

Regarding your counterpoint to Transhumanism, how is manipulation bad if no one suffers from it?

“Suffering” has many meanings. I take it that transhumanism could, at the most, remove very simple physical pain.

A recent analysis by Crump and others has it that at least these criteria for sentience could be used in animal studies: