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Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

dsabanin 4y ago
The question comes down to this: is a life full of suffering, torture, violence, and misery better than no life at all? For me, the answer is no.
- krona 4y ago
  A meaningful life is impossible without suffering.
  - dsabanin 4y ago
    Sure, but what meaning is derived by causing the unbearable suffering, mutilation, and murder of billions of fellow conscious beings on this planet just for the sake of pleasing your taste buds?
- decafninja 4y ago
  While certainly not the majority, some livestock are actually treated quite well until the point of slaughter. On the other side, many wild herbivores and prey animals live lives in an almost perpetual state of alertness and fear, just a moment away from being viciously torn apart and eaten alive.
  - danielbln 4y ago
    According to the Humane Society of the United States, approximately 99% of chickens used for meat in the United States are raised in factory farms. According to the National Council for Animal Protection, over 99% of beef farmed for meat comes from cows that live in horrific factory farm environments. This doesn't necessarily clash with what you said, but I feel it bares pointing out that less than 1% of feedstock is NOT kept in conditions that perpetuate a state of fear and alertness (basically all factory farming is like that).
- LunaSea 4y ago
  [flagged]
- peterbraden 4y ago
  Actually the article is asking whether a good but curtailed life is better than no life at all. Which is a more interesting question.
  - dundarious 4y ago
    The important point is that that is a hypothetical. In the US for example, that hypothetical is incredibly far from present reality.
  - Sporktacular 4y ago
    Actually they refer to suffering as one alternative a few times: "Even if, on net, the humans in the alien world suffer, is oblivion really the preferable alternative to net suffering? Especially if you could alleviate that suffering through action?"
- golemotron 4y ago
  Natalism versus Anti-Natalism will become a key political flashpoint in our near future. One can argue that it already has.
blamestross 4y ago
It really boils down to: "Is humans acting as their squishy biology dictates" good or does our "goodness" derive from striving to be more than that biology? I'm on the "accept that we are made to eat meat and probably should on occasion" end of the spectrum, but that doesn't make the current state of how we make and consume meat an ok thing. Factory farming isn't a necessary evil, and the level at which we eat meat (and the animals we choose to eat) are evil not just on method, but in costs to our descendants.
- danielbln 4y ago
  We aren't really "made to eat meat" though. Humans have evolved to be omnivores because it is the most efficient way to get the nutrients that our bodies need. With a varied diet, we can get all of the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that we need from the food we eat. That may or may not include meat, and in a modern society you can easily get by without ever eating meat, from a pure nutritional standpoint.
  - blamestross 4y ago
    We very much are "made to be able to eat meat". I will point out that long term vegetarians often have trouble when they eat meat (by accident or intent) because the population gut flora don't support it anymore. I'd argue maintain the capacity is of intrinsic value because `modern society` is not something I take for granted in the long term, but I'm a crazy doom-saying prepper so feel free to disregard my concerns.
- Scarblac 4y ago
  We're made to have sex too, that doesn't justify rape. We make choices and are responsible for our actions. We can clearly survive without eating meat without any adverse effects. That makes it just another choice we make. We're responsible for our choices and can't get away with vague claims about biological dictates.
  - blamestross 4y ago
    `> biological dictates` Note that the point of my response was not the present the decision as a binary but a spectrum. Should we have meat as part of the daily diet, probably not. Should we never eat meat for moral reasons? I don't think that is true. In the most extreme case, I'd argue things like auto-cannibalism are always ethical (You can know that you consent, especially when meat is produced via hypothetical vegan cloning methods)
hunglee2 4y ago
becoming a prey item or a pet is an excellent strategy for human survival in the world dominated by extra terrestial intelligence. As OP mentions, there is vested interest in keeping us around, albeit in some form of domesticated state. the alternative would be to battle the enemy on equal terms and be inevitably exterminated (i.e, predators in todays world), or exist in some way at the margins of the system our new alien overlords have created and find a way to grift off of it (i.e pests in todays world)
jongjong 4y ago
Most humans on earth are essentially already being treated as livestock by other humans... The only difference is that the product is not their meat or their milk, but their "blood, sweat and tears". So the scenario outlined at the start of the article is not exactly hypothetical.
- csours 4y ago
  The civilizing process is very interesting. Humans as robots is a very fitting concept for much of history.
_ZeD_ 4y ago
from the first paragraph: "Imagine a dystopian future in which aliens with a taste for human flesh kidnapped a bunch of people from Earth and raised them as livestock on their alien planet. Humans on the alien planet are kept alive “free-range,” able to interact and live their life, but only for their first 20 years. Then they are harvested for food." yeah, its "The Promised Neverland"
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
scotty79 4y ago
As with every philosophy questions have no answers and every argument is drowned in assumptions.
csours 4y ago
Are animals people? For most of human history, the answer has been no. I'm sure that there have always been humans that thought of their favorite animals as people (or similar), but the scientific and social acceptance of animals having consciousness and emotions similar to humans is VERY recent. Look at the pushback that Jane Goodall got for her research for context. Anyway, I don't have a good ethical argument in favor of eating animal, other than history and my personal rights. This is similar to my feelings on abortion - women have personal rights, but other than that, abortion is not good. I'm sure people will have problems with these statements, but please consider that I am not trying to change your mind or morality.
- bambax 4y ago
  Animals aren't people, but people are animals. Animals aren't cows, or crabs. Some animals are cows; some other animals are people.
  - csours 4y ago
