My other comment was downvoted below the troll level, so I’ll ask here. Suppose we found a morphine-like drug which effectively and provably wireheads chickens to be happy with their living conditions, and with no side effects for humans consuming the meat. Would that answer your arguments about suffering?
Personally, my issues with eating meat are at least as much about ecological concerns as humane ones, but I would definitely be in favor of eating vat meat which can be cultured with minimal ecological impact.
If this doesn’t happen, it will probably be either because lab-grown meat ended up being cheaper to mass-produce, or because the people strongly pushing for animal rights were too squeamish to recognize the value of this option.
Previously discussed here at Overcoming Bias. (I also remember Michael Anissimov responding, but I can’t find that.)
Also, you’re certainly optimistic about advancing from chickens having a reduced experience of pain to their being undisputedly proven to be happy with all aspects of their experience.
Thanks, it’s a great link. I didn’t know that it is possible to manipulate pain affect separately from pain sensitivity on a genetic level. I wonder how animal rights advocates react to this approach.
I woudn;t hasten to describe them a confused. How about the modest proposal of growing acephalus humans for consumption? Is that too far down the slope?
Actually, I suspect (but am not certain, hence the questioning) that this falls in one of those areas where some humans genuinely differ from others with respect to morality.
I think it would be illuminating to hear individuals who think it is too far down the slope to articulate 1) why they feel that way 2) whether the objection goes away if it’s for organs instead of food, 3) how they feel about early-term abortion and embryonic stem cells 4) whether it is morally okay to eat a corpse of a person who has died and has given permission to have their corpse eaten.
Uhm, somehow it feels even worse. I am not taking this feeling as a rational answer to the question, just as a warning that the topic may be more difficult than it seems. (One possible explanation is Shelling point against using wireheading as a solution.)
Chickens like to roam, but most egg-laying hens are confined, frustrated, in small battery cages. Suppose we could alter the gene that makes chickens want to run free. The chickens, now content to be confined, would suffer less frustration, and egg production would improve. Or suppose we found a way to dumb down cows to eliminate the fear they experience on their way to the slaughter chute. Or to engineer pigs without hooves, snouts, and tails. Is there anything troubling about altering animals in these ways?
Interesting, but no.
My objection was based on imagining a chicken that is hurt physically, but doesn’t care, because the morphine supressed the pain. It was not in the comment, but I imagined that animals would be treated the same way as they are now (perhaps even worse, because if they don’t react painfully, there will be even less sympathy for them), they just wouldn’t subjectively suffer because of the morphine. That I find abhorent.
If the chicken or other animals are just modified to be content with being in prison, and they are not harmed in any other way, I would be okay with that. Actually, I would consider that ethically better than them living in nature.
The article seems to me about not playing god, but I don’t worship the blind idiot god. If it is okay for evolution to give tails to some animals and not give tails to other animals, it is not different if people add or remove the tails genetically (assuming that kind of change does not harm the animal; for example a pig without the tail could have problem to fight off flies).
I also wouldn’t have a problem with parents choosing a gender, height, or eye color for their children; I would be only concerned with crazy parents making choices that harm their child (for example the parents would choose some disability for their child, and the politically correct people would protect this choice to avoid offending the existing disabled people). Which would lead to gray area of traits where there is no general agreement whether they are harmful or not. But the true objection is against choosing harmful changes, not against changes per se.
It sounds like you understand ‘content’ to mean ‘pain-free and suffering-free’, whereas I imagine it as something more like ‘suffering-free’. I have masochist friends who are content (or far more than content) to experience pain, because of the positive valence they ascribe to (or associate with) that pain. How does your empathy for chickens that feel pain but don’t care respond to human masochism?
The article seems to me about not playing god, but I don’t worship the blind idiot god.
I think Sandel’s argument is that we might have a basic, not-culturally-constructed anti-tampering moral intuition that doesn’t depend on there being a God whose authority we are impinging on (any more than the thankfulness we feel when something spectacularly good happens in our life presupposes that there is a metaphysical being out there who is the Object Of Our Thanks). Which I don’t find psychologically implausible, though if it’s a harmful intuition and can’t be brought into reflective equilibrium with our other moral intuitions then it might deserve suppression.
I have masochist friends who are content (or far more than content) to experience pain, because of the positive valence they ascribe to (or associate with) that pain.
It’s my impression that the typical masochist associates positive valence with pain only in certain circumstances. The person who enjoys being flogged by a lover may still dislike stubbing a toe every bit as much as the non-masochist.
