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Viewed from a distance, the natural world often presents a vista of sublime, majestic placidity. Yet beneath the foliage and hidden from the distant eye, a vast, unceasing slaughter rages. Wherever there is animal life, predators are stalking, chasing, capturing, killing, and devouring their prey. Agonized suffering and violent death are ubiquitous and continuous.

— Jeff McMahan

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Nature

More quotes by Jeff McMahan

[T]he claim that suffering is bad for those who experience it and thus ought in general to be prevented when possible cannot be seriously doubted.

The suffering that animals undergo while being caught and eaten may be intense and the process by which they are killed may last for a quarter of an hour or more. Because the number of predators worldwide is enormous, and because, like us, many of them must eat with considerable frequency, the aggregate amount of suffering in the world at any time that is caused by predation is unimaginably vast.

The Moral Problem of Predation (2014)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Jeff McMahan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.