singer180_David WongSouth China Morning Post via Getty Images_chinawetmarketchickens

The Two Dark Sides of COVID-19

Mar 2, 2020 Peter Singer , Paola Cavalieri

Historically, tragedies such as the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic have sometimes led to important changes. The probable source of the new coronavirus – so-called wet markets, at which live animals are sold and slaughtered before customers' eyes – should be banned not only in China, but worldwide.

PRINCETON – The apocalyptic images of the locked-down Chinese city of Wuhan have reached us all. The world is holding its breath over the spread of the new coronavirus, COVID-19, and governments are taking or preparing drastic measures that will necessarily sacrifice individual rights and freedoms for the general good.

Some focus their anger on China’s initial lack of transparency about the outbreak. The philosopher Slavoj Žižek has spoken of “the racist paranoia” at work in the obsession with COVID-19 when there are many worse infectious diseases from which thousands die every day. Those prone to conspiracy theories believe that the virus is a biological weapon aimed at China’s economy. Few mention, let alone confront, the underlying cause of the epidemic.

Both the 2003 SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) epidemic and the current one can be traced to China’s “wet markets” – open-air markets where animals are bought live and then slaughtered on the spot for the customers. Until late December 2019, everyone affected by the virus had some link to Wuhan’s Huanan Market.

We hope you're enjoying Project Syndicate.

To continue reading, subscribe now.

Already have an account? Log in

Support High-Quality Commentary

For more than 25 years, Project Syndicate has been guided by a simple credo: All people deserve access to a broad range of views by the world's foremost leaders and thinkers on the issues, events, and forces shaping their lives. At a time of unprecedented uncertainty, that mission is more important than ever – and we remain committed to fulfilling it.

But there is no doubt that we, like so many other media organizations nowadays, are under growing strain. If you are in a position to support us, please subscribe now.

As a subscriber, you will enjoy unlimited access to our On Point suite of long reads and book reviews, Say More contributor interviews, The Year Ahead magazine, the full PS archive, and much more. You will also directly support our mission of delivering the highest-quality commentary on the world's most pressing issues to as wide an audience as possible.

By helping us to build a truly open world of ideas, every PS subscriber makes a real difference. Thank you.

Subscribe Now

Peter Singer

Writing for PS since 2001
186 Commentaries

Peter Singer is Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and founder of the non-profit organization The Life You Can Save. His books include Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, The Ethics of What We Eat (with Jim Mason), Rethinking Life and Death, The Point of View of the Universe, co-authored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, The Most Good You Can Do, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, One World Now, Ethics in the Real World, and Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction, also with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek. In 2013, he was named the world's third "most influential contemporary thinker" by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute.

Paola Cavalieri

Writing for PS since 2020
1 Commentary

Paola Cavalieri, an independent researcher based in Italy, is the author, most recently, of Philosophy and the Politics of Animal Liberation.

new comment has been posted. new comments have been posted.

0 Comments on this paragraph, 28 in all 28 Comments on this article

Catherine SHALEN Mar 25, 2020

A global ban on bioterrorist labs such as the Wuhan one would also be effective! In spite of all statements that point to the wet markets, I cannot stop thinking that the mutant viruses were developed in the Wuhan lab, and escaped from there. A more charitable conclusion is that Wuhan lab scientists were just studying mutant virus, that they did not develop it. I heard from someone with insider info, that coronavirus gene had been traced to the lab.8
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Jin Qian Mar 24, 2020

Not trying to justify the killing of sentient beings, but please take a look at this article and understand what wet markets mean to Chinese https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2020-03-11/coronavirus-china-wet-markets It's necessary to know that wet markets in China's major cities do not sell wild animals and are an important source for more diverse vegetable/fruit options in comparison with supermarkets.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Gonçalo Megre Mar 23, 2020

Obviously , there should be tighter controls on wet markets for public health safety reasons. How quick we are judging othes, while the USA his the biggest per capita polluter in the world and a danger to the rest of the world. While fast food is a public health issue in America. While salaries represent 30 to 45% of university costs in the states an no one talks about cutting the many times obscene professors salaries.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
P. Kamath Mar 20, 2020

The authors forgot to mention that some of the handsome wild (Or domesticated animals like animals like Golden retriever dogs ) are slaughtered by poachers using assault rifles like AK47s so that their private parts could be sold to Chinese customers ex: tigers from India and Asian countries, rhinos for their tusks, elephants etc. One of my friends was horrified when she was given menu in a high end restaurant , that would serve dish made of newly killed monkey brain. Imagine that!

