Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan
“In our earlier exchanges on ethical vegetarianism, Huemer was highly confident that insects are not conscious. This allowed him to dismiss the empirical premise on which my challenge rests. In their interview, however, Adelstein very effectively rebuts Huemer’s skepticism. The connection between neurons and consciousness is complex, so insisting ‘Bugs don’t have the right kind of brains to be conscious’ is silly. Furthermore, insects typically respond to pain like any other animal. While they may feel less chronic pain than higher animals, they still seem to intensely feel acute pain. … Adelstein surprised me (and, I think, Huemer as well) when he used ‘insects suffer horribly’ to craft a utilitarian argument for mass extermination of insects. But there’s a weird logic to it. In Adelstein’s eyes, bug suffering is so horrible that the typical bug would be better off dead.” (07/22/25)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/reflections-on-ethical-vegetarianism