Yes. We can focus just on the instances of pain that are seen as desirable (or a matter of indifference). Or we can imagine a masochist who enjoys all pain. The analogy only depends on there being some possible instance of this; we then have to ask, if we permit this in the case of humans, why we would find it abhorrent in the case of chickens.
I have masochist friends who are content (or far more than content) to experience pain, because of the positive valence they ascribe to (or associate with) that pain. How does your empathy for chickens that feel pain but don’t care respond to human masochism?
I don’t have enough data about how masochism feels from inside, so I don’t feel qualified to answer this. (I know about cases where people cause themselves pain to forget some other pain, physical or mental. I don’t know if a typical masochist is like this, or completely different, and in the latter case, how specifically it feels from inside.)
I’m not exactly a masochist, but I suspect my perception of physical pain is a little wonky sometimes.
Example: I took a massage class in college once. The other student I usually worked with told me I tended to get really impressive knots in my shoulders, and I could tell it hurt a lot when they were worked on. I also remember not really minding most of the time, and getting bored when I didn’t have many knots because the pain kept things interesting. (But uh, I do respond normally to pain in most circumstances, so if anyone reading this meets me in real life, please don’t test it.)
The way this feels from the inside is pain is just another sensation, like heat, cold or pressure. I suspect it would be similar for a non-suffering chicken, if done right. (Though I have no idea about some of the other changes that would be required, like feeling content in a small cage.) Maybe imagine if you put clothes on the chickens, and the chickens got used to the feeling of having fabric on them (pressure sensation) and didn’t mind it. I don’t actually understand your rejection to morphine chickens, though, so I’m not sure whether you’d consider this an acceptable solution.
I agree with others that vegetarianism is likely more practical and addresses other concerns besides suffering. However, perhaps there is a lot of utility that could be gained in the near term by e.g. keeping factory-farmed animals high on morphine for most of their lives. Would this impose additional costs that keep it from being economical? One would be food purity—people might not like morphine in their meat/eggs/milk.
Opiates quickly build tolerance. They’re also not terribly cheap, although fully synthetic opioids like methadone would probably be more amenable to production at these scales than poppy derivatives like morphine.
However, I bet, somebody is working on it already.
In my previous research institution, they fed chicken with grain mixed with sand and afterwards cut the heads of and measured the concentration of happiness chemicals. The justification was, that these chicken breeds gain weight too quickly, which kills them before their age of reproduction. However, the farmers need to reproduce some of them, so they have to keep them half hungry, until they reach sexual maturity. The research was supposed to find out, whether the starvation is more pleasant with sand mixed into feed. Luckily for my mental health, I did not participate on this research. Duh, these memories make me shudder !
First, I am not convinced that chicken brains are advanced enough to feel suffering (as opposed to pain) the way higher primates do. Second, breeding chickens for quick weight gain would probably not be considered very ethical to begin with, so this research seems like locking the barn doors after the horses have bolted.
Previously discussed here at Overcoming Bias. (I also remember Michael Anissimov responding, but I can’t find that.)
I considered answering your question, but then realized it was directed at peter_hurford and I’d have to do a lot of reading to understand the context.
“Suppose we found a morphine-like drug which effectively and provably wireheads NON-WHITE PEOPLE to be happy with their living conditions, and with no side effects for WHITE PEOPLE consuming their flesh.”
This is a silly strawman, but I’ll respond anyway, because why not.
The difference is that we (well, not me, but the OP and people who agree with him) only care about chickens to the extent that they are (allegedly) suffering, and we think it’s not ok for them to suffer. On the other hand, we think that NON-WHITE PEOPLE (just like WHITE PEOPLE) have the right of self-determination, that it’s wrong to forcibly modify their minds, etc.
“Suppose we found a morphine-like drug which effectively and provably wireheads NON-WHITE PEOPLE to be happy with their living conditions, and with no side effects for WHITE PEOPLE consuming their flesh.”
Has a different sort of emotional impact, no?
Mostly it sounds like you are calling all NON-WHITE PEOPLE chickens.
To me it is not the suffering per se that bothers me about factory farming. I’m having trouble finding the right words, but I want to say it is the “un-naturalness” of it. Animals are not meant to live their whole lives in cages pumped full of antibiotics. I also believe it is harmful to humans, both to the humans who operate these factories (psychologically) & to the humans that consume the product (physically).
On the other hand, it is natural for animals to eat other animals, and properly raised animal products are arguably one of the best sources of nutrition for humans. I also don’t think raising chickens on an open farm & slaughtering them is psychologically harmful; I imagine those farmers feel deeply in tune with nature & at peace with their way of life.