This practise is rooted in culture and otter ignorance of govt. officials, I doubt it will disappear in my great great, great gand-childrens’ time,
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Piroska Nagy Mohacsi Mar 19, 2020

Excellent article, a real eye opener and something that is being overlooked in the current crisis management. Let’s start #BanWetMarkets
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
vivek iyer Mar 15, 2020

Either this is an economic problem- one relating to a negative externality with Knightian uncertainty such that a Hannan Consistent 'regret minimizing' strategy is advisable- or else it is- as Singer et al claim- an ethical, indeed meta-ethical, question whose solution involves the rigid 'Akrebia' of deontological rules of a universal type.

Singer, with Ozzie tough mindedness, does not pussy foot on this issue. His brand of 'preference utilitarianism' militates for activism of a type radically at odds with the 'positivist' Benthamite tradition. In other words, far from being alethic, his argument is opportunistic and tactical, not strategic (because it is an Australian boomerang) and has a merely visceral appeal.

Clearly, a 'wet market' can, with appropriate capital outlay, be rendered as safe as any other. That is a question for 'production economics'. The plain fact is there are plenty of places where wet markets are actually safer than that which agro-business supplies. A very distinguished friend of my father's would never eat a meat or fish dish at the sort of Five Star hotels in which the Indian Government would put him up. Why? He knew the Indian 'cold-chain' was structurally faulty. To my father's great disgust, this gentleman would go to the 'wet market' and choose the fish or chicken he wished to eat. But this meant he dined in a working class area. Yet, his health was much safer than if he'd eaten at the 5 star hotel where the prices would be the same as in New York or London.

Because Hindu India is hypersensitive to this 'repugnancy market', and penalties for laxity included being beaten to death, 'wet-markets' work well in that country- or in Pakistan or similar polities. The 'externalities' are internalized in a tried and tested way. This is the magic of Coase's (actual, not academic) theorem.

The fact is, a properly regulated 'wet-market' is a good thing- even from Singer's p.o.v. Though I am a High Caste Hindu and an admirer of Jainism, the fact is- outside India- I eat fast-food meat and fish. Why? Because the Govt and Agrobusiness have an incentive to keep the commodity relatively safe. But if I had to pick out the chicken or fish I would later consume, I'd be completely vegan. Like Mahatma Gandhi who became distressed seeing that Ind's 'Holy Cow' might not have enough milk for its lowing calf, I would give up dairy products. At my age, that would be a good thing.

The Chinese and other East Asian people formulated a highly humane and ethical philosophy and religion at a very early date. Moh Tzu was a better 'Utilitarian' than Jeremy Bentham. It is viscerally repugnant, at this late date, to play what is effectively a 'Yellow Peril' card of a type that even Trump would shy away from.

Singer writes- 'If we stop to reflect on what we are doing – and mostly we do not – we are prone to justify it by appealing to the alleged superiority of our species, in much the same way that white people used to appeal to the alleged superiority of their race to justify their subjection of “inferior” humans.'

Singer thinks 'justifications' are important. Sadly, this is not the case. The world is not a sophomore debating club. Some White people did get the better of other White people. But the same could be said of some non-White people. Singer, in youth, being 'White' may have found those arguments persuasive. But, as White women gained more countervailing power, spectacular White demographic expansion has turned into relative net contraction. White people are increasingly worried about 'replacement'. But the same may be said of many non-White groups who have gained a measure of affluence. I think it would be better not to bring up White supremacism because it was always the opinion of a lunatic, sociopathic fringe. The great mass of White people believed in God and hard work. Australians really weren't evil racists. They were a God fearing and are now a good, decent, people with an excellent sense of humor.

The truth of the matter is that risks associated with factory farming, of the Western type, have been contained by our highly capital intensive, highly subsidized, agro-business industry. No doubt, China will follow this pattern. Indeed, it may be more successful than Japan in getting people to eat beef burgers and so forth. But something important for humanity would be lost if 'wet markets'- rendered safe by traditional methods as approved by modern, mathematical, 'production economics'- get expunged from industrial capitalism. What is it?

The answer is a Heideggerian sense of Man as the shepherd of Being. We protect what we eat but we needn't eat so much or eat in so indiscriminate a manner.
The Japanese 'peasant-sage-economist' Ninomiya influenced a Buddhist priest to take up fishing to provide protein for his flock. The great Upanishadic truth is 'we are eaten by what we eat'. The Rg Veda says 'the only sin is to eat alone'.

It is sad that racial and religious differences so often boil down to abjuring things eaten by the alterity. People in India have been killed because it was believed they were selling or consuming beef- the cow being sacred in Hinduism. Similarly, talk of 'wet-markets' and mention of 'Wuhan', is a dog-whistle of a particular sort which we must all reject.

It is important that Professors of Ethics always write, if not act, in an ethical manner. Otherwise, like Coase's theorem, their oeuvre may represent a 'negative externality' as much to be feared as the produce of a 'wet market'.
- P. Kamath Mar 26, 2020
  
  You say,”...
  The fact is, a properly regulated 'wet-market' is a good thing- even from Singer's p.o.v. Though I am a High Caste Hindu and an admirer of Jainism, the fact is- outside India- I eat fast-food meat and fish. Why?....”. Really !
  
