But in this case, advocates for veganism are not being agents in the sense of implementing good/bad outcomes if you choose correctly/incorrectly, or personally gaining from you making one choice or another.
Human bias serves the role of personal gain in this case. (Also, the nature of vegetarianism makes it especially prone to such bias.)
The probability that non-human animals suffer can’t be arbitrarily large (since it’s trivially bounded by 1),
It can be arbitrarily chosen in such a way as to always force the conclusion that eating animals is wrong. Being arbitrary enough for this purpose does not require being able to choose values greater than 1.
It can be arbitrarily chosen in such a way as to always force the conclusion that eating animals is wrong. Being arbitrary enough for this purpose does not require being able to choose values greater than 1.
You are talking as if I am setting your probability that non-human animals are wrong. I am not doing that: all that I am saying is that for any reasonable probability assignment, you get the conclusion that you shouldn’t eat non-human animals or their secretions. If this is true, then eating non-human animals or their secretions is wrong.
You are talking as if I am setting your probability that non-human animals are wrong.
You are arbitrarily selecting a number for the probability that animals suffer. This number can be chosen by you such that when multiplied by the number of animals people eat, it always results in the conclusion that the expected damage is enough that people should not eat animals.
This is similar to Pascal’s Mugging, except that you are choosing the smaller number instead of the larger number.
for any reasonable probability assignment, you get the conclusion that you shouldn’t eat non-human animals
This is not true. For instance, a probability assignment of 1/100000000 to the probability that animals suffer like humans would not lead to that conclusion. However, 1/100000000 falls outside the range that most people think of when they think of a small but finite probability, so it sounds unreasonable even though it is not.
Human bias serves the role of personal gain in this case. (Also, the nature of vegetarianism makes it especially prone to such bias.)
It can be arbitrarily chosen in such a way as to always force the conclusion that eating animals is wrong. Being arbitrary enough for this purpose does not require being able to choose values greater than 1.
You are talking as if I am setting your probability that non-human animals are wrong. I am not doing that: all that I am saying is that for any reasonable probability assignment, you get the conclusion that you shouldn’t eat non-human animals or their secretions. If this is true, then eating non-human animals or their secretions is wrong.
You are arbitrarily selecting a number for the probability that animals suffer. This number can be chosen by you such that when multiplied by the number of animals people eat, it always results in the conclusion that the expected damage is enough that people should not eat animals.
This is similar to Pascal’s Mugging, except that you are choosing the smaller number instead of the larger number.
This is not true. For instance, a probability assignment of 1/100000000 to the probability that animals suffer like humans would not lead to that conclusion. However, 1/100000000 falls outside the range that most people think of when they think of a small but finite probability, so it sounds unreasonable even though it is not.