I’m interested if that is the real objection though.
Presumably it is possible to design a more humane farming system such that the quality of farmed animal life is > 0 (i.e. these are genuinely lives worth living). Presumably it is also possible to legislate to enforce such a system on meat producers.
And it may well be easier to do that than to persuade everyone to give up eating meat, or to persuade them voluntarily to eat humane meat (at a higher price). So that on consequentialist grounds, campaigning for “humane farms” legislation is a better strategy.
But that’s not what the original poster is advocating. I’m not sure why.
I’m not sure whether that would be feasible. The current rate of meat consumption in affluent countries is already straining the global amount of resources, and projections suggest that meat consumption is on the rise. Increasing animal welfare while keeping production constant (or even scaling it) will be even more inefficient and will require even more resources. So this only seems feasible if you reduce the overall rate of consumption, and how would you do that more effectively than by promoting vegetarianism or something similar?
I’m interested if that is the real objection though.
Presumably it is possible to design a more humane farming system such that the quality of farmed animal life is > 0 (i.e. these are genuinely lives worth living). Presumably it is also possible to legislate to enforce such a system on meat producers.
And it may well be easier to do that than to persuade everyone to give up eating meat, or to persuade them voluntarily to eat humane meat (at a higher price). So that on consequentialist grounds, campaigning for “humane farms” legislation is a better strategy.
But that’s not what the original poster is advocating. I’m not sure why.
I’m not sure whether that would be feasible. The current rate of meat consumption in affluent countries is already straining the global amount of resources, and projections suggest that meat consumption is on the rise. Increasing animal welfare while keeping production constant (or even scaling it) will be even more inefficient and will require even more resources. So this only seems feasible if you reduce the overall rate of consumption, and how would you do that more effectively than by promoting vegetarianism or something similar?
If this were true, I’d expect it to be reflected in the price of meat.
Unless governments subsidize the hell out of it.