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The gp is still pointing out that causing suffering to other creatures is a downside of eating meat. While all items you listed are not necessary, only one of t

by Eyas 9y ago

The gp is still pointing out that causing suffering to other creatures is a downside of eating meat. While all items you listed are not necessary, only one of them has that downside. Unless one argues with the premise that the killing/pain of other creatures is harmful, we'll only be talking past one another.

theoh 9y ago
Not sure about the meaning of your second paragraph, but in theory, animals bred for human consumption could live happy lives up to the point of a painless, instant death. The issue becomes whether they would be missed by other animals. Some would consider this a dangerous way of thinking, but someone like Temple Grandin would agree, I think, that the correct thing to worry about is suffering, not 'harm' in some abstract sense.
- firethief 9y ago
  Considering suffering alone seems like it could justify some counterintuitive conclusions. Would it be wrong to have a child, raise it happily to adolescence, and then give it a painless, instant death? If so, why?
  - edanm 9y ago
    That's a valid argument, but I think a more relevant question is: between the options of having a child, raising it happily to adolescence, and then killing it, vs. not having the child at all, which option is "better"? Which is more net positive in the world? This is a closer scenario, since billions of e.g. cows would not be born and raised if not for our use for them as food. (Of course, in reality, they're mostly not raised happily). When deciding the answer to the scenario, keep in mind that most parents who have children with e.g. terminally ill diseases, who die in adolescence, or even kids that die as teenagers from accidents, would probably not say it is better that they had not lived. Also worth considering - we have children knowing that their lives will tragically end in death after 100 years at most. Why is that not wrong? Just cause we're used to 100 years being a lot, doesn't really change the fundamental argument does it?
  - theoh 9y ago
    I didn't mean that happiness wouldn't be considered, just that that appropriate thing to worry about is suffering (can we call it negative happiness?). There is obviously not going to be a simple happiness score at each moment of life—it should at least be a vector of scores. Would make sense to integrate over time, but then there's the spectre of a "happiness maximizer" (like a paperclip maximizer) that might produce undesirable outcomes, whether it's average or aggregate happiness you consider. Ethics is difficult to formalize.
    - firethief 9y ago
      Adding happiness to the model solves some of its problems (suffering+happiness model doesn't advocate nuclear annihilation), but I don't see how suffering-vs-happiness utilitarianism reaches the conclusion that infanticide is wrong. It seems like we need to consider more than happiness vectors for infanticide not to be okay.
      - theoh 9y ago
        Well, the prohibition of infanticide is a norm that presumably derives from a perception that killing babies harms the person who does it or others with a relationship to the child (possibly in a very indirect, diffuse way). It is perceived as going against the natural order of things, I guess. Utilitarian ethics does flirt with accepting infanticide in many cases, which is something a lot of people undoubtedly find repugant. Like this story: "On his faculty page, Mr. Singer argues: “Newborn human babies have no sense of their own existence over time. So killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living. That doesn’t mean that it is not almost always a terrible thing to do. It is, but that is because most infants are loved and cherished by their parents, and to kill an infant is usually to do a great wrong to its parents." https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/16/peter-singer-princeton-bioethics-professor-faces-c/ https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/16/peter-singer-...
013a 9y ago
Having sex without the intent to procreate can lead to having children whom you aren't prepared to take care of. Tourism fuels and is fueled by organizations that destroy ecosystems. Everything humanity does destroys the planet and its inhabitants, including ourselves. A vegan thinks they're doing their small part, while texting up a storm on their iPhone, driving to work in their Camry, living in their downtown 1000 sqft apartment. Thinking your diet of all things makes the animals we share this place with feel any better is about as facetious as thinking a band-aid would help a man who just went headfirst into a woodchipper. You could go completely offgrid, live off the land, maximizing everything you can do to help this problem, and you wouldn't even begin to put a dent into it. But if it helps you sleep at night, then by all means. At least you've some semblance of peace, which is more than most people on this planet have.
- Eyas 9y ago
  Not my point. My point is that the poster I was replying to is talking past the initial poster, rather than responding to them. I don't think vegans/vegetarians do so because of their singular impact on the world. Worth saying that (presumably) you and I choose not to kill other people, knowing that our taxes might be funding wars, our gadgets might be built in sweatshops, etc.

