I remain unconvinced that there is any animal welfare gain to vegi/veganism, farm animals have a strong desire to exist and if we stopped eating them they would stop existing.
Vegi/veganism exists for reasons of signalling, it would be surprising if it had any large net benefits other than signalling.
On top of this, the cost to mitigate most of the aspects of farming that animals disprefer is likely vastly smaller than the harms to human health.
Back of the envelope calculation is that making farming highly preferable to nonexistence for beef cattle raises the price by 25%-50%. I have some sources that ethically raised beef cattle has a cost of production of slightly more than $4.17/lb. Chicken has an ethical cost of production that’s $2.64/lb vs $0.87/lb (from the same source). But, taking into account various ethics-independent overheads the consumer will not see those prices. Like, I cannot buy chicken for $0.87/lb, I pay about $3.25/lb. So I suspect that the true difference that the consumer would see is in the 25%-50% range. The same source above gives a smaller gap for pork - $6.76/lb vs $5.28/lb.
So, we could pay about 33% more for ethical meat that gives animals lives that are definitely preferable to nonexistence. The average consumer apparently spends about $1000/year on meat. So, that’s about 70 years * $333 = $23,000
Now, if we conservatively assume that vegi/veganism costs say 2 years of life expectancy adjusted for quality due to nutritional deficiencies (ignore the pleasure of eating meat here, and also ignoring the value to the animals of their own lives) - with a statistical value of life of $10 million that’s a cost of about $300,000.
If we value animal lives at say k% of a human life per unit time, and for simplicity assume that a person eats only $1000 of beef per year ~= 200 lb ~= 1⁄2 a cow, then each person causes the existence of about 0.75 cows on a permanent basis, each living for about 18 months, which is valued at 0.75k%.$10M. Vegans do not usually give an explicit value for k. Is an animal life worth the same as a human life per year? 1/10th? 1/20th? 1/100th? In any case, it doesn’t really matter what you pick for this, it’s overdetermined here.
So, veganism fails cost-benefit analysis based on these assumptions, compared to the option of just paying a bit extra for farming techniques that are more preferable to animals at an acceptably elevated cost.
Of course you could argue that veganism is good for human health, but I believe that is wrong due to bias and confounding (there are many similar screwups where a confounding effect due to something being popular with the upper class swamps a causal effect in the other direction). There are, as far as I am aware, no good RCTs on veganism.
In summary, veganism is a signalling game that fails rational cost-benefit analysis.
This sounds to me like: “freeing your slaves is virtue signaling, because abolishing slavery is better”. I agree with the second part, but it can be quite difficult for an individual or a small group to abolish slavery, while freeing your slaves is something you can do right now (and then suffer the economical consequences).
If I had a magical button that would change all meat factories into humane places, I would press it.
If there was a referendum on making humane farms mandatory, I would vote yes.
In the meanwhile, I can contribute a tiny bit to the reduction of animal suffering by reducing my meat consumption.
You may call it virtue signaling, I call it taking the available option, instead of dreaming about hypothetically better options that are currently not available.
I think this doesn’t make sense any more now that veganism is such a popular and influential movement that influences government policy and has huge control over culture.
But a slightly different version of this is that because there’s no signalling value in a collective decision to impose welfare standards, it’s very hard to turn into a political movement. So we may be looking at a heavily constrained system.
Nitpick: You did not prove that veganism is a signalling game. It might, but it doesn’t follow. People might be vegan for many reasons, e.g., taste, different ethical framework, different key assumptions, habit, …
Like, I cannot buy chicken for $0.87/lb, I pay about $6.50/lb
I’m sorry, what? Like, I can in fact go buy boneless chicken thighs for $6.50/lb at Whole Foods in the Bay Area, but that is not what the average consumer is paying. Prices are in fact more like $1/lb for drumsticks, $1.5/lb for whole birds, $3/lb for boneless thighs/breasts.
There may be no animal welfare gain to veganism
I remain unconvinced that there is any animal welfare gain to vegi/veganism, farm animals have a strong desire to exist and if we stopped eating them they would stop existing.
