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Here is a question I found myself asking: Is it better for an animal to be farmed and eaten, or to have never been born at all? (Assuming we can farm them saf

Here is a question I found myself asking: Is it better for an animal to be farmed and eaten, or to have never been born at all? (Assuming we can farm them safely / humanely, even though the article suggests we cannot do so yet)

john-radio 7y ago
That is an interesting question - and I think the answer is "it depends very much on how you farm them," which is why I prefer to eat free-range chicken over factory farmed, and don't eat sentient animals / red meat at all - but thanks for your parenthetical, because yeah, we cannot do so yet with octopi.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- checkyoursudo 7y ago
  Do you classify birds as non-sentient? I don't really know how to classify sentience, but I would have thought that birds qualify.
JasonFruit 7y ago
If you were the animal in question, what would you think? I'd choose the latter, but your answer may differ. The answer may be different for animals that can conceive of the question than for those who can't, and that's probably a less decidable point.
dchapp 7y ago
If you're interested in schools of thought that argue on the side of "better off not having been born at all", take a look at negative utilitarianism.
cybersnowflake 7y ago
Hypothetically, it could get to the point where it is more ethical to eat meat than not to, ESPECIALLY if they are sentient in the way activists say they are. Lets say aliens came and offered you a deal. You can either not exist or live a life of luxury with all delicious food and mates you want, then after 1000 years or so you'd peacefully pass away just like a natural death and you are informed that they'd eat your body. I'm pretty sure quite a few people would be open to this.The choice is even simpler with animals since from all evidence they lack the capacity for existential dread. Now tell, me what would be the most moral choice assuming chickens are sentient? To indulge them to a pampered existence several times their natural lifespan...and yes, at the end disposing of their bodies in the most practical and beneficial way, its not like a chicken cares what happens to its mortal shell in whatever poultry afterlife may exist. Or leave chicken minds to the terror of being torn up by a fox in the wilderness or to never know the joys of existence in the paradise future ethical meat farms may offer?
- StavrosK 7y ago
  I'm not quite sure which of the two you're suggesting we do now. They neither live in luxury nor their lifespan. Instead, they're basically tortured all their short life before we kill them.
  - cybersnowflake 7y ago
    You don't have to torture animals to eat them. Assuming advances in technology and energy we could get to the point where a hypothetical farmer could raise animals in luxury. As tech increases the luxury will increase. If animals are indeed sentient, farms would essentially transform into happiness factories generating and funneling new minds into earthly paradise. If your ethical code is a variation of 'reducing pain and increasing pleasure for all sentient life' this would be orders of magnitude more good then the Peta option of turning them loose to die in the wild or never exist. It would be far more ethical than even artificial meat. Heck from a strict cost/benefit analysis it may be one of the greatest moral triumphs mankind has ever given the universe.
    - tlb 7y ago
      Animals that have lived a full lifespan are not delicious to eat. Meat from old animals is tough and often contains tumors. So you're still stuck with killing them in early maturity.
    - elliekelly 7y ago
      > Assuming advances in technology and energy we could get to the point where a hypothetical farmer could raise animals in luxury. As tech increases the luxury will increase. Why would an industrial food processor care about how luxurious the sentient inventory finds the warehouse?
      - ZeroFries 7y ago
        Consumer pressure
    - checkyoursudo 7y ago
mikekchar 7y ago
Not having been born is neutral from the position of the being not getting born. It is neither good nor bad, because the being does not exist. If a woman dies, we don't feel sorrow for any children (or their children, or their children's children, etc, etc) that will never be born. I am not a murderer for denying life to the billions and billions of people that will not be born if I've chosen not to have kids. Neither am I a hero for saving billions and billions of people if I choose to have kids (and good God, make sure my kids have kids and their kids have kids, etc, etc). The question just comes down to: is it OK to keep animals to be farmed and eaten. If the answer is "no", then you gain nothing by bringing new lives into the world to subject them to it. If the answer is "yes", then there isn't a dilemma.
- bennyelv 7y ago
  Or maybe, by having kids you are subjecting yet another generation of creatures to the existential dread and guaranteed pain of their mortality and it is therefore an unethical thing to do? I don't feel like any of these points of view actually anwser the question "is it better to not exist or to exist and suffer", they're just different ways of framing the question.
- Retra 7y ago
  There is no position from the perspective of beings that don't exist, let alone a neutral one. It's always the beings that exist that make decisions, and it's always their perspective that counts. Really, it doesn't matter if an animal that doesn't exist would 'prefer' to exist in suffering, because that's a purely counter-factual fantasy to begin with. All that matters is whether we should prefer such an animal to exist. Anyone who prefers they wouldn't based on vague moral arguments has to reconcile that with the fact that killing those animals for food is right in line with correcting the 'error' of their birth. A better way to make the argument is to appeal to things we do actually care about in an ethically consistent manner: how inefficient and wasteful it is to raise animals for food. If you have something that is more efficient, tastes better, and is healthier, then it becomes harder to justify that waste, regardless of anyone's moral position on suffering. Anything else is just an reasonless appeal to emotion.
throwaway8879 7y ago
It depends on what you mean by better. Is it better from the perspective of the universe? Or according to your individual personal guidelines that define "better"? Or better as how your society thinks it is? Or better as how Socrates would've define it? Quite impossible to answer generic questions and better/worse without defining boundaries.
rubberstock 7y ago
What if animals by their nature have Buddhist enlightenment and accept suffering as part of their existence? Even if we don't farm them safely or humanely, do they care besides inevitably expressing their suffering? If existence is an all-awareness being, does existence want its experience to be restricted to what humans consider good?

john-radio 7y ago

That is an interesting question - and I think the answer is "it depends very much on how you farm them," which is why I prefer to eat free-range chicken over factory farmed, and don't eat sentient animals / red meat at all - but thanks for your parenthetical, because yeah, we cannot do so yet with octopi.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
checkyoursudo 7y ago
Do you classify birds as non-sentient? I don't really know how to classify sentience, but I would have thought that birds qualify.