  Is this three cases of oxymorons , hypocritical justification bundled into one or the devil quoting the Bible😁? How about justification of human slavery?
  - vivek iyer Mar 26, 2020
    
    Like many Indians, I went abroad for higher studies. Since most of the faculty were complete vegetables, we naturally turned to fast food meat and fish dishes so as to avoid cannibalism.
    A new reply to this comment has been posted.
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Eric Mills Mar 10, 2020

It ain't just China, folks. Very similar live animal food ("wet") markets exist throughout California (Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Sacramento, et al.) and in New York City--a disaster waiting to happen. The chickens--as they say--have again come home to roost.

A small group of us have been striving unsuccessfully for 25+ years to get the CA Dept. of Fish & Wildlife (DFW) to cease issuing import permits for frogs and turtles for human consumption. California annually imports some TWO MILLION non-native American bullfrogs for food. Most are commercially-raised in China and Taiwan. Plus an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 freshwater turtles (mostly softshells and red-eared sliders), all taken from the wild in states East of the Rockies, depleting local populations.

Most of these pathetic creatures are kept in horrendous conditions, stacked four-and-five deep, without food or water, and often butchered while fully conscious. NOT ACCEPTABLE!

More than 30 necropsies on the CA market frogs and turtles have documented that ALL are diseased and/or parasitized, though it is ILLEGAL to sell such products--enforcement of the laws are nil. Worse, many are bought en masse, by "do-gooders" and certain Buddhist religious sects for "animal liberation" ceremonies and released into local waters, where they prey upon and displace the native species, while spreading all sorts of diseases.

Worse, the majority of the bullfrogs (62% in one study) carry the dreaded chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd), responsible for the EXTINCTIONS of 200+ amphibian species worldwide in recent years.

These horrendously cruel and dangerously unhealthful abattoirs should be permanently closed-down worldwide. Legislation is in order, both state and federal. Let your representatives hear from you!

x
Eric Mills, coordinator
ACTION FOR ANIMALS
Oakland
email - afa@mcn.org
- vivek iyer Mar 15, 2020
  
  Truly eye opening! Most useful and informative comment I've seen on this site.
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Madurai Padmanabhan Mar 9, 2020

Human experience with prohibition, drug control laws, prostitution and trafficking provide examples of possible unintended outcomes of this perhaps ethical choice.
Maybe other steps to organize, educate and regulate quality of animal sources for human consumption suited to locally successful enforcement ought to be attempted before sweeping ethically correct global practices are recommended.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Rene Macon Mar 8, 2020

"...wet markets, at which live animals are sold and slaughtered before customers' eyes – should be banned not only in China, but worldwide."

I think that not only "wet markets" should be banned but also international private trade with exotic animals and plants. The satisfaction these type of species provide their new owners, is very likely to be much smaller that the damage they cause, as can be observed by the ecological disaster the chytrid fungus has created to amphibians in Latin America and currently to amphibians in Europe. The chytrid fungus was brought to Latin America by trade with African clawed frogs and to Europe by trade with Asian red-bellied newts.

We should also consider a ban of house cats, whose enormous damage to local bird and reptile population is well documented by scientific studies.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
j. von Hettlingen Mar 2, 2020

