The farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer!

 

“A species, however, is not sentient. It has no feeling, consciousness or intellect. Its individual members do, of course, but as a whole it does not. There are those who suggest that things such as species and ecosystems have a kind of collective consciousness, but this is no more than speculation and pretty wild speculation at that. The question therefore must be asked: why should we think ‘the good of the species’ is something valuable in itself, so valuable that furthering it can provide life with meaning? The species itself, lacking in sentience, would seem to be indifferent to its welfare. We can care about it, but why we would want to care about it more than we do about its individual members is puzzling. If we do so, we risk ending up with the kind of situation portrayed in George Orwell’s satire Animal Farm, in which ‘somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer’.”