JasonFruit 7y ago

If you were the animal in question, what would you think? I'd choose the latter, but your answer may differ. The answer may be different for animals that can conceive of the question than for those who can't, and that's probably a less decidable point.

dchapp 7y ago

If you're interested in schools of thought that argue on the side of "better off not having been born at all", take a look at negative utilitarianism.

cybersnowflake 7y ago

Hypothetically, it could get to the point where it is more ethical to eat meat than not to, ESPECIALLY if they are sentient in the way activists say they are. Lets say aliens came and offered you a deal. You can either not exist or live a life of luxury with all delicious food and mates you want, then after 1000 years or so you'd peacefully pass away just like a natural death and you are informed that they'd eat your body. I'm pretty sure quite a few people would be open to this.The choice is even simpler with animals since from all evidence they lack the capacity for existential dread. Now tell, me what would be the most moral choice assuming chickens are sentient? To indulge them to a pampered existence several times their natural lifespan...and yes, at the end disposing of their bodies in the most practical and beneficial way, its not like a chicken cares what happens to its mortal shell in whatever poultry afterlife may exist. Or leave chicken minds to the terror of being torn up by a fox in the wilderness or to never know the joys of existence in the paradise future ethical meat farms may offer?

StavrosK 7y ago
I'm not quite sure which of the two you're suggesting we do now. They neither live in luxury nor their lifespan. Instead, they're basically tortured all their short life before we kill them.
- cybersnowflake 7y ago
  You don't have to torture animals to eat them. Assuming advances in technology and energy we could get to the point where a hypothetical farmer could raise animals in luxury. As tech increases the luxury will increase. If animals are indeed sentient, farms would essentially transform into happiness factories generating and funneling new minds into earthly paradise. If your ethical code is a variation of 'reducing pain and increasing pleasure for all sentient life' this would be orders of magnitude more good then the Peta option of turning them loose to die in the wild or never exist. It would be far more ethical than even artificial meat. Heck from a strict cost/benefit analysis it may be one of the greatest moral triumphs mankind has ever given the universe.
  - tlb 7y ago
    Animals that have lived a full lifespan are not delicious to eat. Meat from old animals is tough and often contains tumors. So you're still stuck with killing them in early maturity.
  - elliekelly 7y ago
    > Assuming advances in technology and energy we could get to the point where a hypothetical farmer could raise animals in luxury. As tech increases the luxury will increase. Why would an industrial food processor care about how luxurious the sentient inventory finds the warehouse?
    - ZeroFries 7y ago
      Consumer pressure
  - checkyoursudo 7y ago

mikekchar 7y ago

Not having been born is neutral from the position of the being not getting born. It is neither good nor bad, because the being does not exist. If a woman dies, we don't feel sorrow for any children (or their children, or their children's children, etc, etc) that will never be born. I am not a murderer for denying life to the billions and billions of people that will not be born if I've chosen not to have kids. Neither am I a hero for saving billions and billions of people if I choose to have kids (and good God, make sure my kids have kids and their kids have kids, etc, etc). The question just comes down to: is it OK to keep animals to be farmed and eaten. If the answer is "no", then you gain nothing by bringing new lives into the world to subject them to it. If the answer is "yes", then there isn't a dilemma.

bennyelv 7y ago
Or maybe, by having kids you are subjecting yet another generation of creatures to the existential dread and guaranteed pain of their mortality and it is therefore an unethical thing to do? I don't feel like any of these points of view actually anwser the question "is it better to not exist or to exist and suffer", they're just different ways of framing the question.
Retra 7y ago
There is no position from the perspective of beings that don't exist, let alone a neutral one. It's always the beings that exist that make decisions, and it's always their perspective that counts. Really, it doesn't matter if an animal that doesn't exist would 'prefer' to exist in suffering, because that's a purely counter-factual fantasy to begin with. All that matters is whether we should prefer such an animal to exist. Anyone who prefers they wouldn't based on vague moral arguments has to reconcile that with the fact that killing those animals for food is right in line with correcting the 'error' of their birth. A better way to make the argument is to appeal to things we do actually care about in an ethically consistent manner: how inefficient and wasteful it is to raise animals for food. If you have something that is more efficient, tastes better, and is healthier, then it becomes harder to justify that waste, regardless of anyone's moral position on suffering. Anything else is just an reasonless appeal to emotion.

throwaway8879 7y ago

It depends on what you mean by better. Is it better from the perspective of the universe? Or according to your individual personal guidelines that define "better"? Or better as how your society thinks it is? Or better as how Socrates would've define it? Quite impossible to answer generic questions and better/worse without defining boundaries.

rubberstock 7y ago

What if animals by their nature have Buddhist enlightenment and accept suffering as part of their existence? Even if we don't farm them safely or humanely, do they care besides inevitably expressing their suffering? If existence is an all-awareness being, does existence want its experience to be restricted to what humans consider good?