If consent is possible, you shouldn’t act without consent for several reasons that I won’t get into. In the case of animals and people in comas, consent is impossible. I do not believe that never acting is appropriate in this case.
It’s like why I’m okay with humanely raising animals, but I’m not okay with slavery. If you need humans to help you, and you will treat them humanely, you can get their consent. If someone isn’t willing to get their consent, that’s highly suspicious, and they are almost certainly not treating them humanely. You cannot get an animal’s consent, so it’s not suspicious, and so long as you have a somewhat reliable method to tell if they’re being raised humanely, it’s okay.
What’s your definition of “consent”? For example, if you own a dog, you generally have no problems seeing what your dog agrees to do (=”consents”) and what it doesn’t.
I do not believe that never acting is appropriate in this case.
True, but it seems to me the intervention bar is much higher in this case. What makes you think you can clear it?
What’s your definition of “consent”? For example, if you own a dog, you generally have no problems seeing what your dog agrees to do (=”consents”) and what it doesn’t.
It has to have some idea of what’s going on. A dog is operating entirely on instinct. Humans still use a lot of instinct, but that’s hardly a reason for one human to make a decision for another.
True, but it seems to me the intervention bar is much higher in this case.
Why?
If you have some a priori reason to believe that a life is worth living, then it would take a lot of evidence to prove otherwise. If the opportunity cost of not living a life worth living is substantially higher than the direct cost of a life not worth living, caution would be appropriate. But these don’t seem to apply.
If you’re not certain, it’s easier to reverse a choice of life than a choice of death. That applies to the wild, but I don’t think it’s likely we’ll find reason to believe that factory farmed animals’ lives really are worth living any time soon.
If you just consider action generally more dangerous than inaction, that would apply for destroying wildlife, but factory farming is action. Avoiding it is inaction. It’s a point against factory farming.
If consent is possible, you shouldn’t act without consent for several reasons that I won’t get into. In the case of animals and people in comas, consent is impossible. I do not believe that never acting is appropriate in this case.
It’s like why I’m okay with humanely raising animals, but I’m not okay with slavery. If you need humans to help you, and you will treat them humanely, you can get their consent. If someone isn’t willing to get their consent, that’s highly suspicious, and they are almost certainly not treating them humanely. You cannot get an animal’s consent, so it’s not suspicious, and so long as you have a somewhat reliable method to tell if they’re being raised humanely, it’s okay.
What’s your definition of “consent”? For example, if you own a dog, you generally have no problems seeing what your dog agrees to do (=”consents”) and what it doesn’t.
True, but it seems to me the intervention bar is much higher in this case. What makes you think you can clear it?
It has to have some idea of what’s going on. A dog is operating entirely on instinct. Humans still use a lot of instinct, but that’s hardly a reason for one human to make a decision for another.
Why?
If you have some a priori reason to believe that a life is worth living, then it would take a lot of evidence to prove otherwise. If the opportunity cost of not living a life worth living is substantially higher than the direct cost of a life not worth living, caution would be appropriate. But these don’t seem to apply.
If you’re not certain, it’s easier to reverse a choice of life than a choice of death. That applies to the wild, but I don’t think it’s likely we’ll find reason to believe that factory farmed animals’ lives really are worth living any time soon.
If you just consider action generally more dangerous than inaction, that would apply for destroying wildlife, but factory farming is action. Avoiding it is inaction. It’s a point against factory farming.