    Some humans treat some dogs like they treat people, or even better than they treat people. It's very normal and common to treat a pet dog better than a human stranger. Many animals are at least as smart as dogs; however dogs seem to have distinct abilities in understanding and empathising with humans (because they have been bred to do so). Animals have some of the same rights as humans - it's illegal to torture animals for instance. I'm not making a strong argument that animals ARE people, because I don't have a strong belief that animals are people; but some people do have that strong belief, and I feel like history will be on their side.
    - bambax 4y ago
      I didn't mean to say that "people are animals" in the sense that they are mean, or bad; just that humans are one species among many other species. People are one kind of animal, as are all other species. Animals certainly aren't people; cows are cows, people are people, and we are all animals. Also, it's not actually illegal to torture animals. It's illegal to torture some animals, sometimes. It's not illegal to pile up lobsters, a non-social and fiercely territorial creature, in small tanks, for months, and eventually boiling them alive, or to keep sows in confined spaces where they spend their whole life giving birth from constant artificial insemination, and crushing their pups because there's no room. Etc.
chrisfrantz 4y ago
Debates like this are a waste of time and this one even has a clickbait title. They ignore the obvious animal suffering today and instead offer a "what if we just stopped over night, what then?". This essay gets worse as it goes. This will never happen. So instead we should focus on limiting or entirely removing the consumption of animals and animal products in our lifestyle which will gradually reduce the number of animals bred for premature death. Most won't and will cling to clickbait essays like this and the distant hope of widespread, affordable, lab-grown meat while continuing to ignore the obvious abuse to animals in their day to day life today.
LatteLazy 4y ago
Isn't the whole point of Philosophy that there are no firm answers? Otherwise it would become science, maths, history etc). So you can argue in circles or just move on. (The obvious exception being Stoicism which is quite well provable and really more of an approach to life than a philosophy)
golemotron 4y ago
I've never seen a reasonable counter-argument to this.
avg_dev 4y ago
What a load of rubbish. 1. Plant-based diets are good for the environment. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6316289/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6316289/ 2. Animals are sentient. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4494450/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4494450/ 3. The "thought experiment" is flawed. See https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/eating-meat-is-good-says-the-philosopher/comment/8024510 https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/eating-meat-is-good-says-the... - good rebuttal here Keeping animals alive in the worst possible conditions on the promise that "we'll do better!" just so the species don't die out is utterly ridiculous.
- flycatcha 4y ago
  Thank you. What drivel, my god.
- disintegore 4y ago
  It's always easier to do mental gymnastics than it is to change one's lifestyle.
  - claudiawerner 4y ago
    I agree, but that's kind of what we do to resolve moral cognitive dissonance all the time, with varying results. Personally it's something I really struggle with, and the questions usually boil down to whether I would be fine living my life wrongly, or if I'll give up enjoyment of my already sad life just to feel good about myself for being moral. I just can't picture it. 9 hours a day in the office, then I come back home and I just want to hedonistically enjoy all that I can until I sleep. Of course I'm going to want to eat a big steak, watch porn, and listen to pirated music, morality be damned, and I know it makes me a bad person.
    - weatherlite 4y ago
      Meat substitutes taste great, you can still have that cheeseburger with something like beyond meat. Yes I'm biased but seriously give it a try. As for porn, I wouldn't even put it in the same ballpark as eating meat (if you're watching some free porn somewhere your contribution to the industry is negligent) , but anyways it might be overwhelming to try to change everything at once so I wouldn't even try. Pick one thing and commit to it. Maybe after that you'll pick another thing - and maybe not. None of us is perfect.
Scarblac 4y ago
If our meat animals didn't exist, a lot of other animals would. Animals eat a lot of food that would be available calories for other animals instead, after all. Also, never existing at all is not a negative, it is null. There is nobody to experience a negative effect of not existing. So I don't think this is a very good argument.
tpl 4y ago
Just planting row crops results in much more cruel death than most people realize I think.
armoredkitten 4y ago
The reasonable counterargument to this is that you are comparing the actual pain and suffering of real, existing animals, to the potential life of animals who do not currently exist. "What happens if we stop raising livestock?" means that no further cows will be born to a life of suffering. That's...really it. Those hypothetical animals aren't floating around in the aether wishing someone would just have let them be born.
weatherlite 4y ago
So the author is pro life I would assume...?
tasty_freeze 4y ago
Slavery is good, says the philosopher. Think of those millions of slave children that would have not existed if not for the slave trade. Sure, had their predecessors remained in Africa they would have had different progeny, but that is an abstraction; those children didn't exist. We are considering actual children who lived, and of course tens of millions of their offspring that resulted, many of them alive today. If you could wave a magic wand and get rid of slavery, would you? What kind of monster would you be to vanish and nullify millions of people who are currently living meaningful lives? Would anyone actually agree with the above sentiment? How is it different than what this thinkpiece is putting forth? It is a post-hoc justification for the status quo.
glitchc 4y ago
Animals eat other animals. We sometimes eat animals that other animals eat. We should eat animals sometimes, and only those that other animals eat. Seems logical..
bena 4y ago
I've stumbled upon some of the same thoughts: cows would be fucked if we stopped eating beef; animals wouldn't give two shits about devouring my ass if the conditions were right, turnabout is fair play; fuck crabs; etc. But I also recognize some the points raised by vegetarians/vegans: we do eat way too much meat; we do treat livestock horribly; fuck crabs; etc. And I think the answer is closer to vegetarianism than it is to all meat all day. We should eat less meat and probably far less beef, but we eating some is fine. Especially due to the B12 issue. It's something our bodies don't synthesize and our best source is animal products. It would also let us slowly cut down the cattle livestock as we wean off of beef to lower levels. Of course, the problem, as always, is "the growth mindset". That we always need to be improving everything quarter after quarter. If you sold 100 hamburgers today, you need to sell 200 tomorrow. How about we sell enough to be profitable and you know, just like chill the fuck out for once.
