作者居住的新家常有小虫入侵，如蜘蛛、木虱和蟋蟀。作者通常将它们赶出，但有时会因不慎造成伤害，如用化学品处理蚂蚁或意外压死蜘蛛。作者反思自己的行为，认为最初对问题的忽视导致了一些不必要的痛苦。现在作者意识到需要改善房屋的密封性以解决问题，并认为由此产生的任何进一步伤害应承担更多道德责任。作者通过分享与蜜蜂和蟋蟀的互动经历，探讨了同理心和责任的重要性。

🐜 作者最初对昆虫入侵的处理方式较为随意，有时使用化学品等手段，但并未深入思考这些行为可能带来的道德问题，直到意识到问题的严重性。

🕸️ 作者通过救助一只蜜蜂的经历，展现了同理心，但最终蜜蜂仍不幸去世，这促使作者反思自己的行为是否足够谨慎和负责任。

🦗 在处理蟋蟀时，作者不慎导致其受伤，这引发了作者对自身行为的进一步反思，认识到需要更妥善地处理这些问题以避免伤害。

🛡️ 作者意识到房屋密封性不足是昆虫入侵的主要原因，决定采取措施改善，并认为此后因忽视问题而造成的任何伤害应承担更多道德责任。

🌱 作者通过分享与昆虫的互动，强调了同理心和责任感的重要性，呼吁人们更细致地对待生命，避免不必要的痛苦。

Published on September 10, 2025 7:23 PM GMT

Epistemic status: I am vegan! Adjust your expectations for my empathy towards living beings accordingly.

A few months ago I moved into a new place which I am loving, aside from the fact that it is also loved by insects and arachnids from the surrounding area.

Nothing crazy, but most days I will find that a new spider has made an entry. A couple of times a month I’ll uncover a woodlouse crawling around. On three alarming occasions, a cricket has chosen my home as its platform to explore. One night, a bee crawled into my place, presumably exhibiting exhaustion. Beginning a couple of weeks ago, a trickling stream of ants started seeking slivers of sustenance in my kitchen.

I view it as a situation at least more manageable than living next to a stream of drowning children. I keep a unit of tupperware, and a sheet of card, to-hand in an easily accessible cupboard. When I encounter a new micro-guest, I endeavour to scoop them up and chuck them outside.

The guests

My thought to write this post came from considering the cases when I don’t exhibit mercy or I unintentionally cause some suffering to my guests. This has taken a few forms:

The ants

I don’t have a good way to counter the ants besides chemical warfare. Since only a few entered my home I generally left them alone — although in a couple of instances they met a quick demise: I sprayed and cleared their trail with bleach (catching a few ants in the process) and roughly picked up a couple that were in invasive locations and chucked their mangled body in the sink.

The bee

When the bee crawled into my place I instantly thought to give it some sugar water — but the only sugary thing I had was some popping candy sherbet. I created a quick solution combining the sherbet with water on a plate, and scooped the bee onto the edge of the plate. At first it writhed around wildly, but then stabilised itself and seemed to enjoy the treat. I left it outside and went to sleep.

The next morning, I found the bee stood some way away from the plate looking somewhat bolstered. Encouraged by its resilience, I looked around for a couple of pollinating flowers and lay those on the ground, next to the bee.^[1]

Later in the day, however, I found the bee a few meters away from this spot — unfortunately having perished. I scooped the bee up and buried it under a couple of leaves, and laid the pollinating flowers from before on top.

The cricket

While scooping up one of the crickets, it jumped around madly and ended up with one of its antennae caught under the edge of the tupperware. Through my movement/its own movement, it then promptly dismembered most of this antenna. I haven’t researched whether crickets can effectively regrow these… I’m hoping they can.

The tiny spider

One time there was tiny spider running across my desk while I was in deep focus, and I reactively crushed it.

The not-so tiny spider

[trigger warning] Most alarmingly, one morning I awoke to a tickling sensation on my face. I instinctively hit at it, and as you can imagine also promptly repulsed at the sensation of feeling a small-medium sized spider being squashed in the process.

Reflecting on this took me to the conclusion that maybe I should have reached earlier: I need to dedicate serious attention to improve the sealing around my home.^[2]

Relating this all of this to moral good

I think my stories illustrate an interesting concept:^[3] 

I think that we should discount the moral badness of my prior actions: the crux of my actions was to give inadequate attention to solving the problem that was presented by the intruding beings.

However, now that I’ve acknowledged the scope of the problem and a potential solution,^[4] any suffering caused by my inaction towards solving the problem holds more moral weight.

 

In loving memory of the ants, the bee, the cricket, and the spiders.

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1. ^{^}

   Perhaps I should have done this in the first place.

2. ^{^}

   Also maybe bees don't want popping candy.

3. ^{^}

   Surely widely discussed, but most likely not derived in the same way(!)

4. ^{^}

   i.e. implementing better sealing of my home so that I don't get a repeat of the spider-in-the-morning incident.

Discuss