I avoid meat (not vegetarian, just eat as little as I conveniently can) because of what I and my friends call the Stuffed-Animal-Principle. The idea is that it’s bad utility function maintenance to allow stuffed animals to be abused. (Stanford burned teddy bears in the pre big game rally.) The idea is that stuffed animals are basically a technological superstimulus for empathy and you risk damage to your actual utility function by desensitizing yourself to that. (I don’t have actual studies on the specific fact, but it makes sense with things that are known.)
Actual animal suffering is far more upsetting to actually witness. Mostly our society avoids this problem by putting it out of mind and just enjoying the results. We also do this for many problems that affect humans allowing them to continue and I really don’t want to train my own ability and willingness to ignore suffering I’m complicit in just because it happens to not actually matter as much as it looks.
I have various friends who do meat limitation for this reason; one is even a full vegetarian. I have no idea how common it is though.
Hiding animal suffering probably makes us “more ethical”. Vegetarians are usually people who were raised in cities. People who grew up slaughtering animals often can’t even comprehend that someone else can have a problem with it.
I think his point was that, assuming that vegetarianism is ethical, hiding the abbattoirs etc may wind up increasing vegetarianism rates because when a sheltered meat-eater runs into them, they may be shocked into vegetarianism; while if everyone grew up raising their own pet chicken and slaughtering it themselves, no one would be shocked and they would all shrug upon seeing any video or photos.
I’m not sure this is true, since as the population urbanizes and specializes under economic growth, regardless of hiding animal suffering, people will inevitably not grow up slaughtering animals and will remain naively sensitive to suffering. So hiding then may increase the ‘quality’ of shock (more people who have no idea) but decrease too much the ‘quantity’ of shock (hidden means, well, hidden). But I have no idea how one would show this, and even if Goetz’s suggestion turned out to be wrong, it’s well worth remembering.
I’m aware of the opposite problem and I try to avoid being desensitized too. But it seems to me that city people frequently actively lie to themselves and each other in order to be willing to eat meat. I’m willing to give examples if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
I avoid meat (not vegetarian, just eat as little as I conveniently can) because of what I and my friends call the Stuffed-Animal-Principle. The idea is that it’s bad utility function maintenance to allow stuffed animals to be abused. (Stanford burned teddy bears in the pre big game rally.) The idea is that stuffed animals are basically a technological superstimulus for empathy and you risk damage to your actual utility function by desensitizing yourself to that. (I don’t have actual studies on the specific fact, but it makes sense with things that are known.)
Actual animal suffering is far more upsetting to actually witness. Mostly our society avoids this problem by putting it out of mind and just enjoying the results. We also do this for many problems that affect humans allowing them to continue and I really don’t want to train my own ability and willingness to ignore suffering I’m complicit in just because it happens to not actually matter as much as it looks.
I have various friends who do meat limitation for this reason; one is even a full vegetarian. I have no idea how common it is though.
Hiding animal suffering probably makes us “more ethical”. Vegetarians are usually people who were raised in cities. People who grew up slaughtering animals often can’t even comprehend that someone else can have a problem with it.
I can’t figure out what you mean by:
Do you mean that it just makes us appear more ethical?
I think his point was that, assuming that vegetarianism is ethical, hiding the abbattoirs etc may wind up increasing vegetarianism rates because when a sheltered meat-eater runs into them, they may be shocked into vegetarianism; while if everyone grew up raising their own pet chicken and slaughtering it themselves, no one would be shocked and they would all shrug upon seeing any video or photos.
I’m not sure this is true, since as the population urbanizes and specializes under economic growth, regardless of hiding animal suffering, people will inevitably not grow up slaughtering animals and will remain naively sensitive to suffering. So hiding then may increase the ‘quality’ of shock (more people who have no idea) but decrease too much the ‘quantity’ of shock (hidden means, well, hidden). But I have no idea how one would show this, and even if Goetz’s suggestion turned out to be wrong, it’s well worth remembering.
I’m aware of the opposite problem and I try to avoid being desensitized too. But it seems to me that city people frequently actively lie to themselves and each other in order to be willing to eat meat. I’m willing to give examples if you don’t know what I’m talking about.