- surement 4y ago
  > We should eat less meat and probably far less beef Why beef specifically?
  - fsflover 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef#Environmental_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef#Environmental_impact
    - surement 4y ago
      How much Brazilian beef do we eat in the US? I don't think any deforestation is done to raise beef in this country.
      - fsflover 4y ago
        It's not just deforestation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_p...
  - 4y ago
resoluteteeth 4y ago
> I’ve written before about longtermism, the idea that future lives carry moral weight—in this case, there will be millions of humans on this alien world that never exist if you choose (b) and abandon them to their fate on the hostile planet. The idea of it automatically being better to choose the outcome where more future lives will exist seems problematic to me. If it is better to have animals living miserably in factory farms if it means more future animals will be born (even if those animals will live miserably in factory farms) and that has moral weight, is there also a moral obligation to give birth to as many children as possible even if you are going to mistreat, neglect or abuse them? I think most people would agree that it is better not to have children unless you will be able to avoid mistreating, neglecting, or abusing them, so wouldn't the same apply to animals?
immigrantheart 4y ago
> The basic claim, to put it crudely at first, is that eating meat is morally good primarily because it benefits animals. What is the definition benefit here? Would not being able to live freely, freely choose your food, choose your mate, choose (or chosen by nature) when you die, is benefit? I'm usually right leaning, but in the issue of the environment, like clean energy and the meat industry, the wood industry, I'm left leaning. Still not vegan yet though. Really hard to be vegan. but overall I enjoyed the article.
akuro 4y ago
The first two paragraphs present such a blatant false dichotomy that I won't be doing myself the disservice of reading any further. If you're going to announce yourself as a philosopher in the title of your blog post, the least you can do is avoid basic fallacies.
bambax 4y ago
> is oblivion really the preferable alternative to net suffering? Well, here's another thought experiment: you are being tortured, very slowly, but kept alive, well fed and sentient. There is nowhere to go. In the end you will be killed, and you know it. You have watched all your siblings be killed, your parents, your children. You have a button next to you. If you press it, you will die instantly and with no pain. You will be sent into "oblivion", but you will end your suffering. How long will you resist pressing the button?
Sol- 4y ago
Seems like a stretch to justify meat eating with species preservation. Maybe in 100 years you can bring up this argument when plant- and lab-based substitutes are widely available and the cows are at the brink of extinction. But at this point of human history, the vegetarian can credibly argue that they want to reduce animal suffering while meat eater can not similarly counter that they eat meat to preserve the species. I know the argument is supposed to be on a philosophical level, but I just can't suspend my disbelief to an extent required to seriously engage with the argumentation. Will be interesting to revisit this in 50-100 years perhaps. But one would hope that humanity then has created nature reserves for wild cattle and so on.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
> If you were an alien politician concerned about the ethical mistreatment of humans, would you advocate for (a) the continuation of the system but with better treatment for humans (quicker death, better living conditions, longer life), or (b) to stop the system entirely, although this would mean that humans would soon die out in one generation as they’d be unable to survive on the alien planet. Quick, which would you advocate: (a) or (b)? Am I missing something or is the obvious quick answer to this, the opposite of what he expects? And that's even giving the benefit of the doubt to the setup, like, how can you be raised 'free range' on a planet that you'll instanttly die on if people stop eating you?
Sporktacular 4y ago
- "For many of the animals we eat, we’d be consigning their species to oblivion if we stopped eating them." - "[In college] I used to blow [veg and vegans'] minds with this argument—“Oh, so you say you love cows, but you also want to consign their species to oblivion?”" First, with that level of discourse, that is one college to avoid. But why does he keep suggesting that a species would disappear just because we stopped farming it? By his own analogy, humans would continue populating the earth if aliens chose that option. Even in the same paragraph he argues it would just mean fewer animals but then proceeds to presume their extinction. What's wrong with only 1 billion chickens instead of 25? By his future-lives-carry-moral-weight logic we should still be vegetarian, breeding but not eating them, because 250 billion is even better. Just dumb.
nh23423fefe 4y ago
The argument is verb independent and thus wrong. What about killing for sport or beastiality. Asserting that existence is better than oblivion is nonsensical. Adding up fake utility values is bad logic.
zerof1l 4y ago
Let's start with the philosophical thought in the article about aliens eating humans. I would not advocate for those two options but a third option. Aliens should stop eating humans, bring them all back to earth and release them. The rest is up to humans. The author then uses this philosophical thought to argue in favor of our existing state of affairs that we raise animals for food and that we eat them. The biggest issue for me with eating animals is that most of them are raised in cruel conditions and their death is not quick but prolonged and painful. Nowadays there are many plant-based sources of protein in a myriad of flavors and shapes. You can get all the protein and the rest of the nutrients without having to eat animal flesh. What to do with all the animals if we stop eating them? Release them into the wild. Some would die or be eaten by other animals, but that's life. Most should have no trouble adapting to living in the wild. That's what happened in the Chernobyl. The rest of the article goes into this ridiculous idea of eating animals based on whom we perceive to be bad. Majority of the humans judge and apply human criteria to animals when most of this is false. If you're going to eat animals then just eat all of them or exclude some based on more objective criteria like not eating those that are about to go extinct.

