The individuals themselves will of

The individuals themselves will of course be numerically distinct and may be functionally differentiated within certain subgroupings, as in the case of workers and drones. They will also possess sufficient difference at the level of their genes toallow scope for the workings of natural selection, workings which can, of course, result in time in the emergence of more individualized creatures. In addition to this lack of individuality such non-sentients will, of course, be devoid of consciousness, sentience and self-consciousness. This means that there is no individual suffering to be weighed in the moral balance. We can express the upshot of all these points in a concrete manner by saying that swatting a fly usually need cause no moral compunction, although there still needs to be some defensible reason drawn from the interests of the swatter for doing so, such as the need to avoid the infections which flies unwittingly can bring into our households.1