Reading this commentary by Peter Singer and Paola Cavalieri, one gains the impression that the two “dark” sides of COVID-19 seem to be China’s inability to learn a lesson from SARS that raged in 2003, and the flagrant animal rights violations at its wet markets, where animals are bought live and freshly slaughtered in front of the customers. Apart from cats and dogs whining in cramped cages, waiting to be slaughtered, skinned and served for dinner, wildlife, exotic animals and plants are also sold.
The authors call for the ban on wet markets across the globe. The recent Coronavirus outbreak has been linked to a wet market in Wuhan, eastern China. Vendors accommodate customers who have a huge appetite for “warm” meat instead of frozen meat from slaughterhouses. Many Chinese use traditional medicine – the wilder the animal or plant, the better the effects. They believe stewed turtle cures cancer, crocodile meat relieves asthma, pangolin scales regulate menstruation and scorpion venom helps stroke victims etc.
Like other respiratory illnesses, COVID-19 was initially transmitted from animal to human. After undergoing rapid mutation it has since been passed from human to human. Wet markets create ideal conditions for the spillover of pathogens from one species to another, including to people. Just imagie the scene – “live mammals, poultry, fish, and reptiles, crammed together and sharing their breath, their blood, and their excrement.” Experts say wildlife sold for human consumption raises risk of new epidemics.
Jason Beaubien a journalist recently reported: “Live fish in open tubs splash water all over the floor. The countertops of the stalls are red with blood as fish are gutted and filleted right in front of the customers' eyes. Live turtles and crustaceans climb over each other in boxes. Melting ice adds to the slush on the floor. There’s lots of water, blood, fish scales, and chicken guts.”
But many Chinese, especially those from rural areas, prefer going to wet markets, where they socialise, to shopping at supermarkets. It is amazing what is on offer – live wolf pups, golden cicadas, scorpions, bamboo rats, squirrels, foxes, civets, hedgehogs or porcupines, salamanders, snakes, insects, turtles and crocodiles. Sometimes one finds assorted body parts – tail, belly, tongue and intestines – of some animals, camels, koalas etc.
Stalls teem with wildlife animals, some of which are endangered species, and all of which are destined to end their lives in restaurants, pharmacies or pet cages. The authors point out that “for the animals, wet markets are hell on earth. Thousands of sentient, palpitating beings endure hours of suffering and anguish before being brutally butchered.”
With rising incomes more consumers can afford to indulge in foods that were once considered delicacies for the very rich. A popular saying has it that people in China will eat anything with four legs except a chair, anything that flies except a plane and anything in the water except a boat.
Following the ban, demand dropped briefly after the 2003 SARS crisis, which was blamed on pathogens spread by civet cats and other wild animals. China “prohibited the breeding, transport, and sale of civets and other wild animals, but the ban was lifted six months later.”
Wet markets should be “banned not only in China, but all over the world,” because it enables new viren and diseases emerge. Let us hope that the severity of COVID-19 will make an impact on the leadership in Beijing – to take animal rights and nature conservation more seriously, while reducing the risk of a ‘made in China’ disease harming people worldwide.” The problem is that China will not shut down such markets permanently.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Kudakwashe Kanhutu Mar 2, 2020

This article lost all its traction right there, when it became a shrill animal activist manifesto. A lot of people lose their initially attentive audience, when they try to smuggle in their personal biases, into what should be clean cut scientific arguments.
- Ondine Angarola Mar 16, 2020
  
  I find it rather disturbing that you chose to focus on one or two lines in this entire article that talks about the "moral consideration" that animals deserve. Equating these to "shrill" animal rights activism shows a rather unsettling lack of compassion or empathy for the living beings that are tortured, boiled alive, beaten before ultimate death in these bloody hell holes. I would rather question your own moral compass rather than this thoughtful article that clearly exposes the threat that these markets pose to ALL living beings. Peace out.
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
- Peter Singer Mar 2, 2020
  
  We are not trying to "smuggle" anything in -- it's obvious from our title that we are saying that there is a second "dark side" to COVID-19, and the text makes it clear that we think that animals ought to receive moral consideration. We don't know what you mean by "clean cut scientific arguments," but all policy recommendations must start from ethical premises.
  - vivek iyer Mar 15, 2020
    
    No policy prescription should start from ethical principles because deontology, to have a robust existence, must be blind to Alethia. Such Ethical principles as are 'action guiding' can't give rise to 'recommendations' as opposed to unilateral commandments of an indefeasible type.
    
    Following Aristotle, I would say your thesis here is represents indefeasible Akrebia masquerading as Economia. One may certainly speak of 'Bio-politics' but to do so while imposing an artificial type of precision, which the subject matter can't sustain, is wholly mischievous and counterproductive. What you have actually given us is an argument for separate 'wet-markets' of a traditional sort, as opposed to the 'cold-chains' of Agro-business.
    On the other hand, I may have done less than justice to you in this post-https://socioproctology.blogspot.com/2017/01/was-derek-parfit-golem.html
    A new reply to this comment has been posted.
  - Charles Driver Mar 8, 2020
    
    Definitely, but you're mixing ethical premises that are, to at least some people, distinct -- one regarding the wellbeing of humans, the other regarding that of animals. Getting your foot in the door by leveraging current events and a widely accepted premise, only to then spring a less popular premise on people, might lead one to wonder to what extent the arguments genuinely concern the first premise / current events...
    - kim southwood Mar 9, 2020
      
      Humans do or don't make ethical choices based on their own observations. To encourage an ethical choice based on observations of the role of human/animal interaction in triggering the COVID-19 outbreak is useful. Those who disapprove of this article's ethical consideration might well label it as a "shrill animal activist manifesto" or as advancing "a less popular premise". For many it supports a deeply help ethical choice to advance pleasure rather than pain. The authors achieve this with a spotlight on cold, stark reality.
      A new reply to this comment has been posted.
    A new reply to this comment has been posted.
  - Tilly Vacher Mar 6, 2020
    
    Very well said Peter Singer. If my father, Jon Wynne-Tyson, were able he would say so too.
    A new reply to this comment has been posted.
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.