The question comes down to this: is a life full of suffering, torture, violence, and misery better than no life at all? For me, the answer is no.

krona 4y ago
A meaningful life is impossible without suffering.
- dsabanin 4y ago
  Sure, but what meaning is derived by causing the unbearable suffering, mutilation, and murder of billions of fellow conscious beings on this planet just for the sake of pleasing your taste buds?
decafninja 4y ago
While certainly not the majority, some livestock are actually treated quite well until the point of slaughter. On the other side, many wild herbivores and prey animals live lives in an almost perpetual state of alertness and fear, just a moment away from being viciously torn apart and eaten alive.
- danielbln 4y ago
  According to the Humane Society of the United States, approximately 99% of chickens used for meat in the United States are raised in factory farms. According to the National Council for Animal Protection, over 99% of beef farmed for meat comes from cows that live in horrific factory farm environments. This doesn't necessarily clash with what you said, but I feel it bares pointing out that less than 1% of feedstock is NOT kept in conditions that perpetuate a state of fear and alertness (basically all factory farming is like that).
LunaSea 4y ago
[flagged]
peterbraden 4y ago
Actually the article is asking whether a good but curtailed life is better than no life at all. Which is a more interesting question.
- dundarious 4y ago
  The important point is that that is a hypothetical. In the US for example, that hypothetical is incredibly far from present reality.
- Sporktacular 4y ago
  Actually they refer to suffering as one alternative a few times: "Even if, on net, the humans in the alien world suffer, is oblivion really the preferable alternative to net suffering? Especially if you could alleviate that suffering through action?"
golemotron 4y ago
Natalism versus Anti-Natalism will become a key political flashpoint in our near future. One can argue that it already has.