My other comment was downvoted below the troll level, so I’ll ask here. Suppose we found a morphine-like drug which effectively and provably wireheads chickens to be happy with their living conditions, and with no side effects for humans consuming the meat. Would that answer your arguments about suffering?
I’d be happy with that.
Until we do, I’m not eating meat.
Personally, my issues with eating meat are at least as much about ecological concerns as humane ones, but I would definitely be in favor of eating vat meat which can be cultured with minimal ecological impact.
This is not at all an unrealistic possibility. It probably will be via gene knockout rather than a drug injection, if it happens. See Adam Shriver, “Knocking Out Pain in Livestock: Can Technology Succeed Where Morality Has Stalled?”
If this doesn’t happen, it will probably be either because lab-grown meat ended up being cheaper to mass-produce, or because the people strongly pushing for animal rights were too squeamish to recognize the value of this option.
Previously discussed here at Overcoming Bias. (I also remember Michael Anissimov responding, but I can’t find that.)
Also, you’re certainly optimistic about advancing from chickens having a reduced experience of pain to their being undisputedly proven to be happy with all aspects of their experience.
Thanks, it’s a great link. I didn’t know that it is possible to manipulate pain affect separately from pain sensitivity on a genetic level. I wonder how animal rights advocates react to this approach.
I woudn;t hasten to describe them a confused. How about the modest proposal of growing acephalus humans for consumption? Is that too far down the slope?
Nitpick: ‘anencephalic’. ‘cephalon’ is head, ‘encephalon’ is brain.
Given only the two options, I think I’d rather humans grown for consumption not have heads than have them.
Well, currently it’s even prohibited for organ replacement, for knee-jerk reasons.
My brain really, really, really wanted to read “knee jerky” there.
I wonder about my brain sometimes.
Actually, I suspect (but am not certain, hence the questioning) that this falls in one of those areas where some humans genuinely differ from others with respect to morality.
I think it would be illuminating to hear individuals who think it is too far down the slope to articulate 1) why they feel that way 2) whether the objection goes away if it’s for organs instead of food, 3) how they feel about early-term abortion and embryonic stem cells 4) whether it is morally okay to eat a corpse of a person who has died and has given permission to have their corpse eaten.
Uhm, somehow it feels even worse. I am not taking this feeling as a rational answer to the question, just as a warning that the topic may be more difficult than it seems. (One possible explanation is Shelling point against using wireheading as a solution.)
Are your intuitions captured by this short Sandel essay? Specifically, the fourth-to-last paragraph.
Interesting, but no.
My objection was based on imagining a chicken that is hurt physically, but doesn’t care, because the morphine supressed the pain. It was not in the comment, but I imagined that animals would be treated the same way as they are now (perhaps even worse, because if they don’t react painfully, there will be even less sympathy for them), they just wouldn’t subjectively suffer because of the morphine. That I find abhorent.
If the chicken or other animals are just modified to be content with being in prison, and they are not harmed in any other way, I would be okay with that. Actually, I would consider that ethically better than them living in nature.
The article seems to me about not playing god, but I don’t worship the blind idiot god. If it is okay for evolution to give tails to some animals and not give tails to other animals, it is not different if people add or remove the tails genetically (assuming that kind of change does not harm the animal; for example a pig without the tail could have problem to fight off flies).
I also wouldn’t have a problem with parents choosing a gender, height, or eye color for their children; I would be only concerned with crazy parents making choices that harm their child (for example the parents would choose some disability for their child, and the politically correct people would protect this choice to avoid offending the existing disabled people). Which would lead to gray area of traits where there is no general agreement whether they are harmful or not. But the true objection is against choosing harmful changes, not against changes per se.
It sounds like you understand ‘content’ to mean ‘pain-free and suffering-free’, whereas I imagine it as something more like ‘suffering-free’. I have masochist friends who are content (or far more than content) to experience pain, because of the positive valence they ascribe to (or associate with) that pain. How does your empathy for chickens that feel pain but don’t care respond to human masochism?
I think Sandel’s argument is that we might have a basic, not-culturally-constructed anti-tampering moral intuition that doesn’t depend on there being a God whose authority we are impinging on (any more than the thankfulness we feel when something spectacularly good happens in our life presupposes that there is a metaphysical being out there who is the Object Of Our Thanks). Which I don’t find psychologically implausible, though if it’s a harmful intuition and can’t be brought into reflective equilibrium with our other moral intuitions then it might deserve suppression.
It’s my impression that the typical masochist associates positive valence with pain only in certain circumstances. The person who enjoys being flogged by a lover may still dislike stubbing a toe every bit as much as the non-masochist.