Vegi/veganism exists for reasons of signalling, it would be surprising if it had any large net benefits other than signalling.
On top of this, the cost to mitigate most of the aspects of farming that animals disprefer is likely vastly smaller than the harms to human health.
Back of the envelope calculation is that making farming highly preferable to nonexistence for beef cattle raises the price by 25%-50%. I have some sources that ethically raised beef cattle has a cost of production of slightly more than $4.17/lb. Chicken has an ethical cost of production that’s $2.64/lb vs $0.87/lb (from the same source). But, taking into account various ethics-independent overheads the consumer will not see those prices. Like, I cannot buy chicken for $0.87/lb, I pay about $3.25/lb. So I suspect that the true difference that the consumer would see is in the 25%-50% range. The same source above gives a smaller gap for pork - $6.76/lb vs $5.28/lb.
So, we could pay about 33% more for ethical meat that gives animals lives that are definitely preferable to nonexistence. The average consumer apparently spends about $1000/year on meat. So, that’s about 70 years * $333 = $23,000
Now, if we conservatively assume that vegi/veganism costs say 2 years of life expectancy adjusted for quality due to nutritional deficiencies (ignore the pleasure of eating meat here, and also ignoring the value to the animals of their own lives) - with a statistical value of life of $10 million that’s a cost of about $300,000.
If we value animal lives at say k% of a human life per unit time, and for simplicity assume that a person eats only $1000 of beef per year ~= 200 lb ~= 1⁄2 a cow, then each person causes the existence of about 0.75 cows on a permanent basis, each living for about 18 months, which is valued at 0.75k%.$10M. Vegans do not usually give an explicit value for k. Is an animal life worth the same as a human life per year? 1/10th? 1/20th? 1/100th? In any case, it doesn’t really matter what you pick for this, it’s overdetermined here.
So, veganism fails cost-benefit analysis based on these assumptions, compared to the option of just paying a bit extra for farming techniques that are more preferable to animals at an acceptably elevated cost.
Of course you could argue that veganism is good for human health, but I believe that is wrong due to bias and confounding (there are many similar screwups where a confounding effect due to something being popular with the upper class swamps a causal effect in the other direction). There are, as far as I am aware, no good RCTs on veganism.
In summary, veganism is a signalling game that fails rational cost-benefit analysis.
I’d like to see Deminatalist Total Utilitarianism applied to this type of argument.
This sounds to me like: “freeing your slaves is virtue signaling, because abolishing slavery is better”. I agree with the second part, but it can be quite difficult for an individual or a small group to abolish slavery, while freeing your slaves is something you can do right now (and then suffer the economical consequences).
If I had a magical button that would change all meat factories into humane places, I would press it.
If there was a referendum on making humane farms mandatory, I would vote yes.
In the meanwhile, I can contribute a tiny bit to the reduction of animal suffering by reducing my meat consumption.
You may call it virtue signaling, I call it taking the available option, instead of dreaming about hypothetically better options that are currently not available.
I think this doesn’t make sense any more now that veganism is such a popular and influential movement that influences government policy and has huge control over culture.
But a slightly different version of this is that because there’s no signalling value in a collective decision to impose welfare standards, it’s very hard to turn into a political movement. So we may be looking at a heavily constrained system.
Nitpick: You did not prove that veganism is a signalling game. It might, but it doesn’t follow. People might be vegan for many reasons, e.g., taste, different ethical framework, different key assumptions, habit, …
Yes, I didn’t address that here. But I think anyone who is vegan for nonsignalling reasons is sort of mistaken.
Very similar to Robin Handsome’s argument: https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/meat.html
I’m sorry, what? Like, I can in fact go buy boneless chicken thighs for $6.50/lb at Whole Foods in the Bay Area, but that is not what the average consumer is paying. Prices are in fact more like $1/lb for drumsticks, $1.5/lb for whole birds, $3/lb for boneless thighs/breasts.
You’re correct, that is a mistake. It’s $6.50 per kg, I forgot to convert.