blamestross 4y ago

It really boils down to: "Is humans acting as their squishy biology dictates" good or does our "goodness" derive from striving to be more than that biology? I'm on the "accept that we are made to eat meat and probably should on occasion" end of the spectrum, but that doesn't make the current state of how we make and consume meat an ok thing. Factory farming isn't a necessary evil, and the level at which we eat meat (and the animals we choose to eat) are evil not just on method, but in costs to our descendants.

danielbln 4y ago
We aren't really "made to eat meat" though. Humans have evolved to be omnivores because it is the most efficient way to get the nutrients that our bodies need. With a varied diet, we can get all of the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that we need from the food we eat. That may or may not include meat, and in a modern society you can easily get by without ever eating meat, from a pure nutritional standpoint.
- blamestross 4y ago
  We very much are "made to be able to eat meat". I will point out that long term vegetarians often have trouble when they eat meat (by accident or intent) because the population gut flora don't support it anymore. I'd argue maintain the capacity is of intrinsic value because `modern society` is not something I take for granted in the long term, but I'm a crazy doom-saying prepper so feel free to disregard my concerns.
Scarblac 4y ago
We're made to have sex too, that doesn't justify rape. We make choices and are responsible for our actions. We can clearly survive without eating meat without any adverse effects. That makes it just another choice we make. We're responsible for our choices and can't get away with vague claims about biological dictates.
- blamestross 4y ago
  `> biological dictates` Note that the point of my response was not the present the decision as a binary but a spectrum. Should we have meat as part of the daily diet, probably not. Should we never eat meat for moral reasons? I don't think that is true. In the most extreme case, I'd argue things like auto-cannibalism are always ethical (You can know that you consent, especially when meat is produced via hypothetical vegan cloning methods)

hunglee2 4y ago

becoming a prey item or a pet is an excellent strategy for human survival in the world dominated by extra terrestial intelligence. As OP mentions, there is vested interest in keeping us around, albeit in some form of domesticated state. the alternative would be to battle the enemy on equal terms and be inevitably exterminated (i.e, predators in todays world), or exist in some way at the margins of the system our new alien overlords have created and find a way to grift off of it (i.e pests in todays world)

jongjong 4y ago

Most humans on earth are essentially already being treated as livestock by other humans... The only difference is that the product is not their meat or their milk, but their "blood, sweat and tears". So the scenario outlined at the start of the article is not exactly hypothetical.

csours 4y ago
The civilizing process is very interesting. Humans as robots is a very fitting concept for much of history.