by Eyas 9y ago

theoh 9y ago

Not sure about the meaning of your second paragraph, but in theory, animals bred for human consumption could live happy lives up to the point of a painless, instant death. The issue becomes whether they would be missed by other animals. Some would consider this a dangerous way of thinking, but someone like Temple Grandin would agree, I think, that the correct thing to worry about is suffering, not 'harm' in some abstract sense.

firethief 9y ago
Considering suffering alone seems like it could justify some counterintuitive conclusions. Would it be wrong to have a child, raise it happily to adolescence, and then give it a painless, instant death? If so, why?
- edanm 9y ago
  That's a valid argument, but I think a more relevant question is: between the options of having a child, raising it happily to adolescence, and then killing it, vs. not having the child at all, which option is "better"? Which is more net positive in the world? This is a closer scenario, since billions of e.g. cows would not be born and raised if not for our use for them as food. (Of course, in reality, they're mostly not raised happily). When deciding the answer to the scenario, keep in mind that most parents who have children with e.g. terminally ill diseases, who die in adolescence, or even kids that die as teenagers from accidents, would probably not say it is better that they had not lived. Also worth considering - we have children knowing that their lives will tragically end in death after 100 years at most. Why is that not wrong? Just cause we're used to 100 years being a lot, doesn't really change the fundamental argument does it?
- theoh 9y ago
  I didn't mean that happiness wouldn't be considered, just that that appropriate thing to worry about is suffering (can we call it negative happiness?). There is obviously not going to be a simple happiness score at each moment of life—it should at least be a vector of scores. Would make sense to integrate over time, but then there's the spectre of a "happiness maximizer" (like a paperclip maximizer) that might produce undesirable outcomes, whether it's average or aggregate happiness you consider. Ethics is difficult to formalize.
  - firethief 9y ago
    Adding happiness to the model solves some of its problems (suffering+happiness model doesn't advocate nuclear annihilation), but I don't see how suffering-vs-happiness utilitarianism reaches the conclusion that infanticide is wrong. It seems like we need to consider more than happiness vectors for infanticide not to be okay.
    - theoh 9y ago
      Well, the prohibition of infanticide is a norm that presumably derives from a perception that killing babies harms the person who does it or others with a relationship to the child (possibly in a very indirect, diffuse way). It is perceived as going against the natural order of things, I guess. Utilitarian ethics does flirt with accepting infanticide in many cases, which is something a lot of people undoubtedly find repugant. Like this story: "On his faculty page, Mr. Singer argues: “Newborn human babies have no sense of their own existence over time. So killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living. That doesn’t mean that it is not almost always a terrible thing to do. It is, but that is because most infants are loved and cherished by their parents, and to kill an infant is usually to do a great wrong to its parents." https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/16/peter-singer-princeton-bioethics-professor-faces-c/ https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/16/peter-singer-...

013a 9y ago

Having sex without the intent to procreate can lead to having children whom you aren't prepared to take care of. Tourism fuels and is fueled by organizations that destroy ecosystems. Everything humanity does destroys the planet and its inhabitants, including ourselves. A vegan thinks they're doing their small part, while texting up a storm on their iPhone, driving to work in their Camry, living in their downtown 1000 sqft apartment. Thinking your diet of all things makes the animals we share this place with feel any better is about as facetious as thinking a band-aid would help a man who just went headfirst into a woodchipper. You could go completely offgrid, live off the land, maximizing everything you can do to help this problem, and you wouldn't even begin to put a dent into it. But if it helps you sleep at night, then by all means. At least you've some semblance of peace, which is more than most people on this planet have.

Eyas 9y ago
Not my point. My point is that the poster I was replying to is talking past the initial poster, rather than responding to them. I don't think vegans/vegetarians do so because of their singular impact on the world. Worth saying that (presumably) you and I choose not to kill other people, knowing that our taxes might be funding wars, our gadgets might be built in sweatshops, etc.