Yes. We can focus just on the instances of pain that are seen as desirable (or a matter of indifference). Or we can imagine a masochist who enjoys all pain. The analogy only depends on there being some possible instance of this; we then have to ask, if we permit this in the case of humans, why we would find it abhorrent in the case of chickens.
I don’t have enough data about how masochism feels from inside, so I don’t feel qualified to answer this. (I know about cases where people cause themselves pain to forget some other pain, physical or mental. I don’t know if a typical masochist is like this, or completely different, and in the latter case, how specifically it feels from inside.)
I’m not exactly a masochist, but I suspect my perception of physical pain is a little wonky sometimes.
Example: I took a massage class in college once. The other student I usually worked with told me I tended to get really impressive knots in my shoulders, and I could tell it hurt a lot when they were worked on. I also remember not really minding most of the time, and getting bored when I didn’t have many knots because the pain kept things interesting. (But uh, I do respond normally to pain in most circumstances, so if anyone reading this meets me in real life, please don’t test it.)
The way this feels from the inside is pain is just another sensation, like heat, cold or pressure. I suspect it would be similar for a non-suffering chicken, if done right. (Though I have no idea about some of the other changes that would be required, like feeling content in a small cage.) Maybe imagine if you put clothes on the chickens, and the chickens got used to the feeling of having fabric on them (pressure sensation) and didn’t mind it. I don’t actually understand your rejection to morphine chickens, though, so I’m not sure whether you’d consider this an acceptable solution.
I agree with others that vegetarianism is likely more practical and addresses other concerns besides suffering. However, perhaps there is a lot of utility that could be gained in the near term by e.g. keeping factory-farmed animals high on morphine for most of their lives. Would this impose additional costs that keep it from being economical? One would be food purity—people might not like morphine in their meat/eggs/milk.
Opiates quickly build tolerance. They’re also not terribly cheap, although fully synthetic opioids like methadone would probably be more amenable to production at these scales than poppy derivatives like morphine.
So basically a chicken version of The Matrix?
Sell this idea to Hollywood !
It would still be sorry for the chicken.
However, I bet, somebody is working on it already.
In my previous research institution, they fed chicken with grain mixed with sand and afterwards cut the heads of and measured the concentration of happiness chemicals. The justification was, that these chicken breeds gain weight too quickly, which kills them before their age of reproduction. However, the farmers need to reproduce some of them, so they have to keep them half hungry, until they reach sexual maturity. The research was supposed to find out, whether the starvation is more pleasant with sand mixed into feed. Luckily for my mental health, I did not participate on this research. Duh, these memories make me shudder !
First, I am not convinced that chicken brains are advanced enough to feel suffering (as opposed to pain) the way higher primates do. Second, breeding chickens for quick weight gain would probably not be considered very ethical to begin with, so this research seems like locking the barn doors after the horses have bolted.
Previously discussed here at Overcoming Bias. (I also remember Michael Anissimov responding, but I can’t find that.)
I considered answering your question, but then realized it was directed at peter_hurford and I’d have to do a lot of reading to understand the context.
“Suppose we found a morphine-like drug which effectively and provably wireheads NON-WHITE PEOPLE to be happy with their living conditions, and with no side effects for WHITE PEOPLE consuming their flesh.”
Has a different sort of emotional impact, no?
This is a silly strawman, but I’ll respond anyway, because why not.
The difference is that we (well, not me, but the OP and people who agree with him) only care about chickens to the extent that they are (allegedly) suffering, and we think it’s not ok for them to suffer. On the other hand, we think that NON-WHITE PEOPLE (just like WHITE PEOPLE) have the right of self-determination, that it’s wrong to forcibly modify their minds, etc.
Mostly it sounds like you are calling all NON-WHITE PEOPLE chickens.
Not sure why the parent is downvoted, it’s an interesting question. Where does one build a Schelling fence for farming meat without suffering?
Yes, but yours is a statement about what things have an emotional impact, not about what’s the right thing to do.
To me it is not the suffering per se that bothers me about factory farming. I’m having trouble finding the right words, but I want to say it is the “un-naturalness” of it. Animals are not meant to live their whole lives in cages pumped full of antibiotics. I also believe it is harmful to humans, both to the humans who operate these factories (psychologically) & to the humans that consume the product (physically).
On the other hand, it is natural for animals to eat other animals, and properly raised animal products are arguably one of the best sources of nutrition for humans. I also don’t think raising chickens on an open farm & slaughtering them is psychologically harmful; I imagine those farmers feel deeply in tune with nature & at peace with their way of life.
Meaning requires a mind to provide it. Animals are not “meant” to do anything...