_ZeD_ 4y ago

from the first paragraph: "Imagine a dystopian future in which aliens with a taste for human flesh kidnapped a bunch of people from Earth and raised them as livestock on their alien planet. Humans on the alien planet are kept alive “free-range,” able to interact and live their life, but only for their first 20 years. Then they are harvested for food." yeah, its "The Promised Neverland"

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

scotty79 4y ago

As with every philosophy questions have no answers and every argument is drowned in assumptions.

csours 4y ago

Are animals people? For most of human history, the answer has been no. I'm sure that there have always been humans that thought of their favorite animals as people (or similar), but the scientific and social acceptance of animals having consciousness and emotions similar to humans is VERY recent. Look at the pushback that Jane Goodall got for her research for context. Anyway, I don't have a good ethical argument in favor of eating animal, other than history and my personal rights. This is similar to my feelings on abortion - women have personal rights, but other than that, abortion is not good. I'm sure people will have problems with these statements, but please consider that I am not trying to change your mind or morality.

bambax 4y ago
Animals aren't people, but people are animals. Animals aren't cows, or crabs. Some animals are cows; some other animals are people.
- csours 4y ago
  Some humans treat some dogs like they treat people, or even better than they treat people. It's very normal and common to treat a pet dog better than a human stranger. Many animals are at least as smart as dogs; however dogs seem to have distinct abilities in understanding and empathising with humans (because they have been bred to do so). Animals have some of the same rights as humans - it's illegal to torture animals for instance. I'm not making a strong argument that animals ARE people, because I don't have a strong belief that animals are people; but some people do have that strong belief, and I feel like history will be on their side.
  - bambax 4y ago
    I didn't mean to say that "people are animals" in the sense that they are mean, or bad; just that humans are one species among many other species. People are one kind of animal, as are all other species. Animals certainly aren't people; cows are cows, people are people, and we are all animals. Also, it's not actually illegal to torture animals. It's illegal to torture some animals, sometimes. It's not illegal to pile up lobsters, a non-social and fiercely territorial creature, in small tanks, for months, and eventually boiling them alive, or to keep sows in confined spaces where they spend their whole life giving birth from constant artificial insemination, and crushing their pups because there's no room. Etc.

chrisfrantz 4y ago

Debates like this are a waste of time and this one even has a clickbait title. They ignore the obvious animal suffering today and instead offer a "what if we just stopped over night, what then?". This essay gets worse as it goes. This will never happen. So instead we should focus on limiting or entirely removing the consumption of animals and animal products in our lifestyle which will gradually reduce the number of animals bred for premature death. Most won't and will cling to clickbait essays like this and the distant hope of widespread, affordable, lab-grown meat while continuing to ignore the obvious abuse to animals in their day to day life today.

LatteLazy 4y ago

Isn't the whole point of Philosophy that there are no firm answers? Otherwise it would become science, maths, history etc). So you can argue in circles or just move on. (The obvious exception being Stoicism which is quite well provable and really more of an approach to life than a philosophy)

golemotron 4y ago

I've never seen a reasonable counter-argument to this.

avg_dev 4y ago

What a load of rubbish. 1. Plant-based diets are good for the environment. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6316289/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6316289/ 2. Animals are sentient. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4494450/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4494450/ 3. The "thought experiment" is flawed. See https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/eating-meat-is-good-says-the-philosopher/comment/8024510 https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/eating-meat-is-good-says-the... - good rebuttal here Keeping animals alive in the worst possible conditions on the promise that "we'll do better!" just so the species don't die out is utterly ridiculous.

