Hi Jared,
Your question about vegetarianism is an interesting one, and I’ll give a couple of responses because I’m not sure exactly what direction you’re coming from.
I think there’s a strong rationalist argument in favor of limiting consumption of meat, especially red meat, on both health and environmental grounds. These issues get more mixed when you look at moderate consumption of chicken or fish. Fish especially is the best available source of healthy fats, so leaving it out entirely is a big trade-off, and the environmental impact of fishing varies a great deal by species, wild vs. farmed, and even the fishing method. Veganism gives relatively small environmental gains over vegetarianism, and is generally considered a loss in terms of health.
When you look at animal suffering, things get a lot more speculative. Clearly you can’t treat a chicken’s suffering the same as a human’s, but how many chickens does it take to be equivalent to a human? At what point is a chicken’s life not worth living? This quickly bogs down in questions of the repugnant conclusion, a standard paradox in utilitarianism. Although I have seen no thorough analysis of the topic, my sense is that
1) Scaling of moral value is probably more-than-linear with brain mass (that is, you are worth more than the ~300 chickens it would take to equal your gray matter) but I can’t be much more precise than that
2) Most of the world’s neurons are in wild inverterbrates: http://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2013/09/how-is-brain-mass-distributed-among.html which argues against focusing specially on domesticated vertebrates
3) Effort expended to reduce animal suffering is largely self-contained—that is, if you choose not to eat a chicken, you probably reduce the number of factory-farmed chickens by about one, with no longer-term effects. Effort to help humans, on the other hand, often has a difficult-to-estimate multiplier from follow-on effects. See here for more on this argument:
http://globalprioritiesproject.org/2014/06/human-and-animal-interventions/
The upshot is that when you make any significant investment in animal welfare, including vegetarianism and especially veganism, you should consider the opportunity costs. If it makes your life more difficult and reduces the amount of good you can do in other ways, it may not be worth it.
Personally, I used to be a pescetarian and would consider doing so again, depending on the people around me. Trying to do it in my current circumstances would cause more hassle than I think it’s worth (having to ask people for separate meals, not participating in group activities, etc). If you know a lot of other vegetarians, there may be no social cost or even some social benefit. But don’t assume that’s the case for everyone.
Thank you for the polite and formal response! I understand what you’re saying about the chicken and fish. Pescetarian is much better than just eating all the red meat you can get your hands on.
When you look at animal suffering, things get a lot more speculative. Clearly you can’t treat a chicken’s suffering the same as a human’s, but how many chickens does it take to be equivalent to a human? At what point is a chicken’s life not worth living? This quickly bogs down in questions of the repugnant conclusion, a standard paradox in utilitarianism. Although I have seen no thorough analysis of the topic, my sense is that 1) Scaling of moral value is probably more-than-linear with brain mass (that is, you are worth more than the ~300 chickens it would take to equal your gray matter) but I can’t be much more precise than that 2) Most of the world’s neurons are in wild inverterbrates: http://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2013/09/how-is-brain-mass-distributed-among.html which argues against focusing specially on domesticated vertebrates 3) Effort expended to reduce animal suffering is largely self-contained—that is, if you choose not to eat a chicken, you probably reduce the number of factory-farmed chickens by about one, with no longer-term effects. Effort to help humans, on the other hand, often has a difficult-to-estimate multiplier from follow-on effects. See here for more on this argument: http://globalprioritiesproject.org/2014/06/human-and-animal-interventions/
Now I understand what you’re saying about the animal suffering, but I’d like to add some things. If you don’t eat many chickens or many cows than you can save more than one because you’re consistently abstaining from meat consumption. Its also not about making the long term effects on your own; its contributing so that something like factory farming can be changed into something more sustainable, more environmentally friendly, and more addressing animal concerns once more people boycott meat. Even if you were to choose to compare gray matter, you have to compare that its the animal’s death vs the human’s quite minor pleasure that could have been just as pleasurable eating/doing something else.
If it makes your life more difficult and reduces the amount of good you can do in other ways, it may not be worth it.
For you, does it really make life more difficult? From my personal experience and hearing about others, the only hard part is the changing process. Its only difficult in certain situations because of society, and the point of boycotting is to change the society so its easier as well the other benefits.
Hi Jared, Your question about vegetarianism is an interesting one, and I’ll give a couple of responses because I’m not sure exactly what direction you’re coming from.
I think there’s a strong rationalist argument in favor of limiting consumption of meat, especially red meat, on both health and environmental grounds. These issues get more mixed when you look at moderate consumption of chicken or fish. Fish especially is the best available source of healthy fats, so leaving it out entirely is a big trade-off, and the environmental impact of fishing varies a great deal by species, wild vs. farmed, and even the fishing method. Veganism gives relatively small environmental gains over vegetarianism, and is generally considered a loss in terms of health.
When you look at animal suffering, things get a lot more speculative. Clearly you can’t treat a chicken’s suffering the same as a human’s, but how many chickens does it take to be equivalent to a human? At what point is a chicken’s life not worth living? This quickly bogs down in questions of the repugnant conclusion, a standard paradox in utilitarianism. Although I have seen no thorough analysis of the topic, my sense is that 1) Scaling of moral value is probably more-than-linear with brain mass (that is, you are worth more than the ~300 chickens it would take to equal your gray matter) but I can’t be much more precise than that 2) Most of the world’s neurons are in wild inverterbrates: http://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2013/09/how-is-brain-mass-distributed-among.html which argues against focusing specially on domesticated vertebrates 3) Effort expended to reduce animal suffering is largely self-contained—that is, if you choose not to eat a chicken, you probably reduce the number of factory-farmed chickens by about one, with no longer-term effects. Effort to help humans, on the other hand, often has a difficult-to-estimate multiplier from follow-on effects. See here for more on this argument: http://globalprioritiesproject.org/2014/06/human-and-animal-interventions/
The upshot is that when you make any significant investment in animal welfare, including vegetarianism and especially veganism, you should consider the opportunity costs. If it makes your life more difficult and reduces the amount of good you can do in other ways, it may not be worth it.
Personally, I used to be a pescetarian and would consider doing so again, depending on the people around me. Trying to do it in my current circumstances would cause more hassle than I think it’s worth (having to ask people for separate meals, not participating in group activities, etc). If you know a lot of other vegetarians, there may be no social cost or even some social benefit. But don’t assume that’s the case for everyone.
Thank you for the polite and formal response! I understand what you’re saying about the chicken and fish. Pescetarian is much better than just eating all the red meat you can get your hands on.
Now I understand what you’re saying about the animal suffering, but I’d like to add some things. If you don’t eat many chickens or many cows than you can save more than one because you’re consistently abstaining from meat consumption. Its also not about making the long term effects on your own; its contributing so that something like factory farming can be changed into something more sustainable, more environmentally friendly, and more addressing animal concerns once more people boycott meat. Even if you were to choose to compare gray matter, you have to compare that its the animal’s death vs the human’s quite minor pleasure that could have been just as pleasurable eating/doing something else.
For you, does it really make life more difficult? From my personal experience and hearing about others, the only hard part is the changing process. Its only difficult in certain situations because of society, and the point of boycotting is to change the society so its easier as well the other benefits.
Thanks again for responding!
It’s sustainable in the sense that we can keep doing it for a very long time.
This may be more what you were talking about.