flycatcha 4y ago
Thank you. What drivel, my god.
disintegore 4y ago
It's always easier to do mental gymnastics than it is to change one's lifestyle.
- claudiawerner 4y ago
  I agree, but that's kind of what we do to resolve moral cognitive dissonance all the time, with varying results. Personally it's something I really struggle with, and the questions usually boil down to whether I would be fine living my life wrongly, or if I'll give up enjoyment of my already sad life just to feel good about myself for being moral. I just can't picture it. 9 hours a day in the office, then I come back home and I just want to hedonistically enjoy all that I can until I sleep. Of course I'm going to want to eat a big steak, watch porn, and listen to pirated music, morality be damned, and I know it makes me a bad person.
  - weatherlite 4y ago
    Meat substitutes taste great, you can still have that cheeseburger with something like beyond meat. Yes I'm biased but seriously give it a try. As for porn, I wouldn't even put it in the same ballpark as eating meat (if you're watching some free porn somewhere your contribution to the industry is negligent) , but anyways it might be overwhelming to try to change everything at once so I wouldn't even try. Pick one thing and commit to it. Maybe after that you'll pick another thing - and maybe not. None of us is perfect.

Scarblac 4y ago

If our meat animals didn't exist, a lot of other animals would. Animals eat a lot of food that would be available calories for other animals instead, after all. Also, never existing at all is not a negative, it is null. There is nobody to experience a negative effect of not existing. So I don't think this is a very good argument.

tpl 4y ago

Just planting row crops results in much more cruel death than most people realize I think.

armoredkitten 4y ago

The reasonable counterargument to this is that you are comparing the actual pain and suffering of real, existing animals, to the potential life of animals who do not currently exist. "What happens if we stop raising livestock?" means that no further cows will be born to a life of suffering. That's...really it. Those hypothetical animals aren't floating around in the aether wishing someone would just have let them be born.

weatherlite 4y ago

So the author is pro life I would assume...?

tasty_freeze 4y ago

Slavery is good, says the philosopher. Think of those millions of slave children that would have not existed if not for the slave trade. Sure, had their predecessors remained in Africa they would have had different progeny, but that is an abstraction; those children didn't exist. We are considering actual children who lived, and of course tens of millions of their offspring that resulted, many of them alive today. If you could wave a magic wand and get rid of slavery, would you? What kind of monster would you be to vanish and nullify millions of people who are currently living meaningful lives? Would anyone actually agree with the above sentiment? How is it different than what this thinkpiece is putting forth? It is a post-hoc justification for the status quo.

glitchc 4y ago

Animals eat other animals. We sometimes eat animals that other animals eat. We should eat animals sometimes, and only those that other animals eat. Seems logical..

bena 4y ago

I've stumbled upon some of the same thoughts: cows would be fucked if we stopped eating beef; animals wouldn't give two shits about devouring my ass if the conditions were right, turnabout is fair play; fuck crabs; etc. But I also recognize some the points raised by vegetarians/vegans: we do eat way too much meat; we do treat livestock horribly; fuck crabs; etc. And I think the answer is closer to vegetarianism than it is to all meat all day. We should eat less meat and probably far less beef, but we eating some is fine. Especially due to the B12 issue. It's something our bodies don't synthesize and our best source is animal products. It would also let us slowly cut down the cattle livestock as we wean off of beef to lower levels. Of course, the problem, as always, is "the growth mindset". That we always need to be improving everything quarter after quarter. If you sold 100 hamburgers today, you need to sell 200 tomorrow. How about we sell enough to be profitable and you know, just like chill the fuck out for once.

surement 4y ago
> We should eat less meat and probably far less beef Why beef specifically?
- fsflover 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef#Environmental_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef#Environmental_impact
  - surement 4y ago
    How much Brazilian beef do we eat in the US? I don't think any deforestation is done to raise beef in this country.
    - fsflover 4y ago
      It's not just deforestation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_p...
- 4y ago

resoluteteeth 4y ago

> I’ve written before about longtermism, the idea that future lives carry moral weight—in this case, there will be millions of humans on this alien world that never exist if you choose (b) and abandon them to their fate on the hostile planet. The idea of it automatically being better to choose the outcome where more future lives will exist seems problematic to me. If it is better to have animals living miserably in factory farms if it means more future animals will be born (even if those animals will live miserably in factory farms) and that has moral weight, is there also a moral obligation to give birth to as many children as possible even if you are going to mistreat, neglect or abuse them? I think most people would agree that it is better not to have children unless you will be able to avoid mistreating, neglecting, or abusing them, so wouldn't the same apply to animals?

immigrantheart 4y ago

> The basic claim, to put it crudely at first, is that eating meat is morally good primarily because it benefits animals. What is the definition benefit here? Would not being able to live freely, freely choose your food, choose your mate, choose (or chosen by nature) when you die, is benefit? I'm usually right leaning, but in the issue of the environment, like clean energy and the meat industry, the wood industry, I'm left leaning. Still not vegan yet though. Really hard to be vegan. but overall I enjoyed the article.

akuro 4y ago

The first two paragraphs present such a blatant false dichotomy that I won't be doing myself the disservice of reading any further. If you're going to announce yourself as a philosopher in the title of your blog post, the least you can do is avoid basic fallacies.

bambax 4y ago

> is oblivion really the preferable alternative to net suffering? Well, here's another thought experiment: you are being tortured, very slowly, but kept alive, well fed and sentient. There is nowhere to go. In the end you will be killed, and you know it. You have watched all your siblings be killed, your parents, your children. You have a button next to you. If you press it, you will die instantly and with no pain. You will be sent into "oblivion", but you will end your suffering. How long will you resist pressing the button?

Sol- 4y ago

Seems like a stretch to justify meat eating with species preservation. Maybe in 100 years you can bring up this argument when plant- and lab-based substitutes are widely available and the cows are at the brink of extinction. But at this point of human history, the vegetarian can credibly argue that they want to reduce animal suffering while meat eater can not similarly counter that they eat meat to preserve the species. I know the argument is supposed to be on a philosophical level, but I just can't suspend my disbelief to an extent required to seriously engage with the argumentation. Will be interesting to revisit this in 50-100 years perhaps. But one would hope that humanity then has created nature reserves for wild cattle and so on.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

> If you were an alien politician concerned about the ethical mistreatment of humans, would you advocate for (a) the continuation of the system but with better treatment for humans (quicker death, better living conditions, longer life), or (b) to stop the system entirely, although this would mean that humans would soon die out in one generation as they’d be unable to survive on the alien planet. Quick, which would you advocate: (a) or (b)? Am I missing something or is the obvious quick answer to this, the opposite of what he expects? And that's even giving the benefit of the doubt to the setup, like, how can you be raised 'free range' on a planet that you'll instanttly die on if people stop eating you?

Sporktacular 4y ago

- "For many of the animals we eat, we’d be consigning their species to oblivion if we stopped eating them." - "[In college] I used to blow [veg and vegans'] minds with this argument—“Oh, so you say you love cows, but you also want to consign their species to oblivion?”" First, with that level of discourse, that is one college to avoid. But why does he keep suggesting that a species would disappear just because we stopped farming it? By his own analogy, humans would continue populating the earth if aliens chose that option. Even in the same paragraph he argues it would just mean fewer animals but then proceeds to presume their extinction. What's wrong with only 1 billion chickens instead of 25? By his future-lives-carry-moral-weight logic we should still be vegetarian, breeding but not eating them, because 250 billion is even better. Just dumb.

nh23423fefe 4y ago

The argument is verb independent and thus wrong. What about killing for sport or beastiality. Asserting that existence is better than oblivion is nonsensical. Adding up fake utility values is bad logic.

zerof1l 4y ago

Let's start with the philosophical thought in the article about aliens eating humans. I would not advocate for those two options but a third option. Aliens should stop eating humans, bring them all back to earth and release them. The rest is up to humans. The author then uses this philosophical thought to argue in favor of our existing state of affairs that we raise animals for food and that we eat them. The biggest issue for me with eating animals is that most of them are raised in cruel conditions and their death is not quick but prolonged and painful. Nowadays there are many plant-based sources of protein in a myriad of flavors and shapes. You can get all the protein and the rest of the nutrients without having to eat animal flesh. What to do with all the animals if we stop eating them? Release them into the wild. Some would die or be eaten by other animals, but that's life. Most should have no trouble adapting to living in the wild. That's what happened in the Chernobyl. The rest of the article goes into this ridiculous idea of eating animals based on whom we perceive to be bad. Majority of the humans judge and apply human criteria to animals when most of this is false. If you're going to eat animals then just eat all of them or exclude some based on more objective criteria like not eating